INVESTING INVESTING STRATEGY

Marketing Strategy
REVIEWED BY JAMES CHEN | Updated Mar 16, 2018

What is a Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy is a business's overall game plan for reaching people and turning them
into customers of the product or service that the business provides. The marketing strategy of a
company contains the company’s value proposition, key marketing messages, information on
the target customer and other high-level elements.

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The marketing strategy informs the marketing plan, which is a document that lays out the types
and timing of marketing activities. A company’s marketing strategy should have a longer
lifespan than any individual marketing plan as the strategy is where the value proposition and
the key elements of a company’s brand reside. These things ideally do not shift very much over
time.
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BREAKING DOWN Marketing Strategy

Marketing strategies are often confused with marketing plans. Because they do feed off one
another, it is not unusual to find the marketing strategy and the marketing plan baked together
into a single document. Although the transition between the two is blurry, a marketing strategy
covers the big picture of what the business offers: the value proposition and related brand
messaging. The marketing plan is how the business will get across the key message: the
platforms, the creative, the timing and so on. The marketing strategy may also be absorbed
upwards into the corporate value statements and other strategy documents.

The Creation of a Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy grows out of a company’s value proposition. The value proposition
summarizes the competitive advantage a company has in its market. The value proposition
usually provides the key message for all marketing. Walmart, for example, is a discount retailer
with “everyday low prices,” and its business operations and marketing revolve around that.
A company is never creating a marketing strategy from scratch. They start with the value
proposition and distill the key marketing message(s) from that.

Once the value proposition is succinctly stated, the hard work is done. Any marketing asset,
from a print ad design to a social media campaign, can be judged by how well it communicates
the value proposition. To further the efficiency of marketing efforts, market research can be
added to the marketing strategy for the purpose of identifying untapped audiences or refining
the target consumer. Finally, an overall goal for the marketing strategy can be set, with all the
subsequent marketing plans inheriting the responsibility for delivering on it. These can be
concrete, bottom-line goals such as increasing sales or something less direct like climbing the
ranking of trusted providers within the industry.   

Marketing plans are operational documents that get more attention because they are the day-
to-day work that a company does to sell itself to the world. That said, a marketing plan would
be meaningless without a message, a target market and a goal — the core of every marketing
strategy. 

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Related Terms
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A marketing plan is a business's operational document outlining the strategy for outreach and advertising
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