MARKETING STRATEGY

Marketing strategy

Marketing strategy

Components of marketing strategy

In today's very competitive marketplace a strategy that insures a consistent approach to offering your product or service in a way that will outsell the competition is critical.

Marketing is the promotion of the business, communicating to potential and existing customers what the business is about. The Marketing Strategy also linked to the more detailed Marketing Plans - how one plans to implement the strategy. The strategic phase has three components: segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP).  The organization must distinguish among different groups of customers in the market (segmentation), choose which group(s) it can serve effectively (targeting), and communicate the central benefit it offers to that group (positioning) (Adcock, 2001).

The marketing process includes designing and implementing various tactics to achieve its intended strategies.  These tactics are commonly referred to as the “marketing mix”.  These tactics are also referred to as the “5 Ps”: product,  place/(or market),  promotion, price, and distribution/ (or placement of the product) (Paul, 1997).

Market segmentation is about the recognition of diversity within a market, i.e. that not all customers in a given market have the same needs. Furthermore, these differing needs may be so different that separate marketing strategies or tactics are necessary for particular sub-markets or “segments”. If that is so, the segments need to be explicitly defined, and separate marketing actions need to be planned with respect to each segment. A brand strategy permits the strategist to work with complex concepts and not limit the differentiation strategy to just a few competitive differences. This approach is consistent and reinforces the STP approach(Adcock, 2001). A successful brand strategy builds barriers to protect the selected position by creating associations of the positioning variables with the brand name in the prospect's mind. Any Marketing Strategy is a natural flow ...