Marketing strategy
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Marketing strategy is a powerful process that gives an organization a competitive advantage in the marketplace. While just defining a marketing strategy will not automatically create a competitive advantage, it will allow the organization to concentrate its (always limited) resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.
The word strategy comes from the Greek word strategos meaning general. Strategy is what generals use to win battles. Thus properly understood, marketing strategy is a high-level exercise involving the "generals" of the organization in determining how to build on the firm's strengths while (ethically) taking advantage of competitors' weaknesses. Marketing strategy is most effective when it is a vital component of corporate strategy, defining how the organization will engage customers, prospects and the competition in the market arena for consistent success.
A marketing strategy also serves as the foundation of a marketing plan. A marketing plan contains a set of specific actions required to successfully implement a specific marketing strategy. For example: "Use a low cost product to attract consumers. Once our organization, via our low cost product, has established a relationship with consumers, our organization will sell additional, higher-margin products and services that enhance the consumer's interaction with the low-cost product or service."
A strategy is different from a tactic. While it is possible to write a tactical marketing plan without a sound, well-considered strategy, it is not recommended. Without a sound marketing strategy, a marketing plan has no foundation. Marketing strategies serve as the fundamental underpinning of marketing plans designed to reach marketing objectives. It is important that these objectives have measurable results.
A good marketing strategy should integrate an organization's marketing goals, policies, and action sequences (tactics) into a cohesive whole. The objective of a marketing strategy is to provide a foundation from which a tactical plan is developed. This allows the organization to carry out its mission effectively and efficiently.
Marketing strategies are partially derived from broader corporate strategies, corporate missions, and corporate goals. They should flow from the firm's mission statement. They are also influenced by a range of microenvironmental factors.
Marketing strategies are dynamic and interactive. They are partially planned and partially unplanned. See strategy dynamics.
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[edit] Types of marketing strategies
Every marketing strategy is unique, but if we abstract from the individualizing details, each can be reduced into a generic marketing strategy. There are a number of ways of categorizing these generic strategies. A brief description of the most common categorizing schemes is presented below:
- Strategies based on market dominance - In this scheme, firms are classified based on their market share or dominance of an industry. Typically there are four types of market dominance strategies:
- Leader
- Challenger
- Follower
- Nicher
- Porter generic strategies - Michael Porter assessed strategy on the dimensions of strategic scope and strategic strength. Strategic scope refers to the breadth of market penetration while strategic strength refers to the firm’s sustainable competitive advantage. He felt three types were important:
- Cost leadership
- Product differentiation
- Market segmentation
- Innovation strategies - This deals with the firm's rate of new product development and business model innovation. It asks whether the company is on the cutting edge of technology and business innovation. There are three types:
- Pioneers
- Close followers
- Late followers
- Growth strategies - In this scheme we ask the question, “How should the firm grow?”. There are a number of different ways of answering that question, but the most common gives four answers:
- Horizontal integration
- Vertical integration
- Diversification (or conglomeration)
- Intensification
- Aggressiveness strategies - This asks whether a firm should grow or not, and if so, how fast. One scheme divides strategies into:
- Building
- Holding
- Harvesting
- A more detailed schemes uses the categories:
- Prospector
- Analyzer
- Defender
- Reactor
- Warfare based strategies - This scheme draws parallels between marketing strategies and military strategies. There are many types of marketing warfare strategies, but they can be grouped into:
[edit] Strategic Marketing Models
Marketing participants often employ strategic models and tools to analyze marketing decisions. When beginning a strategic analysis, the 3C's can be employed to get a broad understanding of the strategic environment. An Ansoff Matrix is also often used to convey an organization's strategic positioning of their marketing mix. The 4P's can then be utilized to form a marketing plan to pursue a defined strategy.
[edit] Marketing Practice
In practice, as opposed to theory, research has indicated that the outstanding problems facing marketers lie in the use of specific functions. Most senior managements have committed to the philosophy, even though their junior managers may be cynical about the degree of that commitment. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to show that this new-found belief has led to positive action. Indeed, if we look at the marketing activities they do subscribe to, using the 4Ps framework say, there is little evidence that marketing practice (as opposed to the theory) has been widely embraced. In particular, pricing is largely on a cost-plus or competitive basis, promotional budgets are small (and spent more on sales promotion than advertising or PR), 'place' is - in any case - not relevant, and marketing research is almost all second-hand.
[edit] Coarse Marketing
The marketer, in real life, does not face each decision with a copy of a text-book in his or her hand - ready to work through the various lessons. The marketer starts with a quite specific environment; which will immediately limit the range of factors to be explored to a small subset of the literally hundreds explored in this book. To the perceptive marketer the range of options to be explored will usually be obvious. Beyond this, the position will be further constrained by the resources available to deal with them.For instance, theory always says that the first step is marketing research, but if your competitor has just made a major change in strategy you may have just days to react - where research may take months.
Real-life marketing primarily revolves around the application of a great deal of common-sense; dealing with a limited number of factors, in an environment of imperfect information and limited resources complicated by uncertainty and tight timescales. Use of classical marketing techniques, in these circumstances, is inevitably partial and uneven.
Thus, for example, new products will emerge from irrational processes and the rational development process may be used (if at all) to screen out the worst non-runners. The design of the advertising, and the packaging, will be the output of the creative minds employed; which management will then screen, often by 'gut-reaction', to ensure that it is reasonable.
Indeed, the most successful marketer is often the one who trains his or her 'gut-reaction' to simulate that of the average customer!
For most of his or her time the marketing manager is likely to be using his or her considerable intelligence to analyze and handle the complex, and unique, situations being faced; without easy reference to theory. This will often be 'flying by the seat of the pants', or 'gut-reaction'; where the overall strategy, coupled with the knowledge of the customer which has been absorbed almost by a process of osmosis, will determine the quality of the marketing employed!
This, almost instinctive management, is what is sometimes called 'coarse marketing'; to distinguish it from the refined, aesthetically pleasing, form favored by the theorists. It is often relatively crude and would, if given in answer to a business school examination, be judged a failure of marketing. On the other hand, it is the real-life world of most marketing!
