Marketing Strategy – how does it get impacted by other factors

In a competitive market, the focus for a product company is mostly on improving the sales and retain or gain market share in a specified period of time. There are factors within and outside of the company that impact the marketing strategy of a company. The leadership of a business firm attempts to build a strategy that addresses all the components of marketing – branding, communication, channels, promotion and pricing but it is not always a comprehensive approach that stays for a longer period of product life cycle.

A stand alone strategy for marketing is not sustainable or expandable unless that strategy encompasses the elements of R&D, People, Finance, Supply Chain, Information Technology and Customer feedback to deploy a holistic approach to increase the sales. Such an approach is easier to manage at a granular level and take a course correction if the desired outcome is not seen. It is the responsibility of a CEO or a Strategy Officer to put together a team of leaders managing the individual functions to evolve a strategy that has the least impact to these individual functions besides evaluating the macro environmental, economic and social factors. Some examples are:

– A higher output from the shop floor involves managing the supply chain challenges

– An increase in no of channel partners involves keeping enough quantities on the shelf at their warehouses or at retailers’ outlets.

– An additional feature on the product involves efforts of R&D function but also the redesigning the machine tools on the shop floor besides the cost impact on the final price.

-An in-depth analysis of which market segments are performing well and which are the ones lagging behind, using IT tools, helps to re-align the methods of campaign and reach the target customer segments.

– Social, Political and Economic environments have impact on how a strategy needs to be developed and executed for increased sale of the product.

– The capability of the organization is put to test in terms of its people aligning with the execution of marketing strategy. Culture of the organization, skills of its staff and the technological / manufacturing expertise.

– A product has its own life cycle but the strategy changes based on the stage of the product in that cycle. Strategy during the growth and declining stages significantly differ.

Lastly the competitive environment of the product determines the success of the product and its sales.