What is a Marketing Strategy?

Introduction

Businesses and companies develop marketing strategies to approach customers and sell their products. Today, we’ll discuss what is a marketing strategy; various types, and importance of the M strategy.

The marketing strategy is a long-term business plan of the company that involves approaching the potential customers and making them actual customers with your product/service. It comprises elements like target audience demographic data, brand messaging, company value proposition, and others.

A well-defined M strategy focuses on the development of the value proposition of the company. It tells customers what the company is all about and stands for, how it’s operating its business, and why they should choose the company. However, it offers a template to the marketing team that tells the company’s initiative in terms of product/service. In short, we can say:

The M strategy is the overall game plan of the company for approaching prospective customers and converting them into actual with its product/service.
The M strategy focuses on the value proposition of the company.
The objective of the M Strategy is to gain a competitive edge over rival businesses and competitors.

For instance, Walmart has established a reputation for offering products at low prices. It is because the company rooted the idea with its marketing efforts and business operations.

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan

The marketing plan is a document that outlines various types of short-term marketing activities that a company conducts at different times. It’s a roadmap that guides how the company should move from one point to another under different situations. In short, it provides a logistic plan to the company to run specific campaigns.

The M strategy, on the other hand, is for the long term because it comprises the value proposition of the company and various other elements of the brand. It covers a big picture of the company because the company has to maintain it over a period of time.

Also checkout: How to Create a Marketing Strategy

Types of Marketing Strategy

Some of the main types of marketing strategy are as follows;

Portfolio Marketing Strategy

It tells you what products are selling in the market and what is not so that you could keep those products and continue the manufacturing process. You should discard those products that are not generating income for the company.

Segmentation Marketing Strategy

It’s a type of strategy that helps you to decide on segmenting the marketing into various classifications. The three main types of segmentation are as follows;

Differentiated: when it comes to dealing with each segment of the market after identifying their needs, then it follows a different positioning offer. The cost of applying this strategy is higher, but it provides you an opportunity to satisfy the needs of various selected segments of the market with different offers.
Undifferentiated: after identifying the various needs of each segment of the market, the company plans to deal with it with the same offer in order to attract a large number of customers
Concentrated: after choosing one segment of the market, the strategy focuses on running a campaign on the particular segment and avoiding the others. It’s a very effective strategy for growing companies.

It’s important to keep in mind that market research is the origin of segmentation strategy and it allows you to classify various segments so that you could make a good decision.

Brand Positioning Marketing Strategy

It’s a type of strategy that works on the perception of the brand that how you want the brand to be perceived by the customer in the specific segment. What types of attributes do you want the customer to think of when they perceive the brand. There are many ways to access the position of the brand relevant to the competitors. Like usage and characteristics of products, company’s image, and product’s cover. Some of the main attributes of the brand positioning strategies are as follows;

Benefits: positioning the products in such a way that focuses on the benefits it offers
Price/Quality: what type of quality you’re offering and at what price?
Attributes: positioning the products based on their attributes
Uses/applications: positioning the product relevant to its usage and application
Categories: your market leadership position in the product category
Competitors: it’s a classic strategy of comparing your competitors’ products with yours

While discussing the concept of position strategy, you should be aware of the three strategic marketing keys; customer positioning, brand positioning, and company positioning.

Functional Marketing Strategy

The marketing mix is the basis of functional marketing strategy, and the 4 Ps of marketing plays a significant role in helping the company achieving its objectives. 4 Ps of the marketing mix are as follows;

Product: quality, warranty, brand image, and after-sale services
Price: payment conditions, discount sales, and modification of prices
Place/Distribution: transportation, location, controlling inventory, order management, storage, packaging
Promotion: social media, support, external and internal communication channel

Competitive Marketing Strategy

The focus of this strategy is on the competitive edge, it means your market position relevant to the competitors.

If your market position is higher than competitors, then your focus is on maintain it
However, if your market position is lower than competitors, then your focus is on scaling it
If you are in a lower position, then you can stay there or fight for the higher position

Loyalty Marketing Strategy/What is a marketing strategy?

The goal of this strategy is to develop the loyalty of customers by offering quality customer services to customers. Those services should be better than competitors. You can develop loyalty by offering discounts, gifts, running promotional campaigns, etc.

Content Marketing Strategy

It means the marketing of your product/service via content like eBooks, graphical videos, computer animation, and written articles. It could be a blog where you can market your content by;

Telling people and educating customers about your product/service
Product reviews
Publishing posts, articles, news, information, and trends about the company on the specific product

Direction marketing strategy

It’s a type where you send a direct customized message to the customers. The customers usually like the personalized marketing approach and the direct line of communication with the company.

Digital Marketing Strategy

Digital media is the latest form of the M strategy, and it became so popular in a very short time. Some of the main areas of digital marketing are as follows;

SEO: making the contact appear at the top of searches
Networking: connecting with various people on social media platforms
Mailing: establishing a communication line with a specific segment of the market
Inbound marketing: organically attracting customers

Importance of Marketing Strategy

After discussing what is a marketing strategy and its various types, it is time to discuss the importance of the M strategy. Some of the main points are as follows;

The M strategy guides you to correct the advertisement budget in advance and create a method of finding the scope of the plan. Like how much revenue the advertisement would generate
It assists businesses to optimize the usage of their resources by sending sales messages to their target customers.
However, it makes sure the effective coordination among departments
It guides you to adjust the right price of the product/service based on the market research
The M strategy also helps you to find the areas that the organizational growth has badly impacted them and creating a plan to serve the needs of customers
It also assists you in developing profitable products/services
It helps you to gain a competitive edge

Conclusion: What is a Marketing Strategy? Types/Importance

After an in-depth study of what is a marketing strategy; its types and importance, we’ve concluded that the M strategy is significant in establishing the brand image in the long term. If you have any questions, leave them in the comment box below, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.