Your Marketing Strategy Should Fit on Two Pages

There is a common belief that marketing strategy needs to be complex to be credible.

Long documents. Dozens of slides. Detailed explanations for every possible scenario.

In reality, complexity often hides a lack of clarity.

Some of the strongest marketing strategies are short. Not because they are simplistic, but because they are focused. They force decisions. They strip away the noise.

If a strategy cannot be explained clearly, it is unlikely to be followed.

A marketing strategy should be something people actually use. Something they refer back to when making decisions. Something that helps guide activity, not just justify it.

That is very hard to achieve when the strategy is buried in a 30-page deck that no one has time to revisit.

A two-page strategy does something important. It makes you choose what matters.

It forces you to be clear on what the business is trying to achieve, who you are trying to reach, and where you are focusing your effort. It also forces you to confront what you are not doing.

That last part is often the most uncomfortable.

Strategy is as much about exclusion as it is about inclusion. Without limits, marketing becomes a collection of ideas rather than a direction. A bit of content here. A campaign there. Another channel added because it seems sensible at the time.

Before long, effort is spread thinly and nothing quite works as well as it should.

A shorter strategy makes trade-offs visible.

It answers the big questions without getting lost in detail.

What are we trying to achieve this year?
Who matters most to the business right now?
Why would that audience choose us?
Where are we focusing our marketing effort?
What are we deliberately choosing not to do?

If a strategy cannot answer those questions clearly, length will not fix it.

Another issue with long strategies is that they tend to age quickly. Markets change. Performance shifts. Priorities move. A document built around excessive detail becomes outdated almost as soon as it is written.

A two-page strategy focuses on the fundamentals. Those tend to move more slowly.

The goal.
The audience.
The position you want to hold.

Those things provide stability, even when plans change underneath them.

This distinction matters. Strategy should not be confused with a plan.

Plans are detailed. They include timelines, campaigns, budgets and delivery. They should change as the year unfolds. They respond to what is working and what is not.

Strategy should sit above that. It should guide planning, not mirror it.

When strategy is too detailed, it starts to behave like a plan. And when plans inevitably change, strategy appears to fail.

Keeping strategy short helps prevent that confusion.

It also makes strategy more accessible. If only senior leadership understands the strategy, it is unlikely to influence day-to-day decisions. A concise strategy can be shared, discussed and understood across teams.

That shared understanding is what creates consistency. It reduces internal debate. It helps people make decisions without needing constant approval.

There is also a practical benefit. A shorter strategy is easier to revisit.

Instead of rewriting the whole thing each year, you can review it, challenge assumptions, and make small adjustments. That keeps it alive rather than turning it into a once-a-year exercise.

This does not mean ignoring detail altogether. Detail belongs elsewhere.

Channel plans, campaign calendars, budgets and measurement frameworks all matter. But they should sit underneath strategy, not inside it.

If you need separate documents to explain what your strategy means, that is usually a sign it is doing too much.

A useful test is this. Could someone new to the business read your strategy and understand what you are trying to achieve and how marketing supports that?

If not, it is probably too complicated.

Clarity beats complexity every time.

A two-page strategy will not solve every marketing problem. But it will give you something solid to build from. Something to come back to when decisions feel unclear. Something that keeps activity moving in the same direction.

And in a year where change is guaranteed, that clarity is often the difference between progress and noise.