Marketing Strategy: How It Fits with Business Strategy

Strategy is a way to plan for and control resources in a business in order to achieve certain
goals and objectives, and deliver its own mix of value, different from others. This difference needs
to be something that other consumers value. In summary, strategy is a plan that helps a business
gain a competitive advantage over other businesses focusing on the means to get to that point.
Strategies encompass the entirety of a business, from top to bottom and define the success of an
organization.
There is a process involved in the creation of a strategy, which is based on the mission
statement of the company. Using the mission as a base, management set goals which are used to
plan activities and measure progress. These goals should be informed by both the external business
and the market environment, and the internal competencies of the company. Goals are then used
to define tactics for implementation, and metrics are established in order to measure performance.
Marketing helps businesses find out competitive threats, profitable opportunities, areas of
growth, maturity, and decline, customer needs, and ideas for distribution and pricing. This is
because every business function needs to be aligned with the higher-level strategy of the
organization, and thus they must take part in the strategic planning as well as providing plans and
tactics, at the corporate, business unit and product line levels. At the corporate level, marketing
communicates the overall message of the company to its customers. At the product line level,
marketers need to think tactically about how it needs to get customers to choose their offering.
The marketing strategy is also responsible for determining the target market of a company
or a product line, the positioning of that product, and the branding of the product in relation to its
positioning. This means having a strong understanding of external forces such as demographics,
market size, consumer perceptions of the product, and estimates of demand and sales of the product.
The product life cycle is another concept closely related to marketing strategy. The marketplace
generally changes over time based on the age of a product. There are four phases in this life cycle,
which all present different challenges to marketers in terms of generating sales.
Typically, a product life cycle comprises of these four phases:
1. Introduction—the product takes on losses, and has few competitors especially in new
markets, and the main role of the marketer is to make customers aware of something that
is new and unfamiliar to them and educate them as to the benefits of the new product or
category.
2. Growth—some products will see exponential revenue growth, ending the period where the
company is taking on losses. However, the company may still not be profitable as such
immediately, as most of this revenue needs to go back into reinvestment for scaling up
operations, improving processes, and brand building. Brand building becomes the main
function of the marketer at this stage.
3. Maturity—growth slows to almost flat unit sales growth, and it turns into a buyer’s market.
There is heavy competition in this phase, which can lead to declining profit margins. One
of the techniques by which companies deal with this lowered growth rate is by using
product revitalization strategies. These include new technological features, for example,
built-in GPS in cars, or suggestions for new uses of old products. Marketing needs to
understand what features customers will value and pay for, and then plan out how to
communicate these new features to them. It is important however not to overvalue these
differentiating features as often consumers pay less attention to them than marketers do.
Sometimes customers may prefer simpler choices.
 4. Decline—this is when sales begin to fall because of various factors such as technological
obsolescence or changing behavior of consumers. Marketers may need to choose to divest
themselves of these products, find new markets for them, or find new uses for them to gain
as much profit as possible in the short-term.
The Product Life Cycle does not apply to every type of product however, it is a useful
framework for anticipating future challenges for a product as it moves through the lifecycle.

Building Your Company’s Vision

Successful companies are built by not compromising on core values and a core purpose,
which is guided by their vision. This allows them to innovate while maintaining a sense of
continuity. A properly thought-out vision has two major components, a core ideology and an
envisioned future. The core ideology defines why the company exists, and is unchanging, while
the envisioned future maps out the company’s aspirations, and inherently requires change and
progress.
A core ideology is an identity that remains the same regardless of product life cycles,
technology, environmental changes, or leadership changes. The world will continue to constantly
change, so having a core set of values or ethics is important as a guiding light for the company. A
core ideology must be authentic and come from the emotional core of the business, rather than the
intellectual. At the same time, the ideology need not inspire outsiders as long as employees buy
into it.
A core ideology comprises of two parts:
1. Core Values
These are essential tenets or guiding principles that do not require any further justification
because they inherently possess value to the organization. An example of this is providing
product excellence. There is no such thing as a “correct” set of core values but a company
needs to have them. Most companies do not have more than three or four core values that
remain unchanged even over long periods of time. The people in charge of defining these
core values thus need to be individuals with a high degree of credibility in the company,
who truly understand what lies at the heart of the company. However, core values are
distinct from strategies because these core values should not change, and strategies must
change constantly in response to internal and external factors.
2. Core Purpose
This gives the company a reason for existing, reflecting an idealistic motivation behind the
company. Rather than looking at output or customers, it tries to capture an intangible,
unreachable goal that continues to inspire the organization. Drilling down to the core
purpose requires asking why the company’s products are important and create value. By
doing this it also allows companies to bring more meaning into why they do things, beyond
the financials of the company.
Core ideologies should also not be confused with core-ideology statements, as the formalization
of a core ideology into words is not necessary for it to exist. Similarly, it should not be confused
with core competences, which are strategic in nature.
The envisioned future is the second part of this vision framework. It consists of a 10-30
year audacious goal, and a vivid description of what achieving that goal will be like. This BHAG
or Big Hairy Audacious Goal stimulates progress because it symbolizes a massive challenge for
the organization. It can serve as a tangible motivator for the company. A vision-level BHAG
requires years to complete and needs the company to think far beyond the company’s current
capabilities. There are four broad BHAG categories: target BHAGs, common-enemy BHAGs,
role-model BHAGS, and internal transformation BHAGs.
BHAGs need vivid description to help people visualize a future with that BHAG. This
tangibalizes the goal using emotions and conviction to inspire employees. However, BHAGS
should not be confused with the core purpose, as it is a clearly defined goal, while purposes are
not completeable by definition. Ultimately, a BHAG requires a lot of confidence and commitment
to achieve, but they are regardless achievable. Visionary companies tend to achieve their BHAGs
through building up their organization by trying a lot of things on the way.
One pitfall that needs to be avoided is “We’ve Arrived Syndrome” which happens when a
company achieves a BHAG but fails to replace it with another, which has happened with major
organizations such as NASA or Ford. This means the company loses momentum, and needs to find
another motivational spark.
Ultimately, the vision is based around one simple dynamic, which is protecting the core of
the business while continuing to progress, and this is done through an alignment of the business
through every level of the company, using the vision as a context. That is what differentiates
visionary companies from other companies.