How difficult it is to develop in business when you are just beginning to understand all its disadvantages and difficult situations. But it will definitely be easier to do if you use strategic marketing. We will talk about this today.
What is it and why is it needed?
Strategic marketing is an active marketing process with a long-term plan horizon that aims to exceed the market average by systematically pursuing a policy of creating products and services that provide consumers with products of higher consumer value than competitors.
The main goal of the strategic marketing of the company is to develop an action plan that will be aimed at achieving the set goals in terms of product sales within the specified time frame. This will happen due to the following actions: increasing profitability, attracting external investors, and timely response to changes in the internal and external environment of the company.
What are the functions of strategic marketing:
- analysis of the external environment;
- selection of priority market segments suitable for the company;
- positioning properties and characteristics in terms of relevance and need for the consumer;
- analysis of competitors’ actions when developing a product positioning strategy.
The key principles of strategic marketing include:
- Taking into account the structure and size of the market when making management decisions (these include the growth rates of the company and the market. They must be identical, the company must expand simultaneously with the market, you must always strive to maintain competitiveness and not go beyond the break-even point, etc.).
- Taking into account the factors that support the demand for products (here it means that you need to focus on the goods in greatest demand, maintain high quality products, strive to constantly update your assortment, customer focus, maintaining customer loyalty and feedback with them. after-sales service ideas, etc.).
- Active actions in relation to the consumer (that is, adaptation to the existing level of demand, independent formation of demand for products). Everything is like in ICOholder, where you will be provided with up-to-date information about the cryptocurrency.
- Monitoring changes in the market (you should follow the current changes, develop planned measures taking into account the extrapolation of current trends, I lay, so to speak, on the front, then the network, taking into account the need for this action in a raging one).
- Responding to market changes (this can be a decrease or increase in the number of products produced, a revision of the assortment, an increase or decrease in prices, the choice of other distribution channels, etc.)
- Changes in product characteristics taking into account market trends (this includes: the development of new products, and the movement for leaders in the industry who release new products, etc.).
- Formation and maintenance of distinctive features of the company’s products (you must have unique products that differ from others. There must be something special that will attract the buyer and make them stop at you).
Among other principles, strategic marketing can be based on various combinations of the above options.
What is an Enterprise Marketing Strategy
We all know that in translation from ancient Greek, the word “strategy” means “the art of a commander”, his long-term plan of action in a war.
The modern world dictates its own terms, but strategy today remains a kind of art that every entrepreneur must master in order to win the battle for profit and market share. Today, the strategy is a long-term plan of action aimed at achieving the global goals of the enterprise.
Any organization has an overall strategy that is consistent with its global goals and strategy for the types of activities, adheres to them. One of these, just the same, is the marketing strategy of the enterprise.
Despite the fact that the number of companies in various markets is constantly growing, as we can observe, there are a lot of various goods in stores, and the consumer is becoming more and more discerning and critical of the choice of the very product. You need to be able to surprise.
It is the marketer who is able to distinguish your product on the store shelf from the competition, make it special and bring you big profits. Therefore, the development of a marketing strategy is one of the key issues in planning an organization’s activities.
The marketing strategy, like an official document, is anchored in the marketing policy of the company.
The practical implications of a marketing strategy for an enterprise
While the Marketing Strategy is an integral part of the overall strategy of the enterprise, it directs activities to achieve the following strategic goals:
- Increasing the company’s market share;
- Increase in the company’s sales in this market;
- Increase in the profit of your company;
- Conquering leading positions in the market;
The goals of the marketing strategy must be consistent with the mission of the enterprise and the general global goals, otherwise nothing will work out. As we can see, all goals are related to competitive or economic indicators, and achieving them without a marketing strategy is very difficult.
To achieve any of the above goals, it is necessary to prescribe the following elements in the company’s marketing strategy:
- Target audience of your company or product. The more detailed you describe your target customer, the better for you. If you have chosen several segments for yourself, then describe each of them. In this case, do not be lazy, because this will only serve you as a success in the future.
- Marketing complex. If you are offering a physical product, then describe it well enough on the following criteria: product, distribution, price, promotion. If you are selling a service, then you have to describe it: product, distribution, price, promotion, physical environment, process, personnel. Try to do this in as much detail as possible and for each element, this is important.
- What is the core benefit of your product, what is the key value for the customer? Describe the main distribution channels for each product, determine the price for a specific product, possible discounts and desired profit per unit. Think about what marketing activities will be involved in the promotion. If you offer a service, then determine who, how and where (in terms of the design of the premises, tools of work) will implement it.
Each of the elements should also form its own strategy, which will be included in the overall marketing strategy of the business.
- Marketing budget. Now that you have a marketing strategy that is as granular as possible, you can calculate your total budget. It doesn’t have to be very precise, so it’s important to include a reserve here.
Once you have identified each of the listed elements, you can begin to achieve your goals through a series of tasks:
- Formulation of a strategic marketing problem (this point deserves special attention);
- Needs analysis;
- Segmentation of the consumer market;
- Analysis of threats and opportunities for your business;
- Market competition analysis;
- Analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the enterprise;
- Choosing a strategy.
Enterprise Marketing Strategy Levels
As we can see, the general marketing strategy includes strategies for the elements of marketing. The marketing strategy must be developed at all strategic levels of the enterprise.
There are usually four levels of enterprise strategies:
- Corporate strategy (suits you if your company is differentiated, that is, it releases several products, otherwise this level will not exist);
- Business strategy – a strategy suitable for each type of enterprise activity;
- Functional strategy – also suitable for any functional unit of the enterprise (Production, marketing, R&D, and so on);
- Operational strategy – strategies for each structural unit of the company (workshop, sales area, warehouse, and so on).
However, the marketing strategy will only cover three levels of the strategic hierarchy. For the best effect, it is worth excluding the functional level, as it involves considering marketing as a narrowly functional type of activity. Today, this is not entirely accurate, and therefore, it leads to shortsightedness in marketing decisions.
So, the marketing strategy must be viewed from the point of view of three levels:
- Corporate level: formation of an assortment marketing strategy and a strategy of targeting the market;
- Business unit level: this is where the development of a competitive marketing strategy takes place;
- Product level: strategy for product positioning in the market, strategies for the elements of the marketing mix, strategies for each product within the product line strategy.
The main tasks of strategic marketing:
The main task is what we talked about earlier: regular monitoring of the company’s activities. Research helps determine the best-operating conditions for your business. They are too useful not to be used.
It will be possible to build strategic marketing only after conducting a preplanned marketing analysis, marketing research, market segmentation, and positioning the company’s products in the sales region. All these elements require the development of certain tactical actions.
Based on this, the following tasks of strategic marketing are distinguished:
- the focus of the entire work of the company on the maximum satisfaction of customers’ needs;
- determination of the firm’s position in life;
- argumentation of the chosen marketing strategy before the top management of the company.
The organization should, while operating, be guided by the principle “we produce goods that customers need, and do not sell what they don’t need”.
Strategic marketing is part of the overall market mechanism, it is aimed at solving the following tasks:
- Streamlining the work of the sales market, ensuring its maximum transparency for subsequent assessment, customization and determination of directions for further development.
- Regulation of the sales market in order to minimize uncontrolled manifestations.
- Streamlining competition, preventing and removing unfair competitors from the market.
- Coordination of production processes and trade operations in order to meet the needs of customers.
- Justification, development and implementation of technological innovations that can improve the processes of production and distribution of goods and services of the company.
- Maximizing the effect of advertising events, shaping a sales market taking into account the demand and needs of customers, increasing the attractiveness of the company’s products for the target audience.
Depending on the specifics and direction of activity, each organization may have its own individual tasks that strategic marketing performs.
What are the strategic directions of marketing today:
A strategy that consists in conquering a part of the market or achieving certain indicators of some of its share (norms of mass and profit). A new product is introduced to the market that contributes to the achievement of this goal. Thanks to this, the task of increasing the profitability of production and the efficiency of the company is achieved faster and easier.
- Innovation strategy. The point is in the development and production of completely new products, which have no analogues on the market.
- Innovative imitation strategy (combining innovative elements of competitors’ products in their products.)
- Product differentiation strategy (improvement and modification of existing products)
- Cost reduction strategy.
- Waiting strategy.
- Consumer individualization strategy.
- Diversification strategy.
- Internationalization strategy.
- Cooperation strategy (based on profitable cooperation of different enterprises.)
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Conclusion
We hope that we have helped you to understand this difficult topic and have suggested the questions with which you came to this site.
