Here are a few tips to build terrible marketing strategies.

1. Build the Strategy from the Top Down

Q. In a ham and eggs breakfast, what's the difference between the pig and the chicken?

A. The chicken was compliant, but the pig was committed.

Nothing turns off partners, division leaders, and other leadership types more than being handed a strategy and told to, "Make it happen." Force feed the strategies from on high and you're likely to get compliance and not commitment. Practice leaders may take the strategy and run with it, perhaps even put a bit of effort and sweat into it, yet they can and frequently do walk away at the first sign of trouble.

Without going through the process of crafting the strategies and tactics themselves – brainstorming possibilities, performing "what if" analyses, researching best practices, and backtracking when suggested actions don't seem like they'll pan out – the team's dedication to implementation will be weak.

Once the tactics feel burdensome to implement, or at the first sign senior management isn't going to hold the team's feet to the fire, implementation grinds to a standstill. Nothing makes a terrible strategy more terrible than one doomed to be ignored or, at best, tolerated by the team members responsible for making it a success.

2. Don't Consult with Expert Tacticians

Equally as devastating as a top-down strategy is a strategy built without input from experts familiar with the underlying marketing and business development tactics. When you identify your specific tactics – even if the tactics are largely decent choices for a successful marketing strategy – without talking with people who have deep, relevant experience, the actual outcome will likely differ from the one you envision.

For example, you might conduct a seminar or webinar and want to fill the room with decision makers, but in reality you generate little or no attendance. Or, you manage to generate some attendance, but then you do a poor job of delivering content that will help you connect with potential clients. (Try a hard-sell approach; most decision makers really despise that.) Then you can ruin your follow-up by not doing it, doing it too late, or doing it poorly.

Maybe you set out to support lead generation and client communication with a website, but end up with a website that no one can find, no one can use, is hard on the eyes, provides no value, is not client focused, and generally reflects poorly on your company. You might then employ direct mail for lead generation and generate no response – with no idea why, and no way to find out what didn't work!

Leave out the tactical expertise and the terrible marketing outcomes you can achieve are endless. 

3. Look Only at Your Own Industry and Competition

If you want your marketing strategy to never reach beyond average, make sure you look only at your own industry and competition.

Let's say your company is an accounting firm. Make sure you look only at what other accounting firms are doing for growth. Ignore law, management consulting, technology, and consumer products companies. This is a great way to miss out on all the newest marketing trends, technologies, and possibilities. Plus, if you look only at your own industry for inspiration you'll never be a leader. Being late to the game is a great component to a terrible marketing strategy.

Make sure that when you're studying the competition to see what they're doing, you look only at your direct competitors. Following the accounting example, let's say you're in a 50-person accounting firm outside of New York City. Focus only on other mid-size accounting firms. Don't even think about considering what KPMG or PWC are doing, and don't worry much about what the 200-person firm might be up to. They're too big for you to care about, and you don't want to get too many inspirations from companies that have grown well or are larger than you.