Strategic Marketing Process

Strategic marketing can be defined as “identification of one or more sustainable competitive advantages a firm has in the markets it serves (or intends to serve), and allocation of resources to exploit them” (Business Dictionary, 2012).

As opposed to short-term view on marketing, strategic marketing calls for a structured and strategic approach in formation of marketing objectives, as well as, selection and implementation of marketing techniques and communication channels in order to achieve these objectives (Avasarikar and Chordiya, 2007).

Practical benefits offered by strategic marketing include searching and identifying competitive edge for the business, easily clarifying long-term and short-term marketing objectives, obtaining guidance for operational decisions, and gainig a strong sense of the purpose for the company (Egan and Thomas, 2012).

Strategic marketing process is divided by Cant et al. (2009) into three steps: planning, implementation, and evaluation.

The planning step in strategic marketing process involve such activities as analysing current situation, setting specific goals, and formulating strategies that would assist in achieving these goals. Importantly, analysis of current situation in the marketplace should be undertaken with the primary aim of identifying gap in the market and sources of competitive edge for the firm.

During the implementation step the chosen strategy is implemented on a practical level and all of the necessary financial and human resources are secured and attracted for this purpose. Unforeseen circumstances may occur during strategy implementation step that can create substantial challenges for management (Burrow, 2008). These difficulties may result due to the changes in the marketplace or inefficiencies associated with the formulating of the marketing strategy.

The last step, evaluation deals with analysing the outcome of strategy implementation and comparing results against goals that have been set during the planning step. One of the main objectives at this stage can be specified as identifying shortcomings and mistakes that took place during strategy formulation and implementation, and ensuring necessary provisions that eliminates their occurrences in the future.

 References 

Avasarikar, P. & Chordiya, S.B. (2007) “Marketing Research” Nirali Prakashan

Burrow, JL. (2008) “Marketing”  Cengage Learning

Cant, M.C., Strydom, J.W. & Jooste, C.J. (2009) “Marketing Management” Juta Publications

Egan, C. & Thomas, M. (2012) “CIM Handbook of Strategic Marketing” CRC Press

Strategic Marketing (2012) Business Dictionary, Available at: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/strategic-marketing.html