What is strategic marketing?

26 June 2025

Marketing is the disciplined art of crafting and coordinating Product, Price, Place and Promotion to create competitive advantage, while strategy is the deliberate process of evaluating options and making choices that deliver that advantage over time. Strategic Marketing weaves these two disciplines together, ensuring every element of the marketing mix drives toward long-term business goals.

Industrial organisations often conflate “marketing” with promotional tactics alone, and “strategy” with wishful thinking. In reality, marketing by its definition is inherently "strategic". Better then to think of strategic marketing as committing to permanent changes aimed at improving competitive advantage over a longer time frame. Tactical marketing is temporary with more immediate impact.

Tactical Marketing versus Strategic Marketing: time frames make a difference

Most marketing activity is tactical - intended to achieve immediate and short term results.

EXAMPLES OF TACTICAL MARKETING:

• Discounting: using selling price to gain short term competitive advantage (either lower price or provide more value - for example "buy one, get one free"). Discounting sacrifices margins to achieve short-term sales stimulus and is often used to address (hopefully) temporary problems like excessive stock levels, cash-flow issues, or quitting obsolete stock.
• Increase promotional spend: gaining a short term advantage over competition by increasing presence on communication channels or doing something different - e.g trade shows, sponsorships, new website, fly a hot air balloon over the city, etc. Typically, short-term increases in spend are used to generate new leads. Increased promotional spend is usually a temporary fix and not sustainable as it eats into profits.
• Sales campaigns: for example, direct the sales force to hit a customer segment harder or focus on new customer acquisition in favor of servicing existing customers. Or focus on visiting previous high-value customers who haven't ordered for 12 months. Sales campaigns take the sales force away from business as usual activities (core business) and therefore are not sustainable.
• Product re-packaging: revamp the product packaging and re-launch to stimulate sales. A product revamp could be strategic if it formed part of a product repositioning strategy but often is a simple "refresh" that in isolation is aimed at providing a sales stimulus.
• Distributor promotion: canvass distributors with a special offer to encourage stocking (e.g. "buy more than 4 pallets this month and go into the draw for grand final tickets"). Distributor promotions are another form of discounting.
• Promotional eDM: for example, sending out an email campaign to existing customers promoting specials e.g. "End of Financial Year Specials." Tactical eDMs can form part of a long term promotional strategy however each is usually a unique special offer.

Many would refer to the above list as "strategies" where as the are really "tactics." While tactics are often fixes to immediate problems, a set of tactics can form part of a long term strategy.

EXAMPLES OF STRATEGIC MARKETING:

• Developing a superior product: Customer feedback and further investigation identifies an opportunity to gain competitive advantage through product development to develop specific highly desirable characteristics and feature sets providing a significant competitive advantage.
• Developing an inferior product: Market research determines that market share can be increased by adding to the range a less-performant version of the current product and through being more affordable will expand sales. Further, it will provide en entry level introducing new customers that will upgrade later.
• Market segment re-prioritization: Analysis of sales returns vs resource inputs identifies that some market segments the firm is chasing are not worth the trouble. Instead of providing "something for everyone" the firm decides to concentrate on the high-value segments and "let the competitors knock themselves out" chasing the low-rent market segments. The firm then gears-up to present a more sharply positioned offering and concentrates its resources on chasing the premium market segments. In so doing, the firm eliminates a significant amount of operational cost, promotes a clearer value proposition and achieves a highly profitable and commanding share of the premium market segments.
• Re-engineering sales channels: Despite incentives and increased sales activity, sales volumes through the existing wholesaler and retail network are declining. It is concluded that the final product sell price to the consumer is too high because of the wholesaler and retail mark-ups. The firm makes the decision to shift from an indirect distribution strategy to a direct to market model using 3PL warehousing and setting-up an online shop. The firm can sell their products direct at a much higher ex-factory price but still achieve a 20% lower sell price by eliminating the distribution channel mark-ups. The extra Gross Profit generated will be used to fund an aggressive level of digital promotion and a content rich website.
• Repositioning: Perhaps the most iconic strategic marketing example is corporate or product repositioning. Positioning is a marketing concept relating to the consumers' perception of where a brand "fits" conceptually amongst the competitive offerings. In other words how the brand is perceived to be different using some well understood characteristics. The simplest being "cheap", "expensive", "premium", "prestigious" - but there are many. Altering consumers' perception is called "re-positioning."

Strategic marketing is decision making and committing to significant changes that will result in an increased competitive advantage more so than any tactic. Tactics will then work better sitting on top of this foundation.

Strategic marketing is built off the back of evidenced based decision making

In each of the above examples of strategic marketing is reference to customer feedback, research, and analysis.

Decisions to design new products, change market position, or set-up an e-commerce capability (for example) almost always have significant costs and businesses don't make such decisions lightly and would undertake business case analysis before committing.

Such decision making usually requires more than just gut feel and will be based on hard-evidence. External information will be sourced (market research), formal customer feedback, and internal sales data analyzed to support optioneering and decision making.

Developing strategy involves identifying all the options and selecting the best compromise based on solid evidence and realistic analysis.

This is the typical process required to develop a well considered strategic marketing plan.

The purpose is to implement a significant change in business focus, product offering, market position, selling model, sales force structure, distribution channel, or similar big-ticket items to achieve a significant gain in competitive advantage that will deliver sustainable profitability or growth.

At best, the new strategy will create further growth. At worst it will be essential for business survival.

Strategic Marketing provides sustainable competitive advantage - Tactical Marketing usually doesn't

I hesitate to use the word "sustainable" because like "strategy" it is over used in business. However, it is very appropriate for illustrating the difference between strategic marketing and tactical marketing.

A really good example is tactical discounting. Companies that rely heavily on discounting to stimulate sales can suffer the following impacts...

• Erosion of margins: to state the obvious, if you sell for less you will make less profit. This is usually not sustainable because you either run out of cash or no longer have surplus funds to invest in promotion, sales force expansion, customer service, research & development etc.
• Customer's wait for the discounts: over dependence on discounting educates customers to wait until the next sale. The warning signs are sometimes unmistakable; your sales team start reporting that when they ring customers and ask them if they need to order, the answer is "no mate, I'll wait until your next sale."
• Brand damage through product re-positioning: Unless the strategic intention is to position the organization or product as a price leader, regular price promotion risks positioning a product as the low cost option which can erode perceived value. Consumers can conclude "it's cheap because its not very good."
• Competitor response: regular discounting can easily be matched by the competition. Over use of discounting can trigger a race to the bottom. Once lower prices become the norm and the consumers are re-educated to expect a lower level of pricing can permanently damage a product or business category.

Consequently, often tactical marketing can erode the effectiveness of strategic marketing or can't be sustained because the cost impost of regularly using the tactic long-term is too high.

Strategic Marketing on the other hand is designed to be a significant and sustainable change in strategic direction that gains increased competitive advantage and therefore higher sales that can sustain, not just the cost of implementing the strategy, but also generate higher profitability.

Marketing Fundamentals: The Four Levers of Competitive Advantage

The term “marketing” spans far beyond advertising and sales support. At its foundation are four levers that any organization can adjust to win in the marketplace:

• 1. Product: What you offer: features, quality, customization, after-sales services.
• 2. Price: How much customers pay: list price, discounts, financing, value-based pricing.
• 3. Place: How and where you deliver value: direct sales, distribution partners, e-commerce, on-site deployment.
• 4. Promotion: How you communicate and persuade: advertising, content marketing, events, PR, digital channels.

Most business teams default to promotion—running ads, email blasts, trade-show booths—without fully leveraging product innovation, pricing models or distribution strategies. Learn more in our Reference Library: What Is Marketing?

Strategy Defined: Beyond a Buzzword

“Strategy” can be over-used as window dressing for any plan. In its true sense, strategy is about creating competitive advantage by systematically exploring and selecting options that your rivals cannot easily replicate. It asks:

• Where will we play? Which markets, segments or geographies?
• How will we win? Which unique capabilities, cost structures or partnerships give us an edge?

By consciously choosing among alternatives, you focus resources on the highest-impact activities. Get the full primer here: What Is Strategy?

From Promotion Strategy to Creative Strategy

Within the “4 P” of Promotion, two distinct but complementary concepts guide tactical execution:

• Promotion Strategy
  Considers which channels and techniques will reach your target segments most efficiently, and where competitors are under-invested. (e.g. technical webinars, industry podcasts, OEM co-marketing). See details: Promotion Strategy

• Creative Strategy
  Defines the mediums (digital, video, static imagery, radio, print etc.) and the messaging framework - value proposition statements, product narratives, and straplines that consistently convey your brand’s technical credibility and emotional appeal. It also defines the visual appearance for consistency (campaign themes) and supports the corporate and product positioning. Good examples of campaign theme discipline can be seen in both Bunning's and Red Bull...

Market Segmentation: The Foundation for Focus

Before you choose P’s or craft messages, you must understand who you’re serving. Effective segmentation divides your broader market into groups with common needs, budgets and decision-journeys—allowing you to tailor offerings and channels for maximum impact. Dive deeper: What Is Market Segmentation?

What Makes “Strategic” Marketing Different?

While “marketing” in practice often defaults to promotion tactics, Strategic Marketing elevates every decision—across Product, Price, Place and Promotion—into a coherent plan for competitive advantage. It systematically:

• Identifies high-value market segments
• Resonates with segment needs through research and empathy
• Differentiates via unique features, pricing models, delivery and messaging
• Optimises the marketing mix (4 P’s) to deliver a superior value proposition

This ensures your investments reinforce each other, rather than competing for attention or budget.

By embedding foundational marketing levers within a rigorous strategic process, Strategic Marketing becomes the engine for sustainable B2B growth. Ready to transform your approach?