How is marketing different to strategic marketing

Most business people have an understanding of marketing.  They equate that mainly to the communications side of the business: advertising, media, brochures, social media, websites, public relations etc.

But how many people understand strategic marketing?  A concept that has a higher level interpretation that focuses on things like target market, positioning, differentiation, the psychology of decision making and purchase behaviour, branding etc, that links the communications side of marketing to business strategy.

Most companies do not realize the short and long term importance of have a clearly defined and executed link between business strategy and the communications side of marketing.

The missing link between business strategy and marketing is Strategic Marketing

This LINK, if it is not well defined and developed may very well lead to marketing communications decisions being made that are not consistent with the overall strategy of the business.  It could easily set the company moving down a path that creates more problems than benefits.

Strategic marketing also takes a longer term view of marketing and is responsible for laying the ground work for better decision making at the tactical level – inside the marketing department at all levels.  If the strategic marketing direction is clearly defined – you can have much greater confidence in the decisions that end up spending 000’s of your valuable dollars.

Not every marketer has a good sense of strategic marketing – most marketers operate at a tactical level in the trenches.  However, if you have ever asked: “how do I know if my valuable marketing dollars are being well spent?”, you should be speaking to a strategic marketer who can help you with the answer.

If you have ever done strategic planning in your organization and have not followed that up with a strategic marketing plan, you may be missing the LINK.  And this may be causing your marketing to operate at a less than optimum level.  Fill in the gap and plug that missing link.  It’s too important if you are spending any real money on marketing (and yes, you ALL are…)

Neville Pokroy from the marketing company Mastermind Solutions consults in the areas of strategic marketing planning, as well as in the development and execution of marketing strategies and plans. He assists companies who require marketing expertise to plan and fully execute marketing programs. If you want to have more choice in marketing your business and in setting yourself apart, and increase the odds of improving company performance, visit our website.