What’s your marketing strategy? No, That’s NOT a strategy. Part I
Marketing strategies are like budgets, every marketing group has one. But is what’s claimed to be the marketing ‘strategy’ really a strategy?
A true marketing strategy describes the intended outcome of a marketing organization’s cumulative activities. It describes what it’s trying to accomplish given its resources and the state of the market it tries to serve. The strategy is fed by an understanding of company’s:
- Targeted customers
- Competitors
- Its own strengths, ‘unique-nesses’ and position in the market
- The business and economic environment in which it has to operate
It addresses the firm’s advantage in the market and often the position it is trying to achieve. Importantly, a real strategy also limits what the company offers. Does your marketing strategy read like this?
Once created, the most important purpose of a marketing strategy is to serve as a framework for aligning all the planned tactics and activities with the department’s intended accomplishments.
Operationally, the strategy is a key tool for tactical planning in that it is the filter through which all proposed marketing tactics must pass to be approved. If the tactic supports the strategy, then it can move ahead (albeit possibly dropped for other reasons). If it addresses customer targets, products, promotions, pricing, distribution, communication, etc. out of line with the strategy’s intent and direction, it is eliminated. Not using the strategy in this way effectively means you have no strategy.
What does a strategy NOT do?
A strategy does not state or imply what will be done—specific activities, operational plans, etc. These are all part of tactics, and are determined based upon what is needed to realize the strategy—those activities which will move you from where you are to where the strategy says you desire to be. They are the execution tools for implementing the strategy, and not part of the strategy itself.
More often than not, what’s purported to be a marketing strategy is merely a set of tactics assembled in strategic-sounding phrases. The lack of a marketing strategy, a real, well developed (and utilized) marketing strategy underlies much of the ineffectiveness of today’s marketing activities. Why? Because without the focus brought by a real strategy, all planning and execution activities will not be pulling in the same direction. There will be no synergy across tactics that enables them to build on each other.
If your marketing strategy contains the tactical ‘whats’ of your activities and not the higher level market issues mentioned above, you don’t really have a strategy.
You have a problem.
Kudos! What a neat way of thinnkig about it.
.Your business marketing strategy is a major element of a marketing plan a formalized document that outlines how you convey messages about your product to your markets. A marketing strategy is the outline or plan a company establishes to achieve its marketing objectives.
A company’s competitive strategy consists of its business approaches and initiatives to attract customers and fulfill their expectations, to withstand competitive pressures, and to strengthen its market position (Thompson, p.135). Having identified and evaluated its major competitors, the company must design broad competitive marketing strategies by which it can gain competitive advantage by offering superior customer value. Competitive strategies have been classified to define marketing strategy in terms of a single-minded pursuit of delivering superior value to customers.