Strategic Marketing Assignment Help

For an organization to come out with flying colours, a lot apart from the business output goes in to achieve strategic objectives. Strategic Marketing is defined as the process of planning for attaining a desired long-run goals in a target market.

This follows the following process of execution. 

The first step is the research.

This involves pondering over the fact of the internal and external environment of business. Situation analysis is another aspect wherein the organization is carefully examined to understand the ceiling, potentials and the capabilities. 

The next step is performing SWOT analysis

SWOT analysis is the abbreviation of Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats. It is an internal analysis of the organization. 

It is about understanding and commanding over the areas where the organization is good at and working on the opportunities to convert it to strength. At the same time, the organization must understand its weaknesses and the threat to the organization which are from the external environment. 

The third step is forecasting and extrapolating the market and sales

There is typically a vast data that lies in the back end of the organization. This can be used as an arsenal to shape the way of doing business and plan for the financial year to come to attain operational and organizational effectiveness. There are two stakeholders namely the market and the sales. The market forecasting is about understanding the characteristics and the trends of the target market. A sales forecast is about planning following the trends, cyclicity and the patterns shown by the target market.

The fourth step is research and designing the strategies

 Of a lot of roadmaps intended to achieve the objectives, the best in compliance and feasibility should be chosen to meet the targets and goals effectively. This involves research and critical evaluation of devising the roadmap to success. This again must align with the policies set in the organization. Strategies include market segmentation and product positioning. 

The final step is the strategic marketing program

The strategic marketing program is the development, organizing, implementing and critically evaluate the marketing activity. The channelisation of efforts in the right direction can result in gaining business in the long run.

It is now necessary to understand the difference between marketing management and strategic management.

The time frame of the strategic marketing is usually long whereas for the marketing management is on day to day basis. The decision making, in general, is bottom-up in strategic marketing. It is top down in marketing management. The market in strategic marketing is continuously changing as compared to marketing management. Strategic management demands a high level of innovation and creativity. Marketing management requires experience and control over operations. The strategic management involves upfront and proactive leadership style whereas in marketing management there is a requirement of reactive leadership style. 

Strategic marketing consists of a wide range of factors namely. 

The position of the company in the market: First and foremost is the market share and the volume of the organization must be analysed for setting strategic marketing in the long run.

The tentative life cycle stage: It is a key to determine the growth of the organization in the long run. The prediction and the methodology is a bit inaccurate though.

The overall economical conditions: The economic conditions must favour the business model for proliferation and growth. It must not be the case where the business model is struggling to find a place in the country. 

For instance, the government of India made its stand clear on the bitcoin to be traded and so it would make no sense, in the long run, to invest in bitcoin and later face a complete ban or lapse in the investment.

Let us now look at the elements of marketing strategy

The first element in marketing strategy is choosing the right market. The second element is determining the distribution channel. This is critical as the consumer will then weigh its option to the competence for the ease of reach and availability. The next and the most important is deciding the price of the offering. Since price will decide the revenue and the profit as well. 

Is we were to explain the strategic marketing, in a nutshell, it is a strategy to achieve competitive positioning, devising a brand strategy, deciding the pricing and the distribution channels. The tools handy in the process of obtaining the strategy are corporate identity, websites, digital marketing, sales tools, vendors selection, recruitment of human capital, customer relationship management, return on investment etc. a check on this would ensure the track of goal achievement. The next step is the customer acquisition. This is possible by planning sales force, project planning, marketing and budgeting. 

The traditional way of planning includes media, publicity, telemarketing, events and program organization. The digital planning comprises using digital strategies such as SEO, SEM, online advertising and marketing on digital platforms, putting into using the social media platforms for marketing and promotions, email marketing and all other direct and indirect marketing sources. 

The last step in the customer acquisition is the management of customer retention, business development, sales management.

Strategic marketing demands continuous improvement in the business operations. This also involves adaptability with the agility. The dynamics of the business are unpredictable. The earlier and with capability the organization overcomes the dynamics, more stable the organization is in the long run. This not only shows the power of the brand but emerge as what is defined as the sustainable organization. 

For instance, Nokia refused to accept the invention of an Android operating system and fell back in the race of securing a place in the mobile industry. It is a hint to the upcoming organization to understand the potential of the future technologies in the business and adapt accordingly. The artificial intelligence is what is the next big thing in the industry. 

An IT company overlooking the fact may fall back in the offerings if the competitors put AI into use. This would only make the organization obsolete in the long run.

To generalise, the companies realising the potential of strategic marketing has come out with flying colours. This has helped them not only to enter the lives of the people and make the place on the shelves but also have created a dependency on the market for business. In a way, we can make a statement that all successful organizations employ strategic marketing but strategic marketing doesn’t necessarily lead to the success of all employees.