[MUSIC] Hello, today we are going to discuss marketing strategy. Marketing strategy is the second part of the marketing plan, probably the most relevant part of the marketing plan, the one that is really strategic and the one that is going to define what is going to come afterwards. We are going to try and first begin defining what is marketing strategy, and then see the detail of the different elements that should be included In the marketing strategy part of your marketing plan. To begin the discussion I would like to refer to a very classic definition of what is marketing strategy. This one comes from Philip Kotler, and he says that, marketing strategy lays out the target markets and the value proposition that will be offered, based on an analysis of the best market opportunities. What I will highlight of this definition which is simple, is basically that it refers to two very basic ideas. Defining clearly the target segment, so the group of individuals that we're going to pursue with this marketing plan. The group of customers that could be more willing to buy my product or service. And the other question is defining clearly the value proposition. The value proposition is also defined sometimes as the positioning. And is the element of differentiation that we're going to highlight as the main idea about our brand. So with these two very basic ideas we can get into a very clear introduction of what is marketing strategy about. In order to define more and get more in to detail, I would like to use a second definition. The second definition of marketing strategy would be longer and is going to basically describe marketing strategy. First the company defines what should be the objective for the brand. Second the company has to know which customers it will serve. It must segment the market and certain criteria that are relevant to the company. Then it has to select one or several market segments to serve as targeting. Finally the company decides how is it going to differentiate itself from other offerings by aiming at a position in the market and in customers' mind, the positioning. So basically, the second definition as you say is longer, and is actually more detailed, and is actually giving us exactly what we we're going to need for the marketing strategy definition. We need objectives first. And as we're going to see later we're going to discuss financial and non-financial objectives. We need customer objectives also. And then, we are going to decide exactly what is going to be the target segment and the positioning. So, comparing this definition with Kotler's. Basically, what we see here is more detailed and especially something that was lacking in the Kotler definition, which is stating clearly what should be the objectives for this marketing plan. If we, again, try and summarize basically what we're going to pursue, what we're going to look for in the marketing strategy definition, we can define three questions again. And the three questions will be, what are the objectives of this marketing plan? Who is the target segment that we are trying to reach with this marketing plan? And what is the positioning that we are going to try and build with this marketing plan. Now we're going to discuss basically the first question, the objectives. The objectives is like a compromise. It's something that you say okay I'm going to deliver this with this marketing plan. So defining carefully objectives that at the same time are challenging and achievable probably is one of the most important parts of the marketing plan. Let me begin with the most classic objectives. The most typical objective that we always see in a marketing plan is the financial objective. What is a financial objective? Basically defining, for example, sales, number of units, or amount of money that we're going to sell with this marketing plan. Sometimes also we define financial objectives related to profits. In that case, we should also include it in the financial objectives of the marketing plan. To use an example, we can use the example of Apple, okay, that we were discussing before. And every year Apple sets targets in terms of sales, so financial objectives, for the different devices and the different products that they have. We are discussing before that this year for the first time iPhone sales were below the expected financial objective in terms of sales. So now is the moment when they are asking us what is happening and actually they are reviewing their own marketing plan and their own objectives. So to summarize, financial objectives is a must in a marketing plan, so they should always be there in order to define the clear objective of how many units we want to serve or what is the amount of money that we are trying to sell with this marketing plan. Next objective is non-financial objectives which are usually called brand objectives. While the non-financial objectives, here we can use plenty of them. Usually, those are objectives related to the brand itself typically. Brand awareness, number of people knowing about the brand. Brand preference, purchase intention, number of clicks in the website. Facebook likes, Twitter followers. So many different ways actually to define non-financial objectives. What should we use? Well, the question here is as usually be practical and use whatever is useful for your own marketing plan. So considering your objectives, define the non-financial objectives that you want to use, okay. Let me use another example, again from Apple, because it's a brand that we all know, iPhone. And if you see what they define as non-financial brand objectives, actually you can end up figuring like a book of different non-financial objectives that equal the brand audit, okay. So they have brand awareness, they have purchase intention, they have brand preference, of course all likes of internet related brand perception, social media, so many different things. In the expected results part of the marketing plan, we'll discuss more how to measure those non-financial objectives. But now I basically want to introduce them, and make sure that in case you need them included in the marketing strategy part as your non-financial objectives. Next step, we are going to talk about the customer objectives. And here, basically, the two basic things that we're going to discuss. Attracting customers and retaining customers. So, one objective is probably going to be attract new customers for the brand and at the same time, many times, we are going to define an objective that is related to retain customers, retain part of the existing customers. This is what we call the customer objectives, okay. Different, so we will have already discussed financial objectives, non-financial objectives, and now we talk about customer objectives. Again, let me take you back to the example of Apple and the iPhone and the iPhone 6. And one thing that was interesting when you see the objectives that they've defined for the marketing strategy in the marketing plan. You see that most of the biggest part of the objective in terms of costumers is retention. So basically most of the costumers of iPhone 6nd of course the iPhone 7 will be customers that are already Apple customers and iPhone customers, actually. So it's basically a retention, renewal, okay? So, financial objectives, non-financial objectives, customer objectives, attraction, retention, and finally we get to the strategic objectives, which is target segment and positioning. Okay, that is probably the most important part of the marketing strategy definition, and it is the one that was pretty much described in the Kotler's definition at the beginning of this discussion. Again, taking you back to the same example I've been using for this marketing strategy analysis. If you look at the target segment and positioning of Apple you can figure quite well ways that, how they profile the target customer and how do they define the positioning as you can see in this example. With this final comment we finish the first introduction to marketing strategy. Reminding you quickly that basically marketing strategy is going to be about defining objectives and then defining target segment and positioning. And among objectives we define financial objectives. Most of the time, non-financial objectives also, and customer related objectives, in terms of attraction and retention. And finally, target segment and positioning. With this, we finish the marketing strategy introduction. Thank you. [MUSIC]
