Marketing Strategy-Analysis of Industry and Competition, Strategic Planning Process

Marketing strategy is the goal of increasing sales and achieving a sustainable competitive
advantage.
An organization's strategy that combines all of its marketing goals into
one comprehensive plan. A good marketing strategy should be drawn from market
research and focus on the right product mix in order to achieve the maximum profit
potential and sustain the business. The marketing strategy is the foundation of a marketing
plan.

What is Marketing Strategy?

Marketing strategy is essentially a pattern or plan that integrates your organization's major goals,
policies, and action sequences in a cohesive whole.
Marketing strategies are generally concerned with four Ps: product strategies, pricing strategies,
promotional strategies, and placement strategies.
The focus of marketing strategies must the objectives to be achieved not the process of planning
itself.
Strategic planning is essential for organizational success. In this lesson, you'll learn about strategic planning,
including the steps in the process. A short quiz is provided after the lesson.

Definition Of The Strategic Planning Process

Strategic planning is a process undertaken by an organization to develop a plan for achievement of its overall
long-term organizational goals.

Model
There is no one model of strategic planning. However, the strategic planning process should include asituational
analysis. This consists of looking at the current external and internal environment the organization finds itself in,
formulating organizational objectives and strategies based upon the environmental assessment, and developing
procedures to implement and evaluate the strategic plan. Strategic plans for business organizations often cover a
three to five year period, but if the business or its environment is highly dynamic, a shorter period may be
advisable.

Strategic Planning Steps

Here are the main steps for strategic planning.
1. Analysis of the current state
Here, you analyze your organization's external and internal environment. You may conduct a SWOT analysis,
which is an examination of your organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You will also
carefully examine the specific external environmental factors, such as your rivals, the power of your suppliers, the
power your buyers or customers have, whether there is a viable threat that major clients or customers can
effectively substitute your product or service, and whether there are any barriers to entry into a new market.
2. Defining the future state
Here, you will develop an organizational vision and a mission statement that describes the future of your
organization - where it wants to be, its essential values, and what it wants do. After you have defined the
organization's vision and mission, you can begin to formulate a detailed strategy to achieve them.
3. Determination of objectives and strategies

Now that you have defined the organization's vision and mission, you can develop a set of objectives that will lead
you to the overall strategic goal or vision. For an example, an objective may be to increase market share year-overyear by at least five percent. Think of achieved objectives as building blocks in constructing your goal or vision.
4. Implementation and evaluation
The next step is to implement and evaluate the plan. Implementation in large organizations, such as governmental
agencies or large corporations, will be done by a different set of organizational members than the members that
created the plan. Different parts of the plan are typically distributed to various parts of the organization. You will
also need to constantly monitor and assess the implementation of the plan to determine if the plan is achieving the
objectives leading to the strategic goal. If not, then adjustments to the long-term strategy will be necessary.