When the wind keeps changing: How to build a marketing strategy that holds
Marketers know the feeling well: doing good work one week, only to watch priorities shift and campaigns stall the next. One minute you're aligned, the next you're scrambling to catch up. How do you stop chasing perfect alignment and start focusing on strategy that actually lasts? What can you build that doesn't fall apart the moment the wind shifts?
I've worked at companies where it felt like the wind changed the strategy direction every three months. One quarter, we'd be all-in on inbound. The next, everything pivoted to partnerships. Then we were acquired, and the new mandate was full alignment with the parent brand and sister companies. Every shift came with a sense of urgency and left a trail of half-finished marketing initiatives.
When the strategy keeps shifting from the top down, it's hard to know what to anchor to. It's even harder not to feel like the work you just did is suddenly obsolete (I still haven't quite mastered this). But over time, I started to ask a different question: What does hold up, even when the sails keep turning?
What doesn't change (even when everything else does)
You can't control the wind, but you can prepare yourself. The core of resilient marketing is knowing what's built to last:
- Evergreen content: Quality content based on expertise or utility rarely goes out of style.
- Retention over reach: In a pinch, your existing customers are more valuable than any campaign designed to chase new leads.
- Internal alignment: Building strong relationships with commercial teams or product owners helps you adjust quickly, together.
Strategy, or survival?
In environments like this, it's easy to slip into survival mode; just trying to keep up until the next shift hits. But you can't build real marketing momentum from a reactive place.
So instead of chasing alignment that might evaporate in a quarter, start asking: What can I build now that won't fall apart the next time the wind changes? What's flexible enough to adapt without being directionless?
Sorry, I don't have all the answers
Honestly, I don't. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that chasing perfect alignment is a losing game. However, learning how to build with change in mind is where the real strategy lives.
There's a line I keep coming back to from the book, The Coddling of the American Mind.
“Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire. Likewise with randomness, uncertainty, chaos: you want to use them, not hide from them. You want to be the fire and wish for the wind.”
That's what working in marketing often feels like, especially inside large organizations. Priorities shift. Budgets get frozen. Teams restructure. And if your strategy is too rigid, it doesn't survive.
But if you're willing to rethink, adapt, and still deliver? That's what makes a resilient marketer. Not one who clings to the perfect plan or resists change, but one who knows how to build strategies when the wind keeps changing.