The Impact of strategy on marketing

July 2015

www.STOconsulting.co.uk

@STOconsult

If you own a small business, or you are a business leader, then, like it or not, the marketing is your

responsibility.

What is ‘strategy’?

Strategy is often, wrongly, defined as if it is nothing more than a plan, or worse, a technique.

In fact, it is the thing that determines how a business will

create value over the long term.

Your business has only one strategy – whether you have formally acknowledged this or not.

In many cases, businesses need a strategy much more than they need a business plan.

You cannot define strategy by linking it to specific, pre-determined operations or activities; otherwise it is not a strategy. It is a plan. There are as many

strategies as there are companies.

Why is strategy so important?

Why is strategy so important?

The quality of a product or service is nowhere near the most important factor determining success or failure in

business. What really matters is matching what you do to external needs in a form that customers are prepared to

pay for.

Why is strategy worth investing in?

Marketing strategy is holistic and reason based, not driven by creative, process or

numbers.

It therefore produces better answers to any business problem.

Reduces risk

Improves speed to market

Eliminates wasted effort

Allows your business to stand out

Plus, strategy:

So what does building a strategy mean for your business?

It avoids duplication of work

It gives you a foundation that, (if done right) will ensure your success

It allows you to assess the feasibility in a way that is not possible with vaguer ideas

Marketing does not begin with a product or service; it begins from seeking to respond to

market needs that we can best meet, and then sets about finding ways of doing so.

That’s what strategy lets you do.

Strategy, tactics and operations should be considered in that order; with strategy being the means of achieving objectives, and the

tactics and the operations flowing from this.

‘If you are in business; you are in marketing’. A rare thing this – a cliché

that actually has some value.

Graeme Jordan

www.STOconsulting.co.uk

Graeme@STOconsulting.co.uk

Linkedin Graeme Jordan

STO Consulting LtdClavering HouseClavering PlaceNewcastle Upon TyneNE1 3NG @STOconsult