You might think what you need to know for a successful personal life is a completely separate and different from what you need to know to field a successful post-click marketing campaign.

But I’ve gotta tell you, the more miles I put on my experience odometer, the more I find the principles that guide and shape my personal and professional lives seem to blur. In other words, what’s useful for one is useful for the other as well.

Today’s example? Focus on the big picture.

Too often we get bogged down in the details, and lose sight of exactly what we’re trying to achieve and how it fits into the overall plan. A forest? There’s a forest out there? It’s not just the trees we’re wrapped up in, but the leaves — and maybe even the seeds!

When you’re starting to plan your post-click marketing campaign, don’t start with the details. Start with the objective. What is it you’re trying to achieve? It’s much easier to decide what details are important if you can evaluate them based on how they help achieve your objective.

On the other hand, if you start with the details, you may spend (i.e. waste) a bunch of time fretting over a ton of little things that actually have nothing to do with getting you towards your goal.

I once heard a lame little joke about Michelangelo, in which the artist was asked how he could get a beautiful sculpture of a lion out of a square block of marble. Michelangelo replied, “It’s easy. I just chip away everything that doesn’t look like the lion.”

And why should your post-click marketing be any different? When you sit down to plan and execute, keep your eye on the big picture, and chip away everything that isn’t going to help you achieve your goal.

I know it seems kind of obvious (ok, well it seems kind of obvious to me), but you don’t want to set out to execute any post-click marketing activity (or ANY marketing activity for that matter) without having a clearly defined strategy first.

After all, you probably wouldn’t jump in your car and start driving around without having a clear idea where you want to go.

Just because you know you need to pay attention to your post-click marketing doesn’t mean you know why you need it, and what you hope to achieve.

Increase revenue? Build a database of names? Learn something about your user base? Increase lead quality? What is the ultimate goal of your campaign?

The next thing to decide is how you will measure success for your post-click marketing. If respondents buy something? Sign up for a newsletter? Download a report? That’s how you’ll measure a conversion.

Your overall objective will impact the design of your landing experience. For example, beyond best practices for messaging, the structure of your landing experience can also help you achieve your objectives. Say you want to learn something about your user base and/or increase lead quality. In that case, you’ll want to segment your respondents as they come in, so you can put them into buckets and weed out the less-profitable section of your audience.

If you want your respondents to buy something, you’ll want to make it as easy as possible for them. Don’t make them go through a million hoops once they’ve decided to purchase. Simplify the purchase process and let them buy!

The other key part of your strategy development beyond what you want respondents to do, is what you want them to think. Many times, marketers seem to forget that landing pages are also critical components of branding and positioning. These pages need to accurately represent your brand and reinforce your positioning every step of the way — including messaging, style and execution.

In short, your high-level strategy development shouldn’t be packed with a million things. Just one key objective, along with what you want respondents to do, and what you want them to think. If you haven’t sorted it out, don’t start executing.