Marketing strategy involves mapping out the company’s direction for the forthcoming planning period, whether that be three, five or ten years. It involves undertaking a 360° review of the firm and its operating environment with a view to identifying new business opportunities that the firm could potentially leverage for competitive advantage. Strategic planning may also reveal market threats that the firm may need to consider for long-term sustainability. Strategic planning makes no assumptions about the firm continuing to offer the same products to the same customers into the future. Instead, it is concerned with identifying the business opportunities that are likely to be successful and evaluates the firm’s capacity to leverage such opportunities. It seeks to identify the strategic gap; that is the difference between where a firm is currently situated (the strategic reality or inadvertent strategy) and where it should be situated for sustainable, long-term growth (the strategic intent or deliberate strategy).
Strategic planning seeks to address three deceptively simple questions, specifically: Where are we now? (Situation analysis)* What business should we be in? (Vision and mission)* How should we get there? (Strategies, plans, goals, and objectives)
A fourth question may be added to the list, namely ‘How do we know when we got there?’ Due to the increasing need for accountability, many marketing organizations use a variety of marketing metrics to track strategic performance, allowing for corrective action to be taken as required. On the surface, strategic planning seeks to address three simple questions, however, the research and analysis involved in strategic planning is very sophisticated and requires a great deal of skill and judgement.
Strategy
Strategic analysis is designed to address the first strategic question, “Where are we now?” Traditional market research is less useful for strategic marketing because the analyst is not seeking insights about customer attitudes and preferences. Instead, strategic analysts are seeking insights about the firm’s operating environment with a view to identifying possible future scenarios, opportunities, and threats.
Strategic planning focuses on the 3C’s, namely: Customer, Corporation, and Competitors. A detailed analysis of each factor is key to the success of strategy formulation. The ‘competitors’ element refers to an analysis of the strengths of the business relative to close rivals, and consideration of competitive threats that might impinge on the business’s ability to move in certain directions. The ‘customer’ element refers to an analysis of any possible changes in customer preferences that potentially give rise to new business opportunities. The ‘corporation’ element refers to a detailed analysis of the company’s internal capabilities and its readiness to leverage market-based opportunities or its vulnerability to external threats.
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