It was another untypical day at The Marketing Table office, and we were preparing for our upcoming Make it Bitesized workshop. This week was about Marketing Strategy, and definition that Wikipedia offered struck a chord with me.
“Marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage “ - WIKIPEDIA
It’s not about doing it all right now, it’s about doing it all right, and in the right order!
I think that is a very valuable message: Organisations need to concentrate their limited resources onto the next greatest opportunity to achieve sustainable sales growth. This could be the lowest hanging fruit, or indeed might higher hanging fruit that will be much more valuable in terms of sales the strategy is achievable.
For businesses, there is a correlation with choosing channels. In developing a mainstream product, it can be easy to say ‘promote it, sell it, to all!’ In reality successful businesses choose the channels that are best suited to their limited people and capacity resource to market, when they go to distribute and to sell the product or service initially. Once they have built on those successes they can then move onto the next greatest opportunity.
So how do I figure out the greatest opportunity then? I’d point you to Channel Strategy. In creating a channel strategy, you will need to evaluate your business and it’s objectives. You will need to understand the capacity and resource available. Once you have done that you would then outline all the options available for the promotion, distribution, sale & aftersale support of your product or service. The goal then is to match one with the other, rating each of the channels on their suitability to achieve your objectives and to increase sales. The output of channel strategy is a ranked list of opportunities for your business.
So off you go then, Number 1 to start with? Then onto Number 2.
Note: Image courtesy of www.howtoallow.net
