The Role of Marketing Strategy Development
As marketing professionals, we have a clearly defined role within the organisation—to promote the organisation’s services and/or products to potential customers in order to increase market share and grow the business. Yet throughout the years, marketing and promotion is straightforward in a world where consumers are spoiled for choice with most any product or service. In addition, consumers cannot be considered a group as a whole. Customers are people, and vary considerably and have different needs so cannot all be satisfied in the same way. (Kotler 31)
These reasons mean that marketing must be strategic in order to have the biggest impact on obtaining customers, increasing market share, and growing the business. Strategic marketing is defined as the process of aligning strengths of an organisation with the groups of customers it can serve. (Kotler 31) This means that the marketing strategy will align an organisation with a group of customers where it can meet their needs better than its competitors.
Strategic marketing affects the whole direction and future of an organisation. You need a complete understanding of the macro and micro environments and markets served to inform your marketing process. In the same way that your organisation is developing strategic marketing plans to grow the business, your competitors will be doing the same thing, constantly searching out new ways to capture and retain customers.
Therefore the basics of strategic marketing involve three interdependent parts so messages are directed appropriately: market segmentation and positioning, developing a relationship with the customers, and competitive strategy. (Kotler 31) Figure 1 defines these parts of strategic marketing.
Figure 1: Strategic Marketing
Three Parts of Strategic Marketing Definition
Segmentation and positioning Dividing the total market into groups