Definition: Marketing Strategy

Looking for a simple definition of marketing strategy?

A marketing strategy is a process or model to allow a company or organization to focus limited resources on the best opportunities to increase sales and thereby achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.

Confused about the difference between that and your marketing plan, marketing mix, business goals, etc?

Bottom line: think of the definition of marketing strategy as the high-level rules that direct your marketing activities. For example, if there’s a single influencer who touches all your customers and has a significant impact on the way those customers try to solve their problem... one of your strategies may be to focus on building a strong relationship with that influential individual or company.

Your marketing strategy is the way you make sure you’re getting the maximum impact from your limited marketing budget and time.

The picture on the right is the simplest way to think about it, starting at the bottom:

• Start with your business goals: these are the highest-level objectives of the business, or mission statement.
• Next comes the marketing strategy: the high-level rules that will govern what marketing efforts you focus on.
• After you’ve defined your marketing strategy, you will define the marketing mix: plans for Product, Pricing, Place (Distribution), and Promotion.
• Then the final step is writing a marketing plan, which will describe the specific, detailed marketing activities that you plan on engaging in to achieve the marketing strategies and business goals.