Marketing strategies - Definition and Overview

Strategy is the crafting of plans to reach goals. Marketing strategies are those plans designed to reach marketing goals. A good marketing strategy should integrate an organization’s marketing goals, policies, and action sequences (tactics) into a cohesive whole. The objective of a marketing strategy is to put the organization into a position to carry out its mission effectively and efficiently.

Marketing strategies are partially derived from broader corporate strategies, corporate missions, and corporate goals. They are also influenced by a range of microenvironmental factors.

Marketing strategies are dynamic and interactive. They are partially planned and partially unplanned. See strategy dynamics.

Types of Marketing Strategies

Every marketing strategy is unique, but if we abstract from the individualizing details, each can be reduced into a generic marketing strategy. There are a number of ways of categorizing these generic strategies. A brief description of the most common categorizing schemes is presented below. For a more detailed explanation, follow the links.

• Strategies based on market dominance - In this scheme, firms are classified based on their market share or dominance of an industry. Typically there are four types of market dominance strategies:
  • leader
  • challenger
  • follower
  • nicher

• Porter generic strategies - Michael Porter assessed strategy on the dimensions of strategic scope and strategic strength. Strategic scope refers to the breadth of market penetration while strategic strength refers to the firm’s sustainable competitive advantage. He felt three types were important:
  • cost leadership
  • product differentiation
  • market segmentation

• Innovation strategies - This deals with the firm’s rate of new product development and business model innovation. It asks whether the company is on the cutting edge of technology and business innovation. There are three types:
  • pioneers
  • close followers
  • late followers

• Growth strategies - In this scheme we ask the question, “How should the firm grow?”. There are a number of different ways of answering that question, but the most common gives four answers:
  • horizontal integration
  • vertical integration
  • diversification (or conglomeration)
  • intensification

• Aggressiveness strategies - This asks whether a firm should grow or not, and if so, how fast. One scheme divides strategies into:
  • building
  • holding
  • harvesting

A more detailed schemes uses the categories:

• prospector
• analyzer
• defender
• reactor

• Warfare based strategies - This scheme draws parallels between marketing strategies and military strategies. There are many types of marketing warfare strategies, but they can be grouped into:
  • offensive marketing warfare strategies
  • defensive marketing warfare strategies
  • flanking marketing warfare strategies
  • guerrilla marketing warfare strategies

See Also:

• marketing
• marketing plan
• strategic planning
• strategic management
• business model
• strategy dynamics

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