Our consulting services are built upon a fundamental business philosophy based upon three essential pillars that are at the heart of any successful business enterprise.

An effective marketing strategy can drive the full economic potential of a business, by profitably connecting the business to its market. Naturally easier said than done, the marketing strategy is essentially concerned with; helping a business improve its positioning, identifying emerging market opportunities, increasing its competitive advantage and intimately understanding its customers to deliver increased value. Before developing the marketing strategy, having a clear organisational wide consensus around the purpose of marketing and marketing strategy in your business will lay the foundation for strategy success. From there, developing a marketing strategy that encompasses smart thinking, goal clarity, accurate market insights, and creative implementation will provide the roadmap for driving the full economic potential of your business.

Getting it clear – what is Marketing Strategy?

Marketing strategy is a term that has been overused and misrepresented in terms of what it means, and what is should be doing for a business. Too often marketing strategy has been confused with marketing tactics, such as implementing a new CRM system, targeting more profitable customer segments or launching a social media presence. These tactical activities are important and are no doubt part of marketing strategy, however they are more concerned with ‘how we will do it’ rather than ‘what we will do’.

There are many definitions of both ‘marketing’ and ‘marketing strategy’ – and from a practical perspective, the various definitions only add to the ever increasing abundance of jargon that can easily encapsulate the real life practitioner or manager, and render their day to day efforts to achieve business goals ineffective.

For the purpose of removing ambiguity, let’s briefly define what marketing and marketing strategy are for the purpose of building internal consensus within your organisation.


What is Marketing?

The fundamental role of marketing is to connect a business with a market. A business does not exist without a market of customers who want/need its products or services, and likewise a market does not exist without a business to provide for its wants/needs. Therefore the role of marketing in its most basic form is to connect a businesses products or services with the market (or markets) that want/need those products and services.


What is Marketing Strategy?

Marketing strategy is essentially concerned with profitably connecting a business with its market. In alignment with strategic business goals, it is the purpose of a marketing strategy to translate these business goals into reality where markets and customers are concerned. This raises an interesting question about the role of marketing today –  what role should marketing play in achieving strategic business goals where markets and customers are concerned? Considering the vital importance of both markets and customers to a business, one could easily assume all business goals are market and customer related, however this is not the case. Marketing should however, be a significant influencer on how business goals are achieved - yet marketing has too often been relegated to only tactical campaign activities.


What should marketing strategy be doing?

A marketing strategy should be a clear plan that states where the business is, where it wants to be, and how it will get there in terms of its market and customers. It is an ongoing, ever-evolving plan which all of the management team should at least be aware of, and possibly contribute to.

A marketing strategy focussed on driving the full economic potential of a business will answer the following questions:

> Where is our business currently positioned in terms of our customers & competitors?
> Where do we want our business to be positioned in the future?
> What emerging market opportunities can we identify and capitalise on?
> What steps can we take to strengthen our competitive advantage?
> What can we learn from our customers to ensure we’re deeply connected to their wants/needs?
> How do we translate our marketing strategy into an implementable tactical plan?
> How can we ensure profitable return on investment from our marketing activities?

There are no right or wrong answers within a marketing strategy, which means that many businesses will be investing considerable resources into poorly thought out marketing strategy, and as a result deriving little or no competitive advantage or return on investment from it.

With that being said, the rapid pace of change in the world and in customer wants/needs today, means there are new opportunities constantly emerging. Marketing strategy that encompasses smart thinking, goal clarity, accurate market insights, and creative marketing implementation will win the day – in terms of driving the full economic potential of a business.


Tough questions to consider

Do we know where our business is positioned in terms of our customers and competitors? Has our position altered for better or worse over the last 3 years, and in both cases, what have we done about our changed position?

Where do we see our business positioned in the future?  What customer and competitor forces have effected us during the past 3 years? What is a realistic ideal future position for our business considering our resources, our customers and our competitors?

What emerging market opportunities can we identify and capitalise on? What macro trends are at play in our markets/industry? What trends do we see in the wants/needs of our customers? What level of acceptance or appetite does our organisation have for risk?

> What steps can we take to strengthen our competitive advantage? How compelling are our businesses points of differentiation? Have we gained or lost market share over the past 3 years? What are our competitors doing in terms of product/service innovation?

> What can we learn from our customers to ensure we’re deeply connected to their wants/needs? Have the wants/needs of our customers changed since we last examined them? How deeply do we understand the wants/needs of our customers? Are there emerging wants/needs we can anticipate and provide for?

> How do we translate our marketing strategy into an implementable tactical plan? Does our management team all have clear understanding of our business and marketing goals? Are our departments such as Finance/Human Resources/Operations working in collaboration or competition to achieve our business goals?

> How can we ensure profitable return on investment from our marketing activities? What role does the marketing function play in the attainment of strategic business goals? What metrics can we use to measure marketing performance and return on investment? What tactical marketing activities will give the best results for our business?


Recommendations

1) Build internal consensus – Ensure that the management team are all in agreement as to what marketing strategy is and does for your business. Encourage organisation-wide collaboration in the ongoing development and evolution of your marketing strategy.

2) Conduct an honest appraisal – Look at previous marketing strategy, firstly determining if it exists or not, and if so, looking at how effective is has been in contributing to strategic business goals. What benefits and return on investment have previously been derived? If this can be improved, allocate internal/external talent to develop your marketing strategy.

3) Prioritise key marketing threats/challenges – Be aware of key marketing threats that must be responded to decisively such as; subsiding market share, proliferation of competitors and rapidly changing customer wants/needs. Also prioritise emerging marketing challenges such as; inability to measure marketing return on investment, the growth of new channels/social media, and the explosion of data from online marketing.