Marketing strategy
A marketing strategy acts as a high level mechanism for stating the overall marketing objective of a business, the role of marketing processes in achieving the mission statement of a business, and for guiding aesthetic and ethical decisions. It is above all, a strategic blue print.
A marketing strategy does not detail how short term strategic objectives should be met, but seeks to guide implementation decisions over the long term, often a year..
For example, a marketing strategy may state that the business needs to grow by 5% as a direct result of marketing activities in the next year, leverage new ad-server technologies, move from TV commercials to developing a YouTube channel, move into a new market, whilst maintaining ethical environmental practices and maximising customer relations and goodwill by maintaining it's sponsoring of a children's hospital, and ensure that shareholders accept a freeze on their dividend with the expectation that share values will increase.
Marketing plan
A marketing plan, or marketing plans, details and documents how a marketing strategy will be achieved. There may be multiple marketing plans, and each may describe specific objectives, activities and how they will implemented.
A marketing plan may detail ..
- how a television advert will be developed, produced, broadcast and its return on investment measured
- how the business will motivate 1000 existing customers to become subscribers, and how the business plans to develop a relationship with them that promotes loyalty
- new and refreshed advertising to revive a failing product or service
- etc
Marketing campaigns
Marketing plans are implemented in the form of one or more campaigns, each of which has defined objectives.
For example, a primary marketing objective for a recording artist may be to get as many email subscribers and followers as possible before the launch of a new album. To achieve this they may decide to implement a number of campaigns, such as ..
- a content marketing campaign (eg competition)
- a social media campaign to encourage subscribers
- a targeted and segmented email marketing campaign to engage subscribers
- a YouTube video campaign
- a Google AdWord campaign