Marketing strategy
Strategy and planning
Strategy and planning
A marketing strategy is the choice of who you want to reach, with what offer, and why people would pick you. The plan with channels and actions follows from that, not the other way round.
A usable strategy answers four questions: who are we for, which problem do we solve, why us instead of a competitor, and where can those people be reached. As long as those answers stay vague, every channel choice is a guess.
Strategy is mostly choosing what not to do. Serving two segments well almost always beats serving six halfway. The same goes for channels: two you build seriously beat six you switch on and forget.
A strategy is not a document for the drawer. Write down what you expect, check quarterly what the numbers say and adjust where the assumption was wrong. Without that feedback you cannot tell strategy from luck.
Tip
Start by choosing your audience, offer and differentiation, and let channels follow from that. 'We'll do more on LinkedIn' then becomes a concrete action instead of the whole strategy.
Related terms
- Marketing planA marketing plan sets out your audience, the result you want, the channels and the budget — and how you measure whether it works.
- PositioningPositioning is the place you occupy in your audience's mind: who you're for, how you differ, and why that difference matters.
- Target audienceYour target audience is the group of people or companies you want to reach, described by characteristics, situation and buying behaviour.
- Marketing mixThe marketing mix is the classic set of choices around your offer: product, price, place and promotion — for services extended with people, process and physical evidence.
- Value propositionA value proposition is the promise in one or two sentences: who you're for, which problem you solve and why you're credible at it.