Marketing Strategy: Why It Cannot Be Developed in 30 Minutes
Aspiring entrepreneurs usually regard marketing as a tactical tool, but marketing is more than just setting up targeted ads on VK.
Aspiring entrepreneurs usually regard marketing as a tactical tool, but marketing is more than just setting up targeted ads on VK. This approach often leads to failure: a house always starts with the foundation, not with painting the facade.
Marketing is a strategic tool. Before spending money on VK targeting, analyse all the available options. Perhaps it would be better to promote through “Odnoklassniki”? But we exaggerate.
Every business needs a marketing strategy - it defines not only the promotion tools, but also the assortment and pricing policy, the brand strategy and so on. In essence, a marketing strategy is a guide that leads you along the most effective route.
Where to start?
They say every strategy starts with a goal. That is not quite true: having decided on a product, the company needs to study the state of the market - that is, its capacity, development trends and boundaries. The market determines the company's growth opportunities - do we want to go into the low price category, or is it already oversaturated with supply?
The next stage is assessing the state of the company: do we have enough resources to produce a premium product, or will we settle for a mid-range one? Also, having defined the segment, we need to analyse the competitive field and identify the unique advantages of our product compared to the competition.
And only here do we move on to goals. Suppose we want to increase our current market share or enter an adjacent segment. The goal must be clearly formulated: if we want to grow sales volume, this may have a negative impact on the company's profitability. We can lower the price - volume will grow, but we will end up with a loss. The SMART model helps marketers formulate goals correctly.
Suppose you want to increase sales volume on your current market. Below is an example of working with the SMART model:
- S - “I want to increase sales volume on the furniture market” - the qualitative result and the market are defined;
- M - “I want to increase sales volume on the furniture market by 15%” - a quantitative goal is defined;
- A - “We can lower the price by 20% below the market average, but then we will not be able to recover our costs” - the goal is achievable but threatens financial losses;
- R - “At the last meeting with top management we decided to focus on improving product quality. Perhaps it would be better to create a great product and then sell it at a higher price?” - the goal does not align with the company's other strategic goals;
- T - “I wanted to increase sales volume on the furniture market within 6 months, but I would rather focus on quality” - a time “threshold” is defined.
We have defined the goal. What next?
The next stages are selecting target consumer segments, analysing possible alternatives and, finally, choosing the strategy itself. There are many types of marketing strategy - an innovation strategy, developing products with no equivalents; imitation of innovations, combining various competitors' innovations in a single product; and a differentiation strategy - improving existing products.
What exactly should a marketing strategy look like? Firstly, the choice must be based on the data obtained at the previous stages. Secondly, the decision must be implemented at every level of the marketing strategy - corporate, product and business unit.
And the final stages are creating a marketing plan and developing tools to monitor its effectiveness. The marketing plan shapes the pricing policy as well as positioning, advertising strategy and so on.
Brand positioning is the most important part of the plan. It is always based on three elements: the features of the product or company that constitute a benefit for the client (i.e. the USP), the needs of the client segment, and the positions of competitors. Neglecting any one of these elements can lead to collapse: the chosen positioning may overlap with a competitor's, fail to meet the needs of the target audience, or simply not match the company's actual resources.
This is where branding comes into play - a sophisticated marketing technology aimed at building advantageous brand positioning and conveying the product's functional and emotional advantages to the consumer. Branding is no less important than the choice of price category: if the benefit and value of a product are not clear to the consumer, they simply will not use it.
The result of working with the tools listed above is a strong brand that occupies the right place on the market, offers the right assortment, and understands its advantages and conveys them to the consumer as accurately and effectively as possible.
