Do you need a marketing strategy, or a business strategy?

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Here are a few strategic questions I ask when I engage companies on their marketing:
  • Where do you want to go with this company?
  • What are you selling?
  • Who are you selling it too?
  • Why must they buy it?
  • How do you communicate it to them?
  • Are customers responding?
Clearly, these are foundational, but are they marketing strategy questions, or business strategy questions? The more I consult to companies, the more I am confronted by the overlap in these. In many cases, marketing strategy is business strategy.

Often step one in helping a company improve its marketing, is to focus on the business itself. If there is no vision, clear offerings and clarity on whom it serves, there can be no marketing. Marketing strategy depends on business strategy.

Be careful next time that you phone a marketer - they may just ask uncomfortable business questions.

Marketing strategy questions are really business strategy questions in disguise. If your business strategy is unclear, you can't do marketing.

Many companies get by without a proper business strategy until they one day call the marketing consultant. Only then do they get exposed for not having thought through the business itself.

Be careful next time that you phone a marketer - they may just ask uncomfortable business questions.

At its core, marketing is business.

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