Define Marketing Strategy
- Before you can develop a strategy, your organization must decide what message it wants to communicate to a market. This message will form the core of your marketing strategy, which must be designed to most effectively spread this message. Messages can range from the very simple, such as making consumers aware of a Labor Day sale, to the complex, sharing your company's environmental policy with your customers.
- After a message has been selected, the organization should move on to a selection of the medium you will used to transmit the message. For example, a company may wish to place this message in a print ad in a periodical or voice the message in a radio ad. Selecting the appropriate medium depends both on whom the organization wishes to reach and the nature of the message itself.
- After selecting a medium, the company must shape the message into marketing material that can reach consumers. A company wishing to place a message on television would film an ad. The most effective marketers will give thought to how the material can best present the message. For example, a marketer would develop a script for a television ad that presents the best argument for why the product being advertised is good purchase.
- Once the message has been given form, your marketing strategy must deal with how this message will be disseminated to consumers. The company must make decisions regarding where the message will appear -- what channel a TV ad will be aired and at what time -- based on the intended recipient of the message.