Marketing strategy: what is it and what types are there

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The main goal of marketing is to satisfy the needs and requirements of customers. In order to accomplish these tasks, specialists develop an action plan - a marketing strategy. This is a document on the basis of which the company develops and sells goods/services.

A marketing strategy helps an organization evaluate all resources and redirect them to effective channels that will bring more profit. This could be cooperation with bloggers, an advertising campaign on social networks, a TV commercial, or a banner on search engines.

If you work without a marketing strategy, you will spend a lot of time testing many different hypotheses. It will be difficult to explain current indicators, increase good results, and not repeat mistakes.

Let's consider three types of strategies developed by Michael Porter
Cost leadership - an organization reduces the cost of a product social media marketing service by streamlining processes and cutting expenses, thereby attracting more customers. For example, some chain stores use this strategy.
Differentiation - the organization sells products that cannot be found in competitors' stores and emphasizes their uniqueness. This may be not only a product, but also a service or the image of the business itself. An example of such a strategy is the first capsule hotel in the city.
Focusing - the organization focuses on a specific market segment rather than a product. For example, an online clothing store for rock music fans or products for artists.
Companies often combine several strategies at once: they create a unique product and optimize production processes in order to sell it at a reduced cost - for example, plastic windows made from recycled materials.


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The choice of strategy also depends on the situation in the organization and in the market as a whole.

Let's look at Philip Kotler's four competitive strategies.
Expansion — the organization increases its market share by attracting investments. In this case, the current level of income will decrease due to the fact that the business is being scaled: new stores are opened, employees are hired, materials and equipment are purchased.
Retention - a business maintains its place in the market by developing and selling those products from which it receives its main income, but at the same time it grows slowly.
Harvest - The organization aims to make a quick profit from selling goods with an "unknown future." Managers expect to sell a large volume in a short period of time and reduce their costs when sales begin to decline.
Disinvestment is the redistribution of resources to the production of a new product or to the development of another direction. This strategy is used if the production of a product has become unprofitable.