The Delicate Dance Between Strategic Planning & Marketing Strategies

All businesses need strategies and plans to build the brand and drive growth. There are various strategies and plans that apply to different aspects of an organization.

Strategic planning is a comprehensive process that defines the overall business goals. Besides specific goals for growth, it may include employee talent development, productivity targets, and sustainability objectives. 

Your marketing strategy will drive your marketing plans to reach the objectives outlined in the overall strategic plan. Before releasing content, marketers should define the marketing strategy and then use it to develop detailed marketing plans and initiatives. 

What Is a Strategic Plan and a Marketing Strategy?

Strategic planning is intended to create a game plan or roadmap for an organization, its divisions, and departments to attain specified goals and objectives. Strategic planning identifies internal and external threats and opportunities to consider while developing initiatives and targets. 

Developing a strategic plan involves gathering stakeholders to evaluate data about the internal and external environments. Conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, setting business goals, formulating initiatives, and defining metrics are all components of the strategic planning process. 

On the other hand, your marketing strategy is more specific to the products and services you sell. What you’ll be offering, who you will sell it to, how you’ll deliver it, the pricing, and how your marketing efforts will help you reach your company’s strategic goals. Defining these elements is essential to develop detailed and effective marketing plans.

The strategic plan defines targets and objectives for the entire organization, including operations, human resources, product development, and sales. In contrast, a marketing strategy outlines initiatives to meet the organization’s sales objectives as defined in the strategic plan.   

What Is a Marketing Plan?

A marketing plan is derived from the marketing strategy. It outlines the specific marketing activities that will be performed to achieve marketing strategy objectives in the forthcoming year. In addition, it describes how you will reach the product’s target market, detailed pricing models, and promotional activities that will be carried out.

Typically, a marketing plan will include the following components:

• Company’s marketing objectives: The initiatives in the marketing plan should help the company reach its marketing objectives. It’s essential to connect the dots to ensure that all of your marketing planning ties to company goals.
• Business marketing positioning: An examination of the organization’s present situation in terms of the market position compared to where you want to be.
• Market research: It entails conducting an extensive study on current market trends, client demands, industry sales volumes, and anticipated direction.
• Business’s target market: Demographics of the business’s target market
• Marketing mix: The four Ps of marketing are product, price, promotion, and place. These elements define how you will persuade buyers to buy your product. 
• Marketing activities: A list of specific marketing tactics and messaging that will be performed over the time period to reach marketing goals.

Some marketing KPIs (key performance indicators) and metrics that should be taken into account when doing a marketing plan are:

• Competition: Determine the organization’s rivals. Evaluate methods and measures for countering competition and gaining market share.
• Marketing budget: It’s critical to know the financial resources allocated to the marketing budget and detail how it will be spent. All marketing efforts must be completed within budget.
• Monitoring and performance mechanisms: A strategy should be in place to determine whether the marketing tools are producing the expected results or need to be updated to achieve business goals.

What Are the Four Types of Marketing Strategies?

Four marketing strategies describe the main types of marketing programs and the accompanying investments and activities. The strategies are differentiated by emphasizing new or current items and new or existing markets.

1. Market Penetration Strategy

A market penetration strategy is pursued by a company that concentrates on marketing its present items to existing clients. Marketing actions focus on improving current consumers’ loyalty so that they are not vulnerable to losing to rivals. They also attempt to entice new customers and increase product usage.

In this plan, typical marketing efforts raise awareness through marketing communications and other marketing collateral. In addition, identifying new use occasions and applications for a product may improve use frequency or convert current nonusers to users.

1. Strategy for Market Development

Market development strategy refers to increasing sales by selling current products in new markets and entering new geographic markets, such as overseas markets. Critical marketing operations include raising product awareness and expanding distribution channels. In addition, you may require some product modifications to meet the local market’s needs better.

1. Strategy for Product Development

This is a strategy in which your organization prepares and creates new items or updates old ones. Due to the requirement to develop differentiators to keep a competitive advantage, it’s a common technique in SaaS.

A successful product development plan comprises market research, envisioning, creating, testing, releasing, and marketing to eager customers where there is a current or rising need for a solution.

1. Strategy of Diversification

Diversification refers to creating marketing campaigns of new items into a new target audience or previously untapped markets. In some ways, it is the start-up of a new company. New products and new markets can be risky but can also yield the highest returns if successful.

Interrupt Media Is Your Partner for Strategic Planning and Marketing Strategy

There are endless options for companies when it comes to designing marketing strategies and plans. Ensuring that your strategic plan, marketing strategy, and marketing plan are aligned is essential to help your business grow.

Interrupt Media is a digital marketing agency that provides various services, including strategic planning and marketing strategy. We will help you assess your goals, benchmark your existing performance, and execute a marketing strategy with ease.

Contact us to help you create the marketing strategy that boosts your business.

Topics: B2B Marketing, Digital Marketing