Strategic marketing is a method which will help an organisation to focus its limited financial resources on the most lucrative opportunities to expand sales and thereby reach a sustainable competitive edge. By contrast, a traditional marketing campaign, by definition, attempts to reach the mass market in the hopes of capturing some share of the market for your organisation. It therefore makes sense to utilise a relatively inexpensive but effective marketing plan to make the most of the limited financial resources you have.
The planning phase of strategic marketing involves the collection of data and information necessary to formulate a marketing mix strategy. In the planning phase, strategic marketing decisions are made based on the available information. At this stage, strategies are also developed to overcome obstacles such as market structure, competition and consumer behaviour. Once the planning phase is completed, it is time to execute the marketing mix strategy and measure the results of this effort.
If an organisation adopts an integrated strategic marketing approach, then it is likely to enjoy a marked improvement in customer satisfaction and a corresponding rise in sales performance. This is because a well-researched marketing strategy offers the customers what they want – a better service and a better product at a better price. However, implementing such an approach requires a significant amount of time and money. A better option is to use a case study methodology which brings together the accumulated data from many marketing efforts and synthesises the key findings into a single integrated strategy.