Strategic Presence vs Tactical Promotion

May 04
2009

Last summer I had the honor of teaching parts of the Strategic Management Course at NAPL’s Management Institute. Throughout, I was asked when we would get to marketing.  The answer was: through the whole course.

  • When we were discussing mission statements, we were talking marketing. It’s hard to do any effective marketing if you don’t understand a company’s mission.
  • When we were talking about vision statements we were talking marketing.  It’s difficult to put together a sensible marketing plan if you don’t understand where a company is trying to go, or what it hopes people will think and say about it.    

Here’s one of the big misunderstandings about marketing — By definition it is an strategic rather than a tactical endeavor.  Unfortunately, most companies don’t view it that way and just want a quick tactic to get some messaging out the door. That’s promotion, and if you can’t help but confuse marketing with promotion in your mind, just abandon the term.  Instead, adopt the term Strategic Positioning, because,in essence, that’s what real, effective marketing is.

The reason most companies don’t have effective marketing is that they are clueless about what their strategic presence needs to be.  And, that’s when you know you’re still operating in a commodity mentality.

* reprinted with permission rom original post in InsideMarketing.org, 5/4/09, Rhona Bronson, NAPL

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