Why a Marketing Strategy Is Important For Your Brand
Marketing strategy is one of our favourite topics for two reasons: a well-developed strategy simplifies our everyday marketing job as it makes the implementation of different initiatives straight-forward. Secondly, that’s what we specialise in, and what we love to do.
Marketing Strategy Definition
The go-to-market strategy represents the generic direction a company should follow in order to accomplish a specific business objective. It shows a “road map” to achieve greater results, such as sales growth, worldwide brand recognition, and higher market penetration.
The Benefits for Your Brand
Many brand owners fail to see the benefits of incorporating marketing strategy in the overall strategic business process. A well-crafted strategic plan:
provides the business with focus and direction by identifying the best opportunities worth pursuing as well as the threats to be avoided
identifies the tools that the company can effectively use to fight competition and gain market share
saves company time and money by focusing the resources on attracting the right employees and investing only om marketing initiatives that support the overall business objectives
differentiates a company from the competition by identifying the distinct advantage and the supporting elements
translates the company vision, mission, objectives, into effective marketing initiatives
serves as the foundation for all your communication campaigns
improves the effectiveness of the marketing message to customers and partners
increases sales and profits
creates consumer preference for the brand
Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan
These two concepts create a fair amount of confusion among marketers and business executives. Below are some important differences between the two:
Marketing Strategy
a collection of medium too long term methods for achieving the company’s objectives.
will not change yearly, but only when a major change occurs that affects the business as a whole: the rise of a new strong competitor, implementation of new legislation that greatly impacts the business, a sudden change in consumer needs.
supports business objectives
generic, with loosely defined budgets and deadlines
Marketing Plan
a list of initiatives to be implemented in the short term (usually within one year).
changes yearly based on competitive actions and short term opportunities and threats
supports marketing strategy
the “to-do list” that includes well-defined responsibilities, budgets and deadlines.