Topics: Strategic Marketing

Meaning and Definition

‘Strategic marketing is making sure that each one of your marketing efforts (e.g., e-newsletters, advertisement in magazines, websites, direct mailers and so on) aligns with your overall plan for connecting the information you have to provide with the audience that needs to hear it for you to succeed.’ (Insivia)

Strategic marketing is essentially a guide on how a company will carry out their marketing objectives. This can come in different kinds of forms such as, digital marketing, marketing within publications, live events and brand ambassadors. The general aim of strategic marketing is to assure that the target audience is aware of any information that the brand wants them to be aware of.

Scholarly Points of View

‘A strategy is a long-term plan, as opposed to a tactic, which is short-term and operational.’ (Jackson and Shaw, 2008)

Marketing strategies are crucial for brands as they ensure that employees implement the necessary actions and measures that support the overall goals of the brand. This is done in a timely manner, it takes into account the SWOT analysis and evaluates how to progress in the future. This involves short term tactics that align with the overall plan.

‘Any business strategy needs to plan for both success and failure if a brand is to survive the unexpected.’ (Jackson and Shaw, 2008)

There are elements within the fashion industry that can threaten a business such as lack of brand awareness and supply deficiency. Moreover, there are also threats that are outside of the direct control of the company such as political and climate threats. In order for a brand to truly succeed in achieving their goals, they need to keep threats and weaknesses in mind as well as plan ahead for the possibility of failure and prepare tactics on how to overcome it.

‘The goal of fashion marketing is to identify target consumers and develop promotion strategies that encourage the targeted audience to buy a product.’ (LIM Collage)

The main role of marketing is knowing who your target audience is and which methods are best to communicate with them. In order to have a successful promotion campaign, you must research what type of person your target costumer is, for instance, do they spend a significant amount of time on social media or do they prefer to read magazines?

Information like this is crucial to know before you under go any creative campaign concepts, it is otherwise known as ‘strategic marketing’ because you are planning the best strategies that would accentuate your product.

For example, if you are a protein powder brand than your target costumer will most likely be interested in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, meaning they will probably buy health and fitness magazines. These types of magazines make the ideal place for you to promote your product because it draws the attention to your product.

Real life Example

Creative Marketing within Netflix

The video streaming service Netflix is the best in its market. It ‘has the most subscribers of any streaming service’ (Lovely, 2018). Netflix is designed in a way that prompts it costumers to want to continuously come back and that is due to their strategic marketing.

The main factor that makes Netflix different from all other video streaming services is that they specialise in personalisation. Once you have set up an account, Netflix will personalize its homepage for you according to what you have watched. There are no two same Netflix homepages, “this is thanks to the power of algorithms that predict the kind of content you’ll enjoy” (Boitnott, 2018). Netflix realize that consumers enjoy and desire a personalized service.

Netflix is also available in across all devices such as T.V, computers, mobiles and tablets. Furthermore, they offer a downloading service which allows users to watch their shows and movies offline. This is not available with their most competitive brand, Amazon Prime.

Netflix uses a variety of multi-channel marketing to evoke awareness. Their social media team does a great job in promoting the latest shows and movies as well as provoking humour with the use of memes relevant to Netflix (see figure 1 and 2).

Figure 1, meme promoting NX on the Netflix Instagram feed

Figure 2, meme promoting Stranger Things on the Netflix Instagram feed

As part of their marketing campaign for the show ‘Stranger Things’, Netflix collaborated with the multi media messaging app ‘Snap Chat’ to create a selfie filter and a world lens (see figure 3). The selfie filter made it seem like the user taking a selfie has a nosebleed exactly like the one that the character eleven has in the show, and the world lens made it seem like the user was in Joyce Byer’s (another character in Stranger Things) living room.

Figure 3, Snap Chat and Netflix collaboration

Another channel that Netflix uses is e-mail marketing which might seem redundant to other brands, however, Netflix has found ways to make it engaging to its customers. They will send out e-mails to new customers to recommend new content and encourage them to delve into the platform and long-time users receive e-mails in a sporadic time manner. The e-mails are attractive and thrilling. For instance, to promote the show ‘The Punisher’, they sent an e-mail that first appeared to be spam, however, once the user opened it, a GIF (moving image) started to play, erasing all the writing in the email, showing a skull image (see figure 4) and then finally presenting a promotional image of the show with a ‘play’ button, encouraging users to watch the show instantly.

Figure 4, Netflix e-mail promoting The Punisher

Netflix is as successful as they are because they have a good understanding of their target audiences and how to approach them. For example, the show ‘Stanger Things’ is a science fiction horror show about a group of adolescent teens in the 80’s. This show’s target was young people so therefore Netflix thought of a strategy to attract their target, which was to use the social media app Snap Chat because it is popular with youths.

The strategies that Netflix use are customer -centric and creative which is why they are considered leading in the video streaming industry. People want a product that they can connect to and Netflix create strategies that form a connection.

Personal Evaluations

Brands need to understand the importance of a strategy. If they want to appeal to a certain target audience they need to think of a plan that will meet that goal. Strategic marketing involves a lot of research into who their target audience is and what are the best ways to influence them into buying your product. A strategy should be original, innovative and creative.

For instance Swedish furniture brand Ikea caters to a variety of different customers, therefore, they need to come up with strategies that meet each and every customer. They use a broad mix of marketing channels, both traditional and digital.

As part of their strategy to promote their app ‘Ikea Place’ which “helps customers visualize what their furniture might look like in their own living rooms” (Lee, 2017), Ikea created a YouTube series called ‘Matchers Keepers’. The concept of this series was to get two roommates to agree on furniture. The show mimicked and mocked retro game shows, its humorous, weird and colourful. The purpose was to appeal to millennials who are in similar living conditions as the “contestants”. This show proves that Ikea took the time to understand their target audience and their real life struggles. They know that millennials spend a lot of time on YouTube, which is why they decided to showcase the series there as opposed to other platforms. Overall ‘Matchers Keepers’ is a creative concept that shows incisive and great strategic thinking.

Ikea is well known for their annual catalogues. It is said, “around 70% of the annual marketing budget is spent on the catalogue alone” (Kornienko, 2017). The catalogue comes in print, an app or digitally. It is immensely popular with 203 million copies distributed every year, which makes it “sit beside the Bible, the Quran, and the "Harry Potter" series as one of the most popular books in the world” (Weller, 2017). It does not just showcase the newest products; it also includes design inspiration and storage solutions. When people browse through the catalogue, they think that they too, can have an appealing living space. It is a strategy that Ikea is recognised for, so it is no wonder that they invest time and money on it.

There are other strategies that Ikea uses that contributes to their success, for instance, the layout of the Ikea store is done so in a way that you have to go through all of the rooms in order to find what you are looking for or locating an exit. This is a strategy that makes people buy more than what they came for. Other examples include simple wordless instructor manuals, isolated locations that furthers the idea of an ‘Ikea experience’ (making it seem like a location destination), unique branding that celebrates their Swedish heritage (blue and yellow colouring, Swedish names for their products and traditional Swedish food served in their restaurants) and the use of diverse models and relationships (see figure 5) in their advertising in order to appeal to everyone.

Figure 5, same sex couple in Ikea advertisement

These are all methods that contribute to their strategy. Everything is well thought of and has a purpose, which is exactly what a strategy should be.