Q. Why does a company need a marketing strategy? I have found your web site very informative and in relaying the importance of marketing to my colleagues I was posed with a question that I was not able to answer. "Why does a company need a marketing strategy?" 
A. Marketing expert, Joe Gracia, responds: Great question, and one that many small business owners would like to know the answer to. The old saying, 'When you fail to plan, you're planning to fail,' holds a mountain of truth. Without a plan, how would you know what action to take to accomplish your goals? Without goals how would you know what you are trying to accomplish? That would be like hopping into your car and driving randomly. Lots of action, but no progress towards a destination. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MARKETING STRATEGY AND A MARKETING PLAN? Quite often people get confused about the difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan. Our definition of a marketing strategy is . . . "a simple statement of your overall plan for attracting prospects, and converting them into first-time customers, and then lifetime, repeat customers." In other words, 'How are you going to make money?' You may hear more complex definitions of a marketing strategy, but we like to keep everything as simple as possible. Your marketing plan is just a more detailed description of your marketing strategy. First comes the 'general' -- your marketing strategy -- then comes the 'specifics' -- your marketing plan. YOU ALREADY HAVE A MARKETING STRATEGY The truth is, every business owner already has a marketing strategy whether he or she is aware of it or not. The minute you begin taking action -- any action -- to generate sales, you have a marketing strategy. The action you take is your strategy. The important question is . . . 'how effective is that marketing strategy?' If your general plan of action is . . . "to spend a lot of money on 'Awareness' ads to get your name out into the marketplace," then that is your marketing strategy. It's an incredibly costly, inefficient and ineffective strategy, but it's a marketing strategy nonetheless. If your general plan of action is . . . "to promote the features and benefits of your product or service to the general marketplace," then that is your marketing strategy. It also is a very poor marketing strategy that will produce very little results. Since you now know that a marketing strategy is your general plan for generating sales, it must be obvious that it is impossible to be in business and not have a marketing strategy. You can't generate sales without having any idea of how you are going to generate those sales. To determine exactly what your current marketing strategy is, simply answer the following questions in as few words as possible: 1. Our general method for attracting prospects to our business is . . . ______________________________________________________ 2. Our general method for converting those prospects into First-Time customers is . . . ______________________________________________________ 3. Our general method for getting repeat sales from our current customers is . . . ______________________________________________________ Remember, no specifics here. Just a short 20-25 word sentence for each question. Once you have your marketing strategy spelled out, you are then in a perfect position to ask yourself how satisfied you are with the results you are now achieving from each part of your strategy. Only by questioning yourself about the effectiveness of your current strategy can you open yourself to a much more effective and profitable strategy. And the good news is, you don't have to spend years researching and testing marketing strategies to discover the one that will provide you with unlimited sales. We've already done that for you, and put everything you need to know into one comprehensive guide called The Give to Get Marketing Solution. Check out the link below for more details.
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