The overall plan that a business has to reach the target audience, or the prospective customers, and then turn those people into consumers of the company’s products or services is that company’s marketing strategy. It also contains all of the key brand messaging for the business, its value proposition, data on the target customer demographics, and other elements.
When creating a marketing strategy, companies should be covering four elements to be efficient:
- The product
- The price
- The place
- The promotion
These elements make up the core of a company’s value proposition, which is the foundation for their competitive advantage in their market. A sound marketing strategy is what distinguishes a company from its fiercest competitors.
Understanding Your Value Proposition
A company’s marketing strategy should focus on the value proposition of the business. This value proposition is going to communicate to the target demographic what the business stands for, how it operates, and why should the audience become a customer.
Having all of this information at hand aids marketing teams when creating a marketing strategy template that can later be utilized across different company initiatives for various services or products. For example, Costco is mainly known as a wholesale retailer with low prices, and all of the company’s marketing efforts center around that main idea.
Difference Between Marketing Strategy and Marketing Plan
Some people confuse these two terms, which are different but are connected to each other. A marketing strategy is informed by a marketing plan. The marketing plan is a document that outlines all of the specific marketing activities that the business utilizes, along with the schedule for when the different marketing initiatives are launched.
On the other hand, a marketing strategy has a relatively long lifespan compared to an individual marketing plan, because marketing strategies also include the company’s value proposition as well as the brand messaging and other key company elements, which are used in the long term. To put it simply, a marketing strategy is supposed to include the overall company messaging and ideas, while the marketing plan details specific marketing campaigns.
Creating a Marketing Strategy
The main goal of a marketing strategy, as previously mentioned, is to communicate and achieve a sustainable advantage in the market and the overall industry through understanding the different needs and wants of the consumers. The marketing strategy is always evaluated before distribution according to how effectively it’s able to communicate the company’s value proposition.
Once a marketing strategy is employed, it’s constantly being monitored according to different metrics that are important for the individual business. These metrics are also useful in identifying potential under informed audiences which can contribute to the company’s business goal and bottom line by increasing sales. Businesses can utilize a variety of marketing strategies when creating marketing campaigns to test out which ones work best, as some work better than others for different companies and audiences.