Harvard Business School 9-598-061
Rev. November 1, 2015
Note on Marketing Strategy
Long ago, Peter Drucker wrote that any business enterprise has only two basic functions:
marketing and innovation.1 All else, he implied, was detail. The central role of marketing in the
enterprise stems from the fact that marketing is the process via which a firm creates value for its
chosen customers. Value is created by meeting customer needs. Thus, a firm needs to define itself
not by the product it sells, but by the customer benefit provided.
Having created the value for its customers, the firm is then entitled to capture a portion of it
through pricing. To remain a viable concern, the firm must sustain this process of creating and
capturing value over time. Within this framework, the plan by which value is created on a sustained
basis is the firm’s Marketing Strategy. Marketing Strategy involves two major activities: (i) selecting a
target market and determining the desired positioning of product in target customers’ minds and (ii)
specifying the plan for the marketing activities to achieve the desired positioning. Figure A presents
a schematic describing a general process of marketing strategy development. As shown, five major
areas of analysis underlie marketing decision making. We begin with analysis of the 5 C’s—
customers, company, competitors, collaborators, and context. We ask:
Customer Needs
Company Skills
Competition
Collaborators
Context
What needs do we seek to satisfy?
What special competence do we possess to meet those needs?
Who competes with us in meeting those needs?
Who should we enlist to help us and how do we motivate them?
What cultural, technological and legal factors limit what is possible?
This leads first to specification of a target market and desired positioning and then to the marketing
mix. This results in customer acquisition and retention strategies driving the firm’s profitability.
This note develops this framework. We organize the presentation by first setting out the
major decisions to be made; then we elaborate on the 5 C’s analysis required to support effective
decision making. As an overview note, we do not provide depth in presenting the actual analytical
1 Peter F. Drucker, The Practice of Management (New York: Harper, 1954)
Professor Robert J. Dolan prepared this note as the basis for class discussion.
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598-061 Note on Marketing Strategy
techniques. However, throughout the note we provide references to textbooks which contain in-
depth coverage of the issues.2
Figure A Schematic of Marketing Process3
Target Market Selection and Product4 Positioning
Marketing strategy development begins with the customer. A prerequisite to the develop-
ment of the rest of the marketing strategy is specification of the target markets the company will
attempt to serve. Marketers have generally been moving from serving large mass markets to
specification of smaller segments with customized marketing programs. Indeed, a popular phrase
today is “markets of one” suggesting that marketing campaigns can and should be customized to
individuals. In the days of “you can have any color you want as long as it’s black,” production
capabilities and limited information on consumers’ varying wants acted as constraints on the
development of programs customized to individual consumers. Now, new technologies enable firms
to practice customized marketing on an economical basis in many situations.5
2 The idea for a note of this type as a useful adjunct to studying marketing originated with Professor Raymond
E. Corey in his “Marketing Strategy: An Overview,” written in 1978, HBS No. 579-054.
3 This figure derives from similar representations developed over the years by HBS marketing faculty and other
academics.
4 Throughout this note, we will use the term “product” although the logic conveyed applies equally to situations
in which customer value is delivered by a product/service bundle or a service alone.
5 The development of customization strategies is covered in B.J. Pine II, Mass Customization (Boston, Mass.:
Harvard Business School Press, 1993), and D. Peppers and M. Rogers, The One to One Future (New York:
Currency/Doubleday, 1993).
2
Note on Marketing Strategy
598-061
The two key questions are:
-
Which potential buyers should the firm attempt to serve? To answer this, the
firm must first determine the most appropriate way to describe and
differentiate customers. This is the process of segmentation.
-
How much customization should the firm offer in its programs, i.e., at which
point on the continuum from
Mass Market- Market Segments - Market Niches - Individuals
will the firm construct plans?
Markets can be segmented in a variety of ways.6 Among the most widely used bases are:
-
demographic (e.g., age, income, gender, occupation)
-
geographic (e.g., nation, region of country, urban vs. rural)
-
lifestyle (e.g., hedonistic vs. value oriented).
These three types of bases—demographic, geographic, and lifestyle—are general descriptors
of consumers. Often, a useful segmentation of the market is derived by using segmentation bases
which describe a customer’s behavior or relationship to a product, e.g.,
User Status:
Usage Rate:
Benefits Sought:
Loyalty Status:
Attitude Toward Product:
Non-User vs. User
Light, Medium, Heavy User
Performance-Oriented vs. Price-Oriented
None, Moderate, Strong, Totally Loyal
Unsatisfied, Satisfied, Delighted
For example, a personal computer manufacturer segmenting the market on the basis of user status
might choose to target first-time home-use computer buyers; another may target mainly those who
already owned but wish to “trade-up.” The firms’ explicit choice of target markets has obvious,
important implications for both the features to include in their computers and their communications
efforts. Segmentation schemes yielding these clear implications for marketing are most useful. There
is little point in using a segmentation basis to define groups to be marketed to in the same way.
The process of selecting the segments to serve is critical because ultimately the customer has
the right to dictate the rules via which the marketing game will be played, i.e., a customer uses the
purchase criteria he or she decides to use and these in effect are the “rules of the game.” Thus, the
firm’s selecting a target market is tantamount to choosing the rules of the game, and consequently
target market selection should consider:
-
The firm’s comparative strengths and weaknesses vis-a-vis competition given
the target market’s purchase criteria.
-
The firm’s corporate goals and the fit of the segment with these goals.
-
The resources necessary to market successfully to the target segment.
-
The need for/availability of appropriate collaborators to market successfully.
-
The likely financial returns from the segment.
6 A good reference on the process of segmentation is in V.R. Rao and J.H. Steckel, “Segmenting Markets: Who
Are the Potential Buyers,” Analysis for Strategic Marketing (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1998), Chapter 2.
598-061 Note on Marketing Strategy
As part of the segmentation and target market selection process, the firm has to play out
scenarios, i.e., consider the question: if we pursue this segment, how would we approach it and how
would we want potential buyers to see us? The answer should be formalized in a “positioning
statement” specifying the position the firm wishes to occupy in the target customers’ minds.7 The
precise form of a positioning statement can vary but a form typically quite useful is to fill in:
is
Our Product/Brand
among all
because
(single most important claim)
(competitive frame)
(single most important support)
In some cases, the positioning cannot be sufficiently well captured via a focus on “single most
important” claim, e.g., a computer manufacturer may want to be seen as both “easy-to-use” and
“fast,” so the positioning statement form can be adjusted. But, an explicit statement of the positioning
idea is critical.
The absolute importance of target market selection and positioning is well conveyed in a best-
selling marketing textbook:
“The advantage of solving the positioning problem is that it enables the
company to solve the marketing mix problem. The marketing mix—product,
price, place, and promotion—is essentially the working out of the tactical
details of the positioning strategy.”8
The Marketing Mix
Neil Borden9 of Harvard Business School used the term “marketing mix” to describe the set
of activities comprising a firm’s marketing program. He noted how firms blend mix elements into a
program and how even firms competing in a given product category can have dramatically different
mixes at work. He specified 12 mix elements, viz.
-
Merchandising–Product Planning
-
Pricing
-
Branding
-
Channels of Distribution
-
Personal Selling
7 This conception of “positioning” has been popularized by Ries and Trout in Positioning: The Battle for Your
Mind, 1st ed. (Revised, McGraw-Hill, 1986).
8 P. Kotler, Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Control, 8th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1997), p. 310.
9 N.H. Borden, “The Concept of the Marketing Mix.” Reprinted in R.J. Dolan, Strategic Marketing Management
(Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 1991).
4
Note on Marketing Strategy
598-061
6. Advertising
7. Promotions
8. Packaging
9. Display
10. Servicing
11. Physical Handling
12. Fact-Finding and Analysis–Market Research
Over time, an aggregation and regrouping of these elements has become popular. As shown in
Figure A, the “4 P’s” of Product, Price, Promotion and Place are often used to set out the “marketing
mix” in an easy to recall way. We now discuss the major issues in setting the “4 P’s” in the following
sequence:
1. Product
2. Place (Channels of Distribution)
3. Promotion (Communications Strategy)
4. Pricing
Product
(a) Product Definition
Product decisions start with an understanding of what a product is, viz. the product offering
is not the thing itself, but rather the total package of benefits obtained by the customer. This idea has
had a number of names, e.g., the “total product concept,” “the augmented product,” or “the
integrated product.” For marketing strategy development purposes, the product has to be considered
from the point-of-view of value delivered to the customer. Value can be delivered simultaneously by
a number of vehicles, e.g.,
-
the physical product itself
-
the brand name
-
the company reputation
-
pre-sale education provided by salespeople
-
post-sale technical support
-
repair service
-
financing plans
-
convenient availability
-
word-of-mouth references provided by earlier adopters of the product
-
reputation of outlet where purchased
598-061 Note on Marketing Strategy
For example, a shirt from the Lands’ End Catalog is not just a shirt but one shipped within 24 hours of
order and unconditionally guaranteed.10 This broad conception of a “product” is key to seeing
possible points of differentiation from competitors.
(b) Product Line Planning Decisions
A taxonomy of product line planning decisions is best developed by considering examples of
some product planning decisions firms face.
• Product Line Breadth: A desktop computer manufacturer considers also selling laptops; a
maker of men’s golf attire considers adding a women’s line; an automobile manufacturer considers a
mini-van or sport utility vehicle. Product line breadth decisions are how many different lines will the
company offer. A guiding principle in answering breadth questions is the company’s position on
desired consistency or similarity between the lines it offers. Some firms focus, e.g., “we market only
products which draw on our skills in small motor technology” while others are more broad: “we sell
products which draw on our superior consumer products marketing skills.”
• Product Line Length: A beer producer in the mass part of the market is considering if it
should develop an entry in the premium segment; the high-end computer manufacturer considering
the product line breadth issue above also has to decide if it wants to compete in the emerging “under
$999” market sector. These are product line length decisions, i.e., how many items will there be in a
line providing coverage of different price points.
• Product Line Depth: The men’s golf attire manufacturer considers whether to offer its $110
crew neck sweater in five colors or just three. Thus, a product line depth decision, i.e., how many
types of a given product.
These are the three major types of product line planning decisions. Important considerations
in making these decisions are:
-
Does the product satisfy target customer wants in a way that is profitable for
the firm?
-
Does it offer opportunity for differentiation from competitors when the
“product” is appropriately viewed as the total set of benefits delivered to
consumers?
-
What is the impact of this product on the rest of the line? Will it be a
complement to other products, enhancing their value to the customer (e.g., a
color-coordinated sweater enhancing the value of the matching golf shirt) or
will it be a substitute possibly cannibalizing sales (e.g., an entry in the low-
end of the personal computer machine taking sales from the same
manufacturer’s high-end, higher-margin items)?
-
What is the impact of the items on the brand and company’s reputation? The
brand’s equity is often a key asset and the product may enhance it or it may
detract from it. A key issue is whether there would be damage to the brand,
e.g., did Lipton Soup detract from the equity as a tea supplier, did Sears
Financial Network hurt Sears’ retail operations?11
10 This example is offered by Regis McKenna as an illustration of an “integral product” in his “Marketing in an
Age of Diversity,” Harvard Business Review, September-October 1988.
11 These examples are offered and this topic is considered in detail in D.A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity (New
York: Free Press, 1991), particularly Chapter 9.
6
598-061 Note on Marketing Strategy
After the firm has settled on the product and a supporting plan, it reaches Product
Introduction. Decisions at this stage involve the geographic markets to which the product will be
introduced and whether markets will be approached at the same time or sequentially over time (e.g.,
a regional rollout).
After introduction, a process of Product Life Cycle Management begins. First, the firm
should continually be learning more about consumers from their reactions to the introduced product.
This added learning may suggest product repositioning or marketing mix changes. Second, the
marketing environment is always changing. For example, customer wants are not static; market
segment sizes change; competitive offerings change; technology impacts the firm’s capabilities and
costs. Thus, managing the product line is a dynamic process over time.
Place: Marketing Channels
The marketing channel is the set of mechanisms or network via which a firm “goes to
market,” i.e., is “in touch” with its customer for a variety of tasks ranging from demand generation to
physical delivery of the goods. The customer’s requirements for effective support determine the
functions which the members of the channel must collectively provide. Kash Rangan14 of Harvard
Business School has identified eight “generic” channel functions which serve as a starting place for
assessing needs in a particular context:
1. Product Information
2. Product Customization
3. Product Quality Assurance
4. Lot Size (e.g., the ability to buy in small quantities)
5. Product Assortment (refers to breadth, length, and width of product lines)
6. Availability
7. After-Sale Service
8. Logistics
An important point with respect to channel design is that while there are options about
whether a particular institution (e.g., a distributor) is included in the channel or not, the setting
implicates specific tasks which need to be accomplished by someone in the channel. One can
eliminate a layer in the chain but not the tasks that layer performed. The popular phrase “we’ve cut
out the middleman and passed the savings on to you” seems to indicate that the middleman
represent all costs but no value-added. The functions done by the middleman now have to be done
by someone else. Thus, the recommended approach is to develop “customer-driven” systems
assessing the channel structure and management mechanisms that will best perform the needed
functions.15
14 V.K. Rangan, “Designing Channels of Distribution,” HBS No. 594-116, also reprinted in V.K Rangan, B.P.
Shapiro, and R.T. Moriarty, Business Marketing Strategy: Concepts and Applications (Homewood, Ill.: Irwin, 1995).
15 This approach is advocated and described in detail in L.W. Stern, A.I. El-Answry and A.T. Coughlan,
Marketing Channels, 5th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1996); particularly Chapter 5.
8
Note on Marketing Strategy
598-061
The two major decisions in channels are:
(i.) channel design
– which involves both a length and breadth issue
(ii.) channel management
– i.e., what policies and procedures will be used to have the necessary
functions performed by the various parties.
(a) Channel Design
With an understanding of customer requirements in place, a primary question in channel
design is whether distribution will be “direct,” “indirect” or both, i.e., some customers served one
way and others another. In direct distribution, there is no independent party between the firm and its
customers, e.g., the “blue suits” of the firm’s salesforce visit the customer premises and sell computer
mainframes. Through 1980, this was the only way IBM sold its products. In indirect distribution,
there is a third party. This party may operate under contract to the firm (e.g., as in a franchise
system) or it may act independently (e.g., as in a situation where a retailer pays for and takes title to
the firm’s goods and then is free to sell them at whatever price and in whatever fashion it desires).
Through the 1960s, the conventional wisdom was that a firm should either go to market
direct or indirect, but not both because of the channel conflict which would result. The bias was
toward going direct as soon as sales volume justified it, because it provided more control and direct
contact with customers.
By the early 1980s, more firms began simultaneously serving different target markets, each
requiring different channel functions (e.g., one segment needed intense pre-sale education; another
did not). Thus there came a need to manage “dual distribution” wherein different systems are used
to reach each market segment efficiently and effectively. A firm salesforce served some segments; a
distributor served others. This move away from only one method of “going to market” has
accelerated. Now a firm may sell through retail outlets and via direct mail; use its own salesforce to
call on some accounts; rely on distributors to call smaller ones; and rely on other customers to find the
company’s 800 number, Web site, or submit an order directly to the firm through some Electronic
Data Interchange System. In many firms, the economics of reaching the full set of its chosen target
segments are such that a single approach for all customers simply won’t work. Thus, rather than
making one decision, the firm needs to make a coordinated set of decisions by market segment
recognizing and preparing to manage the conflicts that may arise across the different channel types.
In addition to customer requirements, the major considerations in channel length issues are:
— account concentration: If a few customers represent the bulk of sales opportunities (e.g., jet
engines), a direct selling approach can be cost effective. If the target group is larger in number and
more diffuse (e.g., toothpaste), then the services of someone like a retailer who can spread the costs of
an account relationship over many products is warranted.
— degree of control and importance of direct customer contact: One reason to go direct may be the
lack of intermediaries from whom the firm could secure adequate attention, i.e., the firm lacks the
power to gain some control over the intermediaries to ensure the necessary tasks are performed.
Also, direct customer contact may be seen as a critical way to gain market understanding as an input
to future product development efforts.
The second part of the channel design issue is channel breadth, i.e., how intense should the
firm’s presence be in a market area? Does the firm wish to intensively distribute its product, making
for maximal customer convenience (e.g., placing the product “within arm’s reach of desire,” as Coca-
Cola terms it,) or does it wish to be more selective? More selectivity may be warranted if there is a
598-061 Note on Marketing Strategy
market education or development task to be done. Thus, some automobile manufacturers, typically
high-end (e.g., Infiniti), limit the number of dealers in an area to reduce the dealer’s concern that the
benefits of developing potential customers in a given area would accrue to another dealer “free-
riding” on these efforts.
In general, the strength of the argument for limiting distribution to selective or exclusive
levels increases with
-
the customer’s willingness to travel and search for the good,
-
the unit cost of stocking the good,
-
the amount of true “selling” or market development which needs to be done.
As a product becomes more well known, there is a tendency to become less selective in distribution.
For example, personal computers moved from computer specialty stores to mass merchants and
warehouse clubs over time as customer education requirements decreased. Thus, the right channel
structure changes over time. This presents a significant challenge as the firm seeks to maintain
flexibility in channels while complex legal and other relationship elements tend to cement distribution
arrangements.
(b) Channel Management
Conflict between “partners” in a distribution system is not uncommon—more than a few
litigations have been filed over issues like:
-
“we provided a great product, but they never sold it the way they agreed to”
-
“we developed the market, but they were never able to supply the product
on a reliable basis”
-
“they began distributing through a discounter right in the middle of the
territory we spent years developing”
Many conflicts do not result in litigation but color the relationship, e.g., a beer distributor lamenting
“somehow their [the manufacturer’s] view is that every time sales go up, it’s their great advertising;
when sales go down, it’s our lousy sales promotion.” In a general sense, all parties in the marketing
system want the product to “do well.” But conflicts can arise from:
-
lack of congruence in goals, e.g., the manufacturer’s #1 priority may be to “build
the consumer franchise,” while the distributor’s is to make money this quarter.
-
lack of consensus on who is doing what, e.g., who is to perform certain functions
such as after-the-sale service; who handles small accounts; who handles global or
national accounts when assignments were originally made along a smaller
geographic basis.
Channel management is a day-to-day “work-on-it” task rather than a solve-it-once situation.
Attention to proper design of contracts and other explicit understandings can help to reduce the
potential for conflict. Good communications, e.g., through dealer panels, can help facilitate
development of understanding and trust which will almost always be necessary to resolve issues
since contracts cannot typically anticipate all the situations which may arise.
Note on Marketing Strategy
598-061
Promotion: Marketing Communications
The next element of the marketing mix is deciding the appropriate set of ways in which to
communicate with customers to foster their awareness of the product, knowledge about its features,
interest in purchasing, likelihood of trying the product/and or repeat purchasing it. Effective
marketing requires an integrated communications plan combining both personal selling efforts and
non-personal ones such as advertising, sales promotion, and public relations.
(a) Tasks and Tools
A useful mnemonic for the tasks in planning communications strategy is the 6 M’s model:
1. Market–
2. Mission–
3. Message–
4. Media–
5. Money–
6. Measurement–
towhomisthecommunicationtobeaddressed?
whatistheobjectiveofthecommunication?
whatarethespecificpointstobecommunicated?
whichvehicleswillbeusedtoconveythemessage?
howmuchwillbespentintheeffort?
howwillimpactbeassessedafterthecampaign?
The marketing communications mix is potentially extensive, e.g., including “nonpersonal”
elements such as: advertising, sales promotion events, direct marketing, public relations, packaging,
trade shows, as well as personal selling.16
A key to developing an effective communications strategy is understanding of the people
involved in the purchase decision making, the roles they play, and their current perceptions of the
situation. Those involved, the so-called Decision-Making Unit (DMU) for a product, can vary from
very few (even just the user himself or herself) to many. Hundreds may be involved in major
industrial purchases.
Members of the DMU differ in the role played, their desires, and perhaps their perceptions;
consequently, the need is for an integrated communications plan which uses different elements of the
communication mix to address different issues pertinent to DMU members. Each element has
particular strengths and weaknesses.
(b) Nonpersonal Vehicles
Advertising in media is particularly effective in:
-
creating awareness of a new product
-
describing features of the product
-
suggesting usage situations
-
distinguishing the product from competitors
16 This categorization is given by P.W. Farris and J.A. Quelch in Advertising and Promotion Management: A
Manager’s Guide to Theory and Practice (Chilton, 1983).
598-061
Note on Marketing Strategy
•
•
directing buyers to the point-of-purchase
creating or enhancing a brand image.
Advertising is limited in its ability to actually close the sale and make a transaction happen;
sales promotions may be an effective device to complement the favorable attitude development for
which advertising is appropriate.17
One trend in advertising is the movement to more precisely targeted media vehicles. For
example, whereas the three major TV networks were once the only choices for television advertising,
highly specialized channels like The Nashville Network (featuring country music) and the Golf
Channel are now available. Direct marketing to households is another option. A direct mail piece
can be customized to the household receiving it based on some demographic data available on
mailing lists or even purchase histories. A catalog can both describe the firm’s products and provide
ordering information. Like a direct mail piece, the catalog can be customized to the household
receiving it.
Sales promotions includes things such as samples, coupons, and contests. These are usually
most effective when used as a short-term inducement to generate action.
The three major types of sales promotions are:18
-
consumer promotions—used by a manufacturer and addressed to the end
consumer, e.g., a cents-off coupon sent in the mail or contained in print
media or a continuity program such as collecting proofs-of-purchase to
redeem for a gift.
-
trade promotions—used by the manufacturer and addressed to the trade,
e.g., temporary off-invoice price discounts or cooperative advertising
allowances.
-
retail promotions—used by the trade and addressed to the end consumer;
often this is stimulated by a trade promotion. Examples include offering a
discount and displaying or advertising the brand.
Public relations refers to non-paid communication efforts, such as press releases, speeches at
industry seminars, appearances by firm executives on radio or TV programs. These efforts do entail a
cost to the firm, but generally are distinguished from advertising by virtue of the fact that the firm
does not pay for space in the media vehicle itself. For example, in some industries, new product
reviews in the trade press are very influential with consumers. However, the output of public
relations activities is somewhat less controllable than is the case with either advertising or sales
promotion. Purchasing a TV spot pretty much guarantees that the firm’s desires with respect to
message and timing of delivery will be met. That level of control is not generally attainable with
public relations since other parties decide whether or not to pick up a press release, write favorable or
unfavorable things about the product in a review, and so forth.
17 A good reference on advertising is D.A. Aaker, R. Batra, and J.G. Myers, Advertising Management, 4th ed.
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1992), wherein the need to consider advertising in the overall context of
the communications mix is stressed.
18 R.C. Blattberg and S.A. Neslin, Sales Promotion: Concepts, Methods, and Strategies (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1990), uses this categorization. This book includes important information on the types and design
of sales promotion events and empirical evidence on their impact.
12
Note on Marketing Strategy 598-061
(c) Personal Selling
A salesperson as the communication vehicle presents the advantage of permitting an
interaction to take place between the firm and a potential customer rather than just the broadcast of
information. The salesperson can develop an understanding of the particular customer’s perceptions
and preferences and then tailor the communications message to the particulars of the situation. The
importance of personal selling in the communications mix typically increases with the complexity of
the product and the need for education of potential customers. For example, pharmaceutical
companies maintain large field sales forces because nonpersonal media would not do an adequate job
of educating doctors about new drugs.
It is critical to identify precisely the tasks of a salesperson. In some cases, the primary role is
to take an order generated primarily by other elements of the marketing mix. In other cases, demand
generation is a key task as the salesperson prospects for new accounts and/or performs consultative
selling solving customers’ problems. A salesperson can also have a role after-the-sale, providing
technical support or transmitting customer data to the firm as a form of market research.
Understanding the tasks to be done is a prerequisite to specifying skills and desired behaviors of
salespeople. Recruiting, selecting, and training programs can be designed to provide the needed
talents; and evaluation, compensation, and motivation plans constructed to induce the necessary
effort.
(d) Constructing the Communications Mix
The proper allocation of dollars across the various media vehicles varies greatly depending
upon the market situation. A fundamental decision is whether to focus on a “push” or “pull”
strategy. In a push strategy, focus is on inducing intermediaries, such as a retailer, to sell the product
at retail. Advertising’s job may be to make the consumer aware of the product, but the closing of the
deal is left to the intermediary. Alternatively, a “pull” strategy means the end consumer develops
such an insistence on the product that he or she “pulls” it through the channel of distribution, and the
retailer’s role is merely to make the product conveniently available.
As the number of feasible communication vehicles has increased (e.g., to event sponsorship,
telemarketing, one’s own Web site, a posting on someone else’s Web site, and infomercials), the job of
specifying the right communications mix has grown more complex simply due to the number of
options and permutations and combinations to be considered. However, the growth in options also
creates the possibility of gaining competitive advantage via superior performance in this task.
Pricing
To a large extent, the combination of the 3 P’s—product, place (channel), and promotion
(communication mix)—determine the target customer’s perception of the value of the firm’s product
in a given competitive context. Conceptually, this perceived value represents the maximum price
which the customer is willing to pay. This should be the primary guide to pricing the product. Once
the firm has created value for customers, it is entitled to capture some of that value for itself to fund
future value-creation efforts. This is the role of effective pricing.19
19 This view is developed in R.J. Dolan and H. Simon, Power Pricing (New York: Free Press, 1996).
Note on Marketing Strategy 598-061
In some industries, legal and effective price leadership has been displayed as firms avoided
price cutting in pursuit of share gains. In other industries, price wars have destroyed the profitability
of nearly all the players. The tendency toward excessive price competition is particularly acute when
-
firms have high fixed, but low variable costs,
-
there is little differentiation among competitors’ products, and thus
consumers largely buy on price,
-
industry growth rate is low,
-
there are barriers to capacity adjustment, and economies of scale are
important.
Thus, a key decision is how to ensure that the firm’s actions do not have a negative impact on
industry profitability by setting off a round of price cuts.
Analysis Underlying Marketing Strategy Formulation
As reflected at the top of Figure A, the major areas of analysis to be conducted in developing
marketing strategy are the “5 C’s”:
-
Customers
-
Company
-
Competitors
-
Collaborators, e.g., channel partners and suppliers
-
Context
Customer Analysis
Effective marketing requires in-depth understanding of customers’ purchase and usage
patterns. As noted above, areas to be considered are
• The Decision Making Unit (DMU)
• who is involved in the process?
• what role does each play?
Researchers have identified five major roles in buying situations and it should be understood who
assumes each role (more than one individual can play each role and one individual can play more
than one role). These roles are
-
Initiator(s) –
-
Decider(s) –
-
Influencer(s) –
-
Purchaser(s) –
-
User(s) –
recognize value in solving a particular issue and stimulate
search for product.
make the choice.
while not making the final decision, have input to it.
consummate the transaction.
consume the product.
For example, in a decision to purchase a computer for the home, the initiator role may be held by the
oldest child who saw value in it for her school assignments; the decider on brand was a relative with
598-061 Note on Marketing Strategy
computer knowledge; parents and all children influenced the product features and price point; the
purchaser was the same as the decider; and the user was all family members.
The second major area is
• Decision-Making Process (DMP)
• is there search for information?
• how?
• what criteria are used to evaluate alternatives?
• how important are the various attributes, such as price and
performance?
• how did DMU member interact?
Other considerations include:
• where do customers wish to buy?
• how is the product to be used?
• how frequently/intently will it be used?
• how important is the problem which it solves?
These questions need to be addressed at a disaggregate level so market segments can be identified.
Company Analysis
Corporate strengths and weakness need to be understood since the fit of the product to the
company is important as well as the fit to the market. Assessing product/company fit requires an
understanding of the finances, R&D capability, manufacturing capability, and other assets of the firm.
Competitive Analysis
Marketers need to identify both current and potential competitors. Competitors’ strengths
and weaknesses must be understood as the firm seeks differentiation possibilities. Similarly, in order
to be able to predict and shape competitive reactions, the firm must assess competitors’ objectives and
strategies.
Collaborator Analysis
To the extent that there are important partners in the marketing system, their positions and
goals need to be assessed. Frequently, two key collaborators are the downstream trade (e.g., retailers)
and upstream suppliers. With respect to the trade, the firm must understand their cost structure;
expectations about margins and allocation of tasks; support and training requirements; and the nature
of their relationship with the firm’s competitors.
Increasingly, suppliers are being seen as critical collaborators in making marketing strategy
work. What is their ability to supply quality product on a reliable basis? How much lead time is
required, especially relative to the delivery time commitment to downstream customers?
Context Analysis
Marketing strategy can take very little for granted. The context shapes what is possible and it
is always changing. Indeed, spotting important changes in context before a competitor is a reliable
path to competitive success. This point is vividly illustrated by the disruption that the Web is
producing on ‘facts’ about distribution and communication that generations of businesspeople took
for granted. Clearly, then, marketing strategy analysis must be alert to technological context. What
threats, vulnerabilities, opportunities and resources does the technological frontier pose for the firm?
Note on Marketing Strategy 598-061
Culture, like technology, can shift and bring surprise unless carefully monitored. As many
fortunes are made by anticipating cultural trends as technological trends, as Coca-Cola, McDonalds
and Nike attest. Products and services acquire meaning from their place in a culture, and they
acquire economic value from that meaning. Value, then, is vulnerable to shifts in the culture (what
we call trends and fashions.) The systematic analysis of cultural trends (popularized recently as
‘coolhunting’ and ‘consumer ethnography’) is increasingly an integral part of strategy formulation.
Similarly, politics, regulation, law, and social norms are not fixed features of the marketing
landscape, but factors to consider and monitor for signs of disruption. Markets such as banking,
television and pharmaceuticals operate in particularly unstable settings. It is dangerous to design
marketing strategy for such environments without a carefully developed point of view on the
regulatory context.
The 5 C’s analysis is input to the construction of the marketing strategy. In the end, an
economic analysis needs to be done to ensure that everything adds up to a viable business
proposition. What are the fixed dollar commitments? What level of unit contribution can be attained,
and what is the anticipated associated sales level?
Summary
Devising an effective marketing program requires in-depth analysis to support decision
making on a host of interrelated issues. Textbooks have been written to address this general topic20
and to provide in-depth information on specific topics given in this note. This note’s objective was to
contribute by bringing together the issues and analyses underlying marketing strategy development
to provide a general overview and provide guidance to resources which could be usefully consulted
if needed.
20 For general marketing management issues, good texts are T.K. Kinnear, K.L. Bernhardt, and K.A. Krentler,
Principles of Marketing, 4th ed. (New York: Harper Collins, 1995) and P. Kotler, Marketing Management: Analysis,
Planning, Implementation and Control, 9th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1997).
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