Marketing Strategy summary

In marketing, gaining a competitive advantage is one of your major quests. This is where the first element of the STRATEGY framework comes in: the Scenario. This is where you take stock of both the internal and external environments within which your business stands. 

When it comes to understanding the internal dynamics of your business, a handy tool is the SWOT model. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. What does your company do best, and where could it improve? What opportunities could you capitalize on? Or what kinds of threats –⁠ such as an increase in competition –⁠ could affect the company’s success? By analyzing each of these elements, you get a clear picture of the factors that could influence your strategic direction.

Next up in our journey through the STRATEGY framework is setting Targets. This is the stage at which you define your objectives. A good objective serves as a yardstick for success or failure, providing clarity and focus for your team and stakeholders alike. 

To craft effective objectives, the SCALE framework provides invaluable guidance. This nifty acronym breaks down the core attributes that every objective should possess: Strategic, Considered, Audience, Lift, and End.

Getting to know your customers is a critical step in the STRATEGY framework –⁠ the Reach stage. The better you know them, the better you can tailor your products and services to their needs, leading to increased conversions. 

One way to acquire a deep understanding of your customers is through ethical data collection. Options include questionnaires and preference centers, which offer transparent and respectful ways to gather data. Coupling this with market research, like focus groups, interviews, and surveys, or secondary data like trend reports and sales data, can provide comprehensive insights into your customers.

Now that we've understood our customers, we move on to the Awareness step in the STRATEGY framework. Here, we focus on driving a response, reaching our audience, and positioning our message accurately. 

One way to ensure that your marketing strategy is balanced is to use the marketing mix, otherwise called the 7Ps. These are Product, Place, Price, Promotion, People, Process, and Physical Evidence.

As we move along our STRATEGY framework, we arrive at a pivotal point –⁠ determining which tactics to deploy to reach your target audience. At this stage, it’s crucial to align your tactics with the values of each segment in your audience. This will ensure maximum resonance and engagement with your messaging.

First, it’s important to recall the difference between a marketing channel and a tactic. A marketing channel is a path you choose to promote your product or service, such as social media, email marketing, or TV advertisements. A tactic, on the other hand, is how you use this chosen channel.

Delving into the next part of the STRATEGY framework, we now focus on the who, what, and when of implementing your all-encompassing marketing strategy. It’s about meticulously planning out the resources, budget, timing, and the approach to measuring your KPIs. 

A crucial element to remember during this phase is consistency. If your messaging oscillates in tone or style, it can confuse your audience, causing a misfire in your marketing efforts. For example, a lack of a clear target demographic in the marketing messages of Marks & Spencer clothing resulted in confusion and underperformance.

At the Generate phase of our STRATEGY framework, you’re now assessing whether you’re on the right path to your set objectives. This is the time to get constructive feedback, explore your results, and ascertain the responses you’ve received. 

It’s vital to gather data from multiple channels. For instance, website analytics could be a gold mine of information. Or you can track visits to exclusive URLs that people can only access if they’ve interacted with your offline marketing.

The finale of the STRATEGY framework, the Yield phase, is all about analyzing outcomes and learning for the future. The endgame of any well-crafted marketing strategy is to evaluate whether the set objectives were achieved and by what margin. To figure this out, consider KPIs and year-on-year (YOY) results, both crucial metrics that will help you understand what worked, what didn’t, and why.

Consider the example of British Gas. In 2013, the company invited its Twitter followers to ask questions of its customer services director about a recent 9.2 percent price rise. But the campaign was not well-received. Within a short time, the company was bombarded by tweets, with customers publicly expressing their outrage. The episode proved to be a PR disaster. By failing to analyze its audience’s past reactions to similar price hikes, British Gas also failed to anticipate the public outcry.