Strategic Marketing

'Strategic Marketing' is the development of the "grand game plan" for

• operational marketing
• promotion
• branding

It puts all these pieces into context, allows for synergies between these elements of your offer in the minds of your customers, and provided you and your staff with the needed guideance when planning new activities.

Activities for 'Strategic Marketing' differ according to the development stage your product. For products in development Strategic Marketing is first about identifying market needs and trends to guide, potentially even determine, the development of your future products.

Prior to launch 'Strategic Marketing' is about defining the way to market and what to say about your offer. Another responsibility of a strategic marketer, especially while the product is under promotion, is to guide the organization on what is needed to make your offer successful for the organization. However this last area of activities is in some organizations the core profile of Strategic Marketing and reduces the department to an information provider on activities outside of the organization, while decisions are taken in isolation - in absence of Strategic Marketing.

The Business Directory defines Strategic Marketing as: "Identification of one or more sustainable competitive advantages a firm has in the markets it serves (or intends to serve), and allocation of resources to exploit them."

We consider the Business Directory definition to be in line with our understanding. Our definition goes beyond the Business Directory definition, however, in including all kind of offers and stating the responsibility within the organization.

Timelines of Marketing

For many marketers marketing activities are hardly differentiated and the difference between Strategic Marketing and Operational Marketing is not or poorly defined. One of the core differences is the point in time within the product life cycle.

To understand a market, for examples the following activities must be conducted:

• Market reserach
• Customer Insight Workshops
• Advisory Broads
• Pharmaco-economic evaluations

• Definition of the future or current market with it's drivers.
• Definition of the Unique Product Proposition
• Definition of the Product Differentiation
• Definition of the core marketing tools and routes to be used
• Forecasting
• Determining the value/price of the product or service

• The Target Product Profile (TPP) and Asset Profile (AP)
• Product Life Cycle (PLC) for 2-3 rounds of product innovations (PIs)
• Marketing requirements for the Clinical Development Program (CDP)
• Marketing requirements for the registration process, like
  • Claims within the Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC)
  • List of countries for launch, by priority and timing
• Principles for the pharmaco-economic evaluation, basis for a central value dossier
• The Brand Plan
• The Strategic Marketing Plan

to mention just the most obveous.

This term was defined by: Max Beckmann - Status: November 2010