INTRODUCTION

Marketing strategies are the means by which a marketing

goal is to be achieved usually characterized by a specified target market and a marketing program to reach it. Each institution has a marketing strategy, which is an overall plan for the attainment of institutional goal. In other words we also can say that Marketing strategies serve as the fundamental underpinning of marketing plan designed to fill market needs and reach marketing objectives. Plans and objectives are generally tested for measurable results. Commonly, marketing strategies are developed as multi-year plans, with a tactical plan detailing specific actions to be accomplished in the current year. Time horizons covered by the marketing plan vary by company, by industry, and by nation, however, time horizons are becoming shorter as the speed of change in the environment increases. Marketing strategies are dynamic and interactive. They are partially planned and partially unplanned. Marketing strategy involves careful scanning of the internal and external environments which are summarized in a SWOT analysis. Internal environmental factors include the marketing mix, plus performance analysis and strategic constraints. External environmental factors include customer analysis, competitor analysis, target market analysis, as well as evaluation of any elements of the technological, economic, cultural or political/legal environment likely to impact success. Once a thorough environmental scan is complete, a strategic plan can be constructed to identify business alternatives, establish challenging goals, determine the optimal marketing mix to attain these goals, and detail implementation. A final step in developing a marketing strategy is to create a plan to monitor progress and a

set of contingencies if problems arise in the implementation of the plan. In this chapter, we consider the place of marketing strategies in an organisation. In attempting this we start by defining the concept of strategy and marketing from the prospective of a selected views. In addition we examined various meaning of marketing strategy as well as where and when they are applicable. CONCEPT OF MARKETING:The term marketing has been derived from the word market. Market is generally understood as the place or geographical area where buyers and sellers meet and enter into transaction involving transfer of ownership of goods, services, securities etc. In the words of Clark, market is an area in which the forces leading to exchange of title to a particular product operate, and towards which and from which actual goods tend to travel. Marketing is the process used to determine what product or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves. Marketing is used to identify the customer, satisfy the customer, and keep the customer. With the customer as the focus of its activities, it can be concluded that marketing management is one of the major components of business management. Marketing evolved to meet the stasis in developing new markets caused by

mature market and over capacities in the last 2-3 centuries. The adoption of marketing strategies requires businesses to shift their focus from production to the perceived needs and wants of their customers as the means of staying profitable. The term marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target market and delivering the desired satisfactions. It proposes that in order to satisfy its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of consumers and satisfy these more effectively than competitors. DEFINITIONS OF MARKETING:The term marketing is defined by several writers. Some of the particular definitions are given below: Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association, as an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as "the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably." A different concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing is defined as "the management process that seeks to maximize returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage."

MEANING OF MARKETING :- MICRO AND MACRO

The term marketing can be defined from tow viewpoints micro and macro, i.e. firms point of view and national point of view. Micro- marketing:- It may be described as the process of formulating and implementing such strategies by a firm (via., product development, pricing, promoting, and distributing) that ensure flow of need satisfying goods and services at a profit. Macro-marketing:In a broader sense, marketing may be viewed as a complex system of organisations and process by which a nations resources are distributed among the people to satisfy their needs and wants. Here the focus is on the total system rather than on the activities of an individual firm. Macro-marketing is concerned with how effectively a society uses its resources and how fairly it allocates its output of goods and services.

Evolution of marketing
in conjunction with consumer tastes. An orientation, in the marketing context, related to a perception or attitude a firm holds towards its product or service, essentially concerning consumers and end-users. Throughout history, marketing has changed considerably Earlier approaches: The marketing orientation evolved from earlier orientations, namely, the production orientation, the product orientation and the selling orientation.

Orientation

Profit driver

Western European timeframe

Description

A firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service. Thus, this signifies a firm exploiting economies of scale until the minimum Production until the production efficient scale is reached. A production orientation methods 1950s may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with a good certainty that consumer tastes will not rapidly alter (similar to the sales orientation). A firm employing a product orientation is chiefly Quality of concerned with the quality of its own product. A until the the firm would also assume that as long as its product 1960s product was of a high standard, people would buy and consume the product. A firm using a sales orientation focuses primarily on the selling/promotion of a particular product, and not determining new consumer desires as such. Consequently, this entails simply selling an already existing product, and using promotion techniques to Selling 1950s and attain the highest sales possible. methods 1960s Such an orientation may suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes that would diminish demand. The 'marketing orientation' is perhaps the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It involves a firm essentially basing its marketing plans around the marketing concept, and Needs and 1970 to thus supplying products to suit new consumer wants of present tastes. As an example, a firm would employ market customers day research to gauge consumer desires, use R&D to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure persons know the product exists.

product

selling

marketing

DEFINITION OF STRATEGY:-

Strategy is viewed in different ways by various authorities. The Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary defined a strategy as art of planning and directing an operation in a war or campaign or skill in planning or managing any affair well, or a plan or policy designed for a particular purpose. Some of the popular definitions of strategy are given below: According to Michael E. Porter Strategy is a combination of the ends for which the firm is striving and the means by which it is seeking to get there. According to Kenneth Andrews, Strategy means the patter of objectives, purposes, goals, and the major policies and plans for achieving these goals stated in such a way as to define what business the company is in or is to be and the kind of company it is or is to be. According to Alfred Chandler, Strategy implies the determination of basic long-term objectives and goals of the organisation and formulation of a unified course of action for thr allocation and utilisation of resources necessary to achieve these objectives. MEANING OF MARKETING STRATEGY:Strategy as earlier on stated among others is the means by which objectives are achieved. If objectives specify what is to be done, then strategy lays down how it is to be done. Marketing strategy according to Kotler, Armstrong and Wong (1999) is the marketing logic by which the business unit hopes to achieve its marketing objectives. In the view of Bovee and Thill (1992), marketing strategy is the overall plan for choosing a target and succeeding within it through product, pricing, distribution and promotional choices.

That is companies with strong marketing cultures develop strategies that are built around satisfying their customers. A marketing strategy in the view of Berkowitz, (1997) is the means by which a marketing goal is to be achieved usually characterized by a specified target market and a marketing program to reach it. All the definitions of marketing strategy above can be simply summerised as the overall plan of an organization to achieve its marketing objectives.

The picture on the above is the simplest way to think about it, starting at the bottom:

Start with your business goals: these are the highest-level objectives of the business, or mission statement. Next comes the marketing strategy: the high-level rules that will govern what marketing efforts you focus on.

After youve defined your marketing strategy, you will define the Marketing Mix plans for Product, Pricing, Place (Distribution), and Promotion. Then the final step is a marketing plan, which will describe the specific, detailed marketing activities that you plan on engaging in to achieve the marketing strategies and business goals.

CLASSIFICATION OF MARKETING STRATEGY:Marketing strategys difference is that it serves a boundary role function between the firm & its customers, competitors and other stake holders. Marketing develops strategy based on analysis of consumers, competitors and other environmental forces which then should be combined with other strategic inputs (such as financial, research & development and human resources) to arrive at an integrated business strategy. The following marketing strategy classification is basis on the above points: (A) THE TARGET CONSUMER:Marketing efforts are more likely to be successful if they are aimed at particular consumers, rather than public at the public at large. Target consumers are the individuals that the organisation attempts to satisfy. Experience indicates, that, it is virtually impossible to satisfy everyone. Often, the best approach is to select a target group and to design a marketing mix that meets their desires.

(B) DETERMINIG CONSUMER DESIRES:Effective marketing strategy requires a knowledge of consumer desires, the benefits the consumers seek. (c) DESIGNING THE MARKETING MIX:-

Marketing managers identifies target consumers and discovers their desires in order to design an effective marketing mix. Michael Porter according to Kotler (1999) has concerned marketing strategies into three generic types that provide a good starting point for strategic thinking. Such as: (1) Overall Cost Leadership:-

Here the business works hard to achieve the lowest production and distribution costs so that it can price lower than its competitors and win a large market share. (2) Differentiation:-

Here the business concentrates on, achieving superior performance in an important customer benefit area valued by a large part of the market. It can strive to be the service leader, the quality leader, the style leader, or the technology leader. Thus the firm cultivates those strengths that will contribute to the intended differentiation. (3) Focus:-

Here the business focuses on one or more narrow market segments. The firm gets to know these segments intimately

and pursues leadership or differentiation within the target sgment.

SWOT ANALYSIS:The most successful companies find a way to use their strengths to take advantage of market opportunities, and they identify and work on weaknesses that might inhibit their ability to take advantage of those opportunities. Successful companies are also always on the alert for market threats. They leverage their strengths to either eliminate or reduce the impact of threats, and work to address any weaknesses that may increase the criticality of threats.

Once you have identified the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, then use those to prioritize your marketing strategies and focus, by using the questions in the chart given above.

Marketing Strategy at Different Levels of a Business:Strategies exist at several levels in any organisation - ranging from the overall business (or group of businesses) through to individuals working in it. CORPORATE STRATEGY:It is concerned with the overall purpose and scope of the business to meet stakeholder expectations. This is a crucial level since it is heavily influenced by investors in the business and acts to guide strategic decision-making throughout the business. Corporate strategy is often stated explicitly in a "mission statement". BUSINESS UNIT MARKETING STRATEGY:It is concerned more with how a business competes successfully in a particular market. It concerns strategic decisions about choice of products, meeting needs of customers, gaining advantage over competitors, exploiting or creating new opportunities etc. OPERATIONAL MARKETING STRATEGY:It is concerned with how each part of the business is organised to deliver the corporate and business-unit level strategic direction. Operational strategy therefore focuses on issues of resources, processes, people etc.

CONCLUSION:This paper, has been concerned with marketing strategy. In doing so we started by giving various definitions of strategy by different authors. The meaning of marketing strategies as discussed by various authorities was also presented. In discussing marketing strategies further we went ahead to classify them and suggest where they can be applied. In one of the classification, marketing strategies were condensed into three generic types that provide a good starting point for the strategic thinking. These are overall cost leadership, differentiation and focus. In overall cost leadership strategy, the business works hard to achieve the lowest production and distribution costs so that it can price lower than its competitors and win a large market share. Differentiation strategy in this classification means the business concentrates on achieving superior performance in an important customer benefit area valued by a large part of the market. Focus strategy here means the business focuses on one are more narrow market segments. The firm gets to know these segments intimately and pursues either cost leadership or differentiation within the target segment.