Marketing – The Big Picture
A solid market strategy is the key to creating success. Most people know that marketing involves the use of communications tools such as advertising and public relations, but a truly effective market strategy encompasses much more.
The definition of marketing that we like is from the American Marketing Association:
Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objects. Marketing is everything that connects the value that a company creates with its end users or consumers. At Kingsford, developing a market strategy for a client is a step-by-step intensive process which includes:
Situation Analysis
The starting point for most projects is a meeting with company executives during which we do a qualitative assessment of the company, its internal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Just as a professional athlete will play to their strengths (and away from their weaknesses) a company must also work within their capabilities.
Market Research and Analysis
In any situation, you need to understand how large the opportunity for a given product or service might be. When doing market research, it is important to distinguish between existing markets and markets that have yet to be developed (addressable markets). In some cases a very large market may attract too many large competitors – better to swim in a small pond than be shark food in a large pond (the big pond can wait).
Competitive Analysis
Another aspect of a market strategy is finding what kind of competitive forces may be at work in the desired markets. "Competition" must include not only direct competition, but also alternative solutions to the problem our client is trying to solve. In some cases the biggest form of ‘competition' is inertia or fear of change.
Failing to recognize and confront this can be fatal. Another frequent form of hidden competition is the DIY approach.
Buyer Behaviour
Once a market has been focused upon, we develop a profile of target clients to try and understand what factors would influence how a company would go about buying the particular product or service in question. This process is very important in developing a customer engagement strategy.
Positioning
Typically in a workshop environment, we work with the client to develop a unique Positioning Statement. A Positioning Statement explains an organization's business focus, taking into account all factors including skills, resources, competitive forces, stakeholder needs and official mandates. It will define the target market, what problem we are addressing for them, what category of product or service is being offered, what we see as competition and what our unique selling proposition is.
Once the analysis phase is complete, we can start to move to action plans. These include:
Sales Channel Plan
The channel is simply the way in which the value the company creates is transferred to the customer. The type of customer being targeted, how they buy, where they are located and a host of other factors will determine what type of sales channels will be required. Once defined, a channels support process must be created in order to establish and keep the channels operating effectively. The rapid adoption of the Internet as a marketing channel is causing many changes in the channels. Channel conflict and territory management can become complicated.
Communications Plan
The communications strategy is the lubricant that makes the channel work effectively. It should create awareness within the target market, establish the company's credibility and support the customer engagement and recruitment process. In public firms there is also a related function of Investor Relations which effectively markets the company's equity to investors. These two functions need to be well coordinated to avoid sending mixed messages into the market. In most markets the aggressive use of public relations activities can provide excellent returns.
A sound market strategy would encompass all of these elements. Some firms choose to use internal resources for all these elements, some outsource the entire process. Still others will use outside resources to test certain market assumptions, develop buyer behaviour profiles, elaborate a Market Communications strategy or some other subset of the Marketing strategy.
Published in September 2007.
Questions and Answers
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