Strategic Marketing

Task 1

Strategic marketing is concerned with broad strategic decisions made at corporate and business levels, whilst marketing management focuses on specific strategic decisions for individual products and the daily activities needed to develop the strategies effectively.

Marketing looks outwards: it is firmly focused on what marketing usually refers to as 'customers' and 'consumers'. A primary focus on customers, consumers, clients, or service users is possible, and some would argue desirable, Marketing and marketers stress that the needs and wants of the customer (or similar) should always be paramount.

Strategic marketing involves marketing activities which have an effect on corporate, business and marketing plans. Such activities can be classified into three groups:

- Marketers help direct everyone in an organization towards the interest of customers and markets. They are responsible for assisting the organization to achieve its marketing objectives throughout the entire strategic planning process.

- Marketers help collect and analyze information needed to examine the present situation and evaluate the potential effect of any trends. This provides input for further strategic planning decisions.

- Marketers are involved in the development of all strategic plans. The influence of marketing varies from one organization to another. Organizations that are driven by a marketing philosophy see that marketing plays an important part in strategic decision-making. The trend towards increased strategic planning responsibility further down the organization increases marketing's power in the planning progress.

There are four key concepts that form the techniques necessary to aid strategic planning:

- Segmentation, Positioning Marketing mix & Value chain

Most markets are segmented in some way or another. Any activity classified as a market can embrace numerous groups of customers, the needs of any one group being significantly different from the others. A...