Finding The Right Marketing Strategy                                           Home

For a time Marketing Strategy was sidelined by companies large and small. The three primary reasons were:

•  A focus on short term results and even survival

•  Displacement by fads and techniques like one-to-one

•  A focus on doing things better rather than doing different things or doing things differently

Now Marketing Strategy is right back in focus and companies are giving it the resources and consideration it deserves.

The main question I am asked to address by businesses that I work with is if they have found the right strategy. In general, the answer to the problem is not just about their current strategic approach, but about how can they increase their ability to craft strategy. If they can improve this ability, they will be able to respond whatever the market throws at them in the future.

In order to think about what constitutes a good marketing strategy, it is worth considering why poor ones are created.

1   Plans not done by people on the ground

In every organisation I have worked in, everyone is a marketing expert and they all love to be involved. This usually means that planning is done by a central group of senior people and not by those who are in contact with customers daily and who are running campaigns week in and week out. The traditional antipathy between marketing and sales further exacerbates this problem. As well as the emotions involved, the fact that they speak totally different languages means that a meaningful dialogue rarely exists. The challenge for the marketing leadership is to keep those furthest from the customer, furthest from the plan. They must also provide a climate where there is enough dialogue with sales to make the most of their market intelligence.

2   Plans are inflexible

Obviously the future does change, whether it is market conditions, or competitor activity, or new entrants. The marketing plan must be seen as a live set of decisions which is regularly reviewed based on both sales performance and in the light of changes in the market. The plan must have contingencies for the key impacts that are likely in any market. An important part of learning strategy craft is the attaining the ability to anticipate the more important changes by looking at trends and seeing where the fault lines lie. It is also in being able to commit fully to a marketing strategy and also bear in mind the changes that might be necessary should an important event occur. Adequate scenario planning and regular reviews are the key processes to flexible plans, However they will come to nothing if the people involved don't have the right abilities.

3   The plan is a once-off event

At it's worst a plan is produced an lies on a shelf while everyone gets on with things. Just slightly better is the case where planning is not an iterative process. Mistakes mad in the past are repeated every year. For example, if a company is weak in sales forecasting. It plans, then runs campaigns. Sales fall short of forecast so activities are modified to make up the shortfall. But the plan is not modified and the weakness in forecasting is not addressed. Next period the same problem will occur and effort will be again diverted to fix the symptom and not the disease.

4   Good strategy, poor execution

Strategies need tactics and those tactics need to be innovative and well planned and executed. Common failings here are to underestimate the amount of communication needed to get an organisation behind a plan, and a failure to integrate the plan tactics into the evaluation and compensation process for frontline staff. Communication is time-consuming in larger business and needs real effort. This is especially true if there is a large cultural gap between departments, for example sales and marketing. It is even worse if you work in an organisation with a matrix structure, where there are usually more political agendas than people. Make sure that people on the ground know what their part in the plan is. Even better, tie it to their compensation package if you really want to set their pulses racing.

5    Critically evaluate your plan

Groupthink can sometimes mean that important factors are excluded from your thinking. It is good to build in a process for someone who has not been part of the plan to critically evaluate what you propose.

6     Be clear about what you will, and will not do

If your new strategy means changes for the organisation, be sure to allocate enough resources to carry it through. Be unremittingly clear about what the changes mean for the organisation. Clarify both what you will do in the future and also what you will stop doing. If you don't the organisation will carry on with old ways and resources for your new tactics will compromised. Even if you are clear there will be some momentum behind the old approach, so err on the side of repetition.

If these rules are followed, the right marketing strategy will quickly emerge and moreover the organisation will have learnt the 'how to do' as well as the 'what to do' of marketing strategy.

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