This article is concerned with an understanding of marketing strategy and with the differentiation and clarification of concepts used in conjunction with marketing strategy. The impetus for this research arose out of a major programme of research, which has been carried out by the writer, the results of which are separate to this arti¬cle and which have already been published elsewhere[1,2,31. The research highlighted that, although all the respondent companies claim to have a marketing strategy, the marketing executives responding all exhibited great difficulty in explaining this strategy, and definitions varied widely, with little commonality of response. Hence the impetus to develop an overall understanding of marketing strategy, within the framework of a journal article.
In order to develop this understanding an exhaustive search of the literature has been completed. The outcome of this reference to the literature also exhibits wide varia¬tions in the understanding of marketing strategy by the writers concerned, with the utilisation of many concepts and phrases, resulting in many varied explanations as to its nature. Therefore, confusion on the part of marketing executives is, perhaps, to be expected. Hence, further impetus to develop an understanding within the framework of an article. However, the body of knowledge within the literature has been taken as being the source for developing this understanding, as it represents the development work of marketers within this area.
The understanding of marketing strategy developed in this article is through a pro¬cess involving three different levels of treatment. The first two levels arise out of the overall strategic planning of the company and provide the framework out of which marketing strategy should be developed. However, as these two levels provide the framework for developing the actual marketing strategy, they are not considered to be part of it. The third level of the process is the actual marketing strategy, which is considered to be composed of five component parts. The article concludes that, in defining its marketing strategy, a company needs firstly to establish the two levels from the strategic planning framework, then from this define each of the marketing strategy component parts. It is also concluded that failure to follow this process leads to ineffective definition, implementation and effectiveness of marketing strategies.
