Abstract
Strategic marketing
is the process which is useful to focus on the organizational resources to obtain
the optimum opportunities from the market. These strategies are used with the
long term goals and objectives of the company to increase its profitability. Strategic
marketing also applies the principles of the marketing to determine its importance
in the organization. In addition, it is also helpful to conduct a strategic analysis
by considering internal and external factors that affect the decisions of marketing
(Pride and Ferrell, 2011). The impact of these factors can be reduced through the
top level decisions and choice to obtain competitive advantages. The strategic
marketing can be made effective through using the appropriate communication
channel to interact with the consumers.
1. Principles of Marketing
1.1: Role of Strategic Marketing in an Organization:
The marketing strategies
play an efficient role to make a successful organization. Marketing strategies identify
and evaluate the opportunities for the organization. These opportunities can be
identified through several sources such as customers and business associates, distribution
system members and technical persons. All these people are helpful to evaluate the
business opportunities to be a successful organization (Ranchhod and Marandi,
2005). In addition, marketing strategies are also significant in the
establishment of new business formulation by focusing on some ideas. These ideas
are useful to make an appropriate business plan which can be sustained in the
current competitive market. This plan must also be convenient to the customers’
needs and demands to that the customer satisfaction can be achieved.
At the same time,
marketing strategies also determine some specific resources that are required
to run the business. These resources include finance, human resource, capital and
infrastructure. These resources can be obtained effectively through the marketing
strategies. Additionally, the organization can also manage its results with the
help of the marketing strategies (Kotler, Shalowitz and Stevens, 2011). These
strategies help to clarify the potential challenges and their alternative solutions
to improve the business situations. The cost and risks are also evaluated before
implanting business plan, so the possible solution of these risks can also be evaluated.
1.2: Relationship between Corporate Strategy and Marketing Strategy:
Corporate and marketing
strategy has a strong relationship within an organization, because both as essential
for the organizational success and growth. The main purpose of organizational marketing
strategy is to enhance the profits, sales and competitive advantages of the
market. The marketing strategy also permits to the enterprise to lead its resources
towards the significant opportunities (Jenster, Hayes and Smith, 2005). This
strategy is also related to the corporate strategy, because it is also dealing
with the expectations of the stakeholders. If, the expectations of the
stakeholders are met, then automatically profit, sales and competitive advantage
would be obtained by the organization. So, it can be said that corporate
strategy and marketing strategy work for organizational growth.
Apart from this, marketing
and corporate strategy are affected by the business decisions taken by the various
stakeholders and investors. Both of these kinds of decisions are based on the organizational
mission and vision. For example, the marketing strategy concentrates on the stability,
atmosphere and comfort of the organized products. The company also focuses on
the current trends and preferences of the customers to sell its products. In
addition, corporate strategy is also important to take decisions for effective
strategies that can help to determine the current trends available in the
market (Leadley and Forsyth, 2004).
1.3: Development of Marketing Strategy:
The enterprise develops a marketing strategy
to meet with the organizational objectives and goals. Generally, there are five
aspects to develop a marketing strategy to promote its products in the market. First,
customer analysis is an important aspect which helps with the organization in collecting
the information related to the needs, demands and preferences of the customers.
The marketing strategy is developed on the basis of this information (Hillestad
and Berkowitz, 2012). Product development is another aspect of marketing strategy
formulation, because the company needs to change its due to changes in technologies,
product life cycle, innovation and advancement.
Along with this, pricing is another element of
the marketing mix which develops the need of marketing strategy. The marketing decisions
are made on the basis of quality and price of the products to attract more customers.
Fourth, the development of marketing strategy is also needed to ensure about
the brand. For example, the marketing strategy of new entrant and existing companies
would be different, because it depends on the brand value (Farris, Moore and
Buzzell, 2004). Finally, a marketing strategy can also be developed on the
basis of sales and distribution. It developed a strong network to distribute
and sell the product. The marketing strategy improves all these elements through
providing better services and products to the consumers.
2. How to Carry Out Strategic Analysis
2.1: Approaches to Internal Environmental Analysis:
In the internal
analysis, some approaches are useful to evaluate the specific features of the
organization such as its resources, core-competition, capabilities,
organization mission, financial structure and strategies which are helpful in
corporate success. The internal environment is analyzed by these five
approaches in an organization. The first approach is value chain analysis which
is useful to identify separate activities and dealing with the process to
design, produces, deliver and support to product or services for creating well
customer value. The next approach is a competitive strength assessment or SWOT
analysis which shows the capability of the firms in the industry and provides
knowledge about its competitive advantage or disadvantage (Ranchhod and
Marandi, 2005).
A third approach
is internal audit that is useful to the designer makers in various internal
areas of the organization. Internal audit determines the knowledge about the
organizational resources and capabilities of its different areas. The next
approach is an internal environmental analysis process which is useful to assess
the strength and weakness, to investigate the potential strength, and
categories competitive resources (Farris, Moore and Buzzell, 2004). The last
approach is capabilities assessment profile that is helpful to review the
present product market profile, recognize sources of competitive advantage or
disadvantage in the main product-market segments and classifying a past
performance and future goals of the organization.
2.2: Approaches to External Environmental Analysis:
The external environmental analysis
identifies the market and its environmental factors which have an impact on the
business. In this analysis, all approaches provide information about general
environment, competitive environment, strategic groups, successes key factors
and national competitive advantage. It is because; managers always need
information to identify and understand about the external environment.
Basically, three approaches are useful to collect information related to scanning,
monitoring and competitive intelligence, but the company can also use these
approaches for its long term benefits. First, PESTLE analysis identifies
political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors
that provide information to create better strategies and to survive in the competition
to get long term profits (Leadley and Forsyth, 2004).
The second
approach is porter’s five forces model that describes the performance of the
organization through five kinds of forces. This model accesses five forces that
directly influence the firm and its competitive actions. These forces are
related to threats of new entrants, the power of suppliers, power of buyers,
threats of substitutes and intensity of rivalry among competitors. The 6-W model is another external analysis approach
which evaluates about the needs and demand of the customers (Kotler, Shalowitz
and Stevens, 2011). It is a helpful approach to determine existing and
potential customers, suitable place and time to sell products to the customers
and to find out the reasons behinds dislike about the product.
2.3: Integration of Internal and External Analysis:
The integration of
internal and external analysis can be done though input and output from the both
environments. The investigation of company can be useful to understand its
internal and external environments. This method combined with two constitutes
which analyzes the environment in which the company operates. The Internal and
external environmental analyze to develop a strategic plan for the company. For
this, combined goals and objectives must be made to make appropriate
strategies. The strategic and competitive analysis gives opportunities and
threats to the company in the market. Internal analysis accesses to the structure
of the company that enables the firm to make good strategic decision and
information to provide the basis for developing strategic substitute (Jenster,
Hayes and Smith, 2005). On the other hand, external environment analysis
provides information about the opportunities that can lead to higher profits
and reduce the threats in the near future of the organization.
3: Strategic Marketing Decisions and Choices
3.1: Decisions and Choices at the Corporate Level:
The managers take
several decisions on each level of the organization to meet the final objectives.
These decisions and choices are made at function, business and corporate level to
deal with the whole strategic scope of the company. At the corporate level, the
managers made decisions related to arrangement of capital, allocation of staffing
and resources. All these decisions are made for a long term planning with the
big picture of the business (Meek and Meek, 2012). The whole organization is
controlled and overseen through corporate level decisions. They made the
decisions to make strategic planning, corporate policies and to direct the company.
In addition,
corporate level choices are also taken by the top employees of the company such
as presidents, boards of directors, CEOs, vice-presidents etc. These people
have to choose the right choice from the top level difficulties. For example, they
have to make choice related to business closure, business disposal, business
acquisition, business reorganization and diversification of the business in another
area. All these choices are quite difficult to choose, because these choices need
proper knowledge, analysis and information to move further (Enis and Roering,
2012). These choices have huge risks, because a wrong choice may lead towards
the failure of the business.
3.2: Influence of Corporate Level Decisions in Marketing at Business Unit and Functional Level:
The corporate level
decisions have a great impact not only in top level, but also on the marketing
of business unit and functional level. It is because; the organization starts
with the top level decisions. The marketing at business level would be affected,
if the top corporate level does not provide proper support. The corporate level
decisions are concerned with the issues that are facing the organization. The
business level strategies are based on the top level decisions, so the change
in top level decisions would impact on the business level decisions (Drummond,
Ensor and Ashford, 2013). The business level strategies include corporate portfolio
to achieve the targets of the company.
In addition, function
level units are also affected through the process and decisions of corporate level.
These decisions indirectly affect to the marketing at a functional level,
because they have contact with the customers and suppliers. If, the decisions are
not related to the quality of the products, then function level employees cannot
make appropriate marketing strategy. In addition, the centralized decisions of top
management would have an adverse impact on the marketing decisions (Tsiotsou
and Goldsmith, 2012).
3.3: Approaches to Competitive Positioning of Organizations:
There are several
approaches of competitive positing that can be used by the organization. These approaches
are quite significant to gain the competitive position within the industry. First,
the organization can evaluate the market to determine the competitors and how they
have obtained a position. This approach is quite significant to identify the life
cycle stage of the market from introduction, growth, maturity and decline. In
addition, it can also segment to the market to recognize the potential problems
(Doole and Lowe, 2005). These problems can also be solved though reaching to
the customers and to know their wants and needs.
At the same time,
evaluation of competition is another competitive positioning approach that can be
helpful to obtain a position. In this approach, all the competitors are determined
to find out the level of competition that they are increase and how they are
fighting with the competition. The competitors are also ranked on the basis of
their operational competence, leadership in the products and customer familiarity.
After competitive positioning, the company should also build up a brand
strategy to interact with the customers (Pride and Ferrell, 2011). All these
approaches are quite significant in maintaining competitive petitioning in the
industry.
4: Implementation of Marketing Strategies to Contribute to Competitive Advantage
4.1: Range of Strategies Contributes to Competitive Advantage:
An organization with a sustainable competitive advantage
has a compelling and winning strategy that sets them apart from the other
competitors in the market. From the traditional times, there has a set of
generic strategies that have used by a number of organization which set them
apart as far as competing in the market is concerned. The examples of such
strategies include low cost strategy, differentiation strategy among other
generic strategies. As an example, Walmart (a famous retail chain in the United
States of America) consistently follows a low cost strategy to attract a large
number of customer base.
It is also a recognized fact that having and possessing
a broad range of strategies also helps in defining the success of an
organization. The competitor in such a case is never able to anticipate the
moves of the organization. The organization is also successful in offering a
wow effect to the end customers as they continue to offer a large number of services
which are highly innovative in nature and scope.
A competitive advantage in relatively simple terms can
be defined as a differentiating point of an organization which the other counterparts
in the market do not possess. Hence, a focused strategy is imperative to be
followed in order to build upon the competitive advantage in a successful and
viable manner. It is also evident from the above discussion that a range of
different strategies is much more promising in nature than a generalized
following of a fixed strategy.
4.2: Marketing Communication Strategies
The organizations and the marketers in the contemporary
times are making effective use of all the possible channels to reach out in a
customized manner to the end customers. Some of the examples of the recent and
contemporary channels that the marketers utilize include state of the art
technologies like mobile marketing, social media marketing, content marketing,
e-mail marketing etc.
Some of the more innovative organizations have gone a
step ahead and use a blend of the traditional and the modern marketing channels
to make the most of marketing communication as far as offering to the end
customer is concerned. Some of the key essential strategies that are followed
includes delivering a consistent message across different multiple channels with
an objective of communicating the benefits to the end customer. Also, the
marketers stress on the point that the communication must add some kind of
value to the end customer without which it becomes very difficult to persuade
the customer about the benefit of the involved product.
Thus, marketing communication is a tremendous opportunity
for an organization to showcase their product or service to the end customer in
the most subtle and innovative manner as they would like. Considering a few
examples, the organization producing and manufacturing energy drinks by the
name ‘Red Bulls’ are very good at showcasing their online presence. This
creates a good rapport with the end customer and they have huge online
following which ultimately brings the results to their actual physical sales as
well.
4.3: Application and Implementation of Marketing Strategies:
The designing and planning of an effective marketing
strategy is completely different from what the actual implementation of the
strategy is. While the strategy might promise a lot on papers, the actual
challenges that are faced are only understood in their complete nature once the
actual implementation of the marketing strategies takes place. The senior
management often face the problem of change management when the work force or
the human resource might show while adapting to a new strategy and there can be
issues related to legal and political aspects affecting the promotional aspect
of a particular offering (services and goods).
Thus, it is often recommended to keep ample scope for
flexibilities when the actual implementation process of a marketing strategy is
taking place. It is also a good practice to make all the employees,
stakeholders and concerned official well aware of the objectives that are
intended to be achieved by the virtue of following a fully fledged marketing
strategy.
Senior management of marketing organization often
resolves to break the actual implementation of a marketing strategy into
smaller and a number of achievable stages so that they are able to constantly
monitor and control the activities of their marketing plan.
Overall, it is rare that everything goes as smooth as
how it was planned in the initial stages and the actual shortcomings are
identified once the actual process is implemented and carried out in real time.
The management is often expected to foresee and anticipate the future so that
they happen to act in a viable manner which results in the best of results for
the concerned organization.
Conclusion
In the
conclusion, it can be expressed that strategic marketing is important for growth
and development of the company. It is learned by the virtue of this report that
Strategic marketing is the process which is useful to focus on the
organizational resources to obtain the optimum opportunities from the market.
These strategies are used with the long term goals and objectives of the
company to increase its profitability. The corporate and marketing strategy
plays a significant role to develop the consumer base. The strategic analysis provides
the better understanding of the market through internal and external analysis of
the company and to integrate them. Strategic marketing decisions and choices of
the organization affects to the competitive positioning, business level and functional
unit marketing. Finally, this paper can also be concluded that the organization
should use different kind of marketing strategies to take competitive advantages
such as communication strategies.
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