With rapid advancement of technologies and ease of availability of a variety of products and services at cheaper rates, it is important for brands to be visible. Without them being evidently visible, they would not attract attention and may go unnoticed.
A couple of decades ago no one would have imagined that technology could allow you to shop anything online from anywhere. Organizations had to increase the production and incur additional marketing cost to be available online. To be visible among competitors, brands have to provide something unique coupled with lesser costs and more features or added services to attract the buyers.
In this context, Strategic Marketing has an important role to play.
What is strategic marketing?
Strategic marketing is a process which is implemented to achieve marketing objectives. This marketing technique involves adding value to the customers’ demand and satisfying them, and at the same time, optimally utilizing available resources, which would likely result in generating revenue for the organization. There are different strategic marking courses available in market which can help to know more about it
For better understanding, let us take a look at the process involved in strategic marketing.
The strategic marketing process involves three steps, which are:
(i) Planning Phase – In this phase, a plan is chalked out and a suitable course of action is drafted. Strategic marketers identify their target audience, how these people can be reached on a large scale and the medium to be used for marketing such as television, magazines, newspapers etc.
(ii) Implementation Phase – The plan which is drafted in the planning phase is brought into action in this phase. This involves ensuring that the marketing activities stick to the timeline and run smoothly.
(iii) Evaluation Phase – After the Implementation of the plan comes the most important part. In the evaluation phase, strategic marketers determine how successfully has the plan been implemented and what the output of the plan is. Furthermore, they evaluate how the marketing efforts impacted sales and revenue for the organization.
Importance of strategic marketing:
There’s a huge difference between marketing and strategic marketing.
Strategic marketing involves a lot of parameters that are focused on getting the right people to work in the right direction.
- Marketing is not about directly selling your brand. It involves a lot of research and required you to take various factors into consideration like the target customers, geography, trends in the market, etc.
- Strategic marketing provides the brand with an edge over its competitors. Customer satisfaction can be an example of an edge.
- Analysis: Strategic marketing helps analyze the available resources an organization has, what strategies the competitors are implementing and accordingly where the organization stands in the present market.
- Communication: Involvement of other departments, apart from marketing, is essential to create an impact. The marketing team should have a vivid idea about what they want to sell, extensive knowledge about the product and must factor in the information provided by the product developers.
- Fixing the Right Price: Once you have a clear idea about the target audience and the features which you will be providing, the next step is to ensure that the pricing of products is appropriate. You have to price the products in such a way which satisfies your target audience that they won’t get a better product at such a similar price. In some cases, the features you are providing at a stated price might be higher than the prices offered by your competitors. . Strategic marketing tries to minimize this difference.
- Distribution Channel: Marketing strategy helps you determine the channel through which you want to sell your products, be it retail stores and/or online. Youth, these days, prefer purchasing online whereas elders prefer purchasing offline from the market. This can help you decide which products should be sold online and which should be sold offline.
Importance of strategic marketing courses:
It is not enough to know about strategic marketing unless you are capable of professionalizing the strategic marketing skills. There should be a well-thought plan of action when it comes to implementation of marketing skills. For imbibing these skills, there are a lot of professional online and offline courses based on strategic marketing.
Such courses are directed at professionals who have successful careers in business and would like to expand their knowledge to include a technical understanding of marketing with strategy. This would give them a competitive edge over their peers and help them enhance their business acumen considerably.
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