Why should we think marketing strategically?
The short version “to respond to a changing external business environment” Introduction The main reason to think marketing strategically is the competition and the ever changing Business environment.
The market is always in constant flux so in order to gain an edge over our competitor we have to understand them first: there are four levels of competitors we should look out for:- Similar product [same technology and supply chain Same product and same category Similar services ( satisfying the same need ) Same spending power Combine this with the response patterns (relaxed, tiger, selective, unpredictable) we can understand the without the strategy (the game play) we will be lost putting down fires and always on the reacting side in other words one step behind.
Let’s take the information technology specially the major software/services providers (Microsoft, Apple, Google…
etc. ) As an example Usually when deciding the major strategy we can proceed with one of three major strategies differentiation strategy undifferentiating strategy Focused strategy For example, the Windows OS is different marketing mix, Microsoft created six different flavors of the windows each address a target segment with a target spending power in order to reach the maximum number of customer’s base.
This segmentation make the fght on a Huge market and with layers, if they lost on of the six mixes the can react easily with the remaining five and try to recover the six mobile to have a huge market hit, though Microsoft tried to recover the scenario with discounting the product and developing the product for a scratch but still the IPhone is gaining ground over the windows mobile OS. Microsoft is a tiger competitor but it cannot fght off apple product. Mainly not only because of the ease of the use and cost but the iPhone product placement and positioning made it represent a different value to the customer as Modern phone.
We should not also confuse Strategic Thinking with Tactical Acting, strategic thinking is asking the tough question before trying to find a solution , tactical acting is the finding an answer to a question so we can safely say both are needed , we need to place a Strategy with specifics and handed over to tactical implementers in order to implement it .
Marketing is the core f any business, if you failed to market your product you will be faced with a big problem, complaining that with a long term strategy this may lead either to a great success of a massive downfall.
Example Let’s have couple of companies as an example in the information technology world both companies operate in the Egyptian market both companies are similar in size (relatively small). How each of the companies answered the three main Questions 1- Where should we compete? Both companies aimed on small business segments Company (A) Pointed to the niche market of specialized product (Two segment with the same arget customer base). Company (B) Different approaches they divided the market into three Segments. Each segment target a totally different customer base. 2-How should we compete?
