What Is a Marketing Strategy Statement?

Before it can effectively market its products, a firm needs to identify not only where it hopes to go --- in terms of revenue, profits or other goals --- but also how it intends to get there. This planned route to success is called a marketing strategy, and it consists of at least five interrelated tactical components. The marketing strategy statement describes and explains each of these elements, known as the marketing mix.

Significance

• A marketing strategy statement captures the firm's strategic decisions in a document that can be shared among managers, stored for future reference and revised as conditions change. Without it, the firm is at risk of repeating past mistakes and/or missing new opportunities. Additionally, it's the basis for tactical decision-making in the key areas of market segmentation, product management, promotion, price and distribution.

Features

• A marketing strategy statement begins by identifying a market target. The target may be selected based on personal characteristics, such as age or sex, or by distinctive lifestyles, such as partygoers or frequent travelers. The statement also encompasses the firm's choices for how to manage its product, use promotional tools, set prices and create a distribution network. For example, a marketing strategy statement for a brand of breakfast cereal targeted to children might call for a brightly decorated package, advertising during cartoon shows, prices affordable to young families and availability in all major supermarkets.

Benefits

• Identifying a target consumer group in a marketing strategy statement is as important as choosing the destination of a trip. It allows managers to pinpoint exactly which potential buyers will be the focus of its expenditures and message. From a tactical perspective, the marketing strategy statement benefits the firm by encouraging decisions that are consistent and integrated across the marketing mix elements: product, promotion, price and distribution. For example, by articulating a commitment to a low price, the document would dissuade product designers from choosing unusually expensive materials.

Types

• Marketing strategy statements can be developed for products, services, consumer goods and business-to-business offerings. The overall significance, features and benefits remain largely the same in each of these applications, but there are tactical differences. For example, because publicity works well in service marketing, a strategy statement for a health-care provider or legal firm would be likely to include this promotion technique. For a business-to-business marketer, the distribution channels identified in the statement would tend to be industry-specific.

Considerations

• A marketing strategy statement is only as good as the decisions it documents and the actions it recommends. Moreover, the firm's managers must be open to ongoing evaluation and revision. The emergence of a new competitor in the breakfast cereal market, for instance, could require the maker of a children's brand to shift its target market to adults. In turn, this change would call for a revised promotional effort, perhaps focused on magazine advertising. The box would need to be redesigned, and the price might be scaled upward in keeping with a more sophisticated look.