Every company must ask itself the question of how it presents itself to potential customers, how it addresses them proactively and reactively, and how it designs its offering so that it is as attractive and fitting as possible. In this field, many threads from corporate management, strategy, sales and marketing come together, which is why this area is often summarized under the term "strategic marketing".
In practice, there are many different ways of translating strategic preliminary considerations about a product, brand or offering into entrepreneurial action. Often, this involves developing an overarching marketing strategy and drawing up various strategic plans for the relevant individual disciplines. Examples here would be the social media strategy or the online marketing strategy.
Since in every single marketing discipline the leap has to be taken from a very long-term and not very tangible plan to tangible and implementable initiatives or measures, this can easily lead to a confusing tension between partial strategies and implementation, which no longer fulfills the actual requirement of strategic thinking - namely to provide a guideline of what a company is working towards in the long term.
For precisely this reason, companies prescribe a "mission" or a "vision" at the organizational level - short guidelines that serve as orientation even in complex structures, virtually as a "North Star," as one would say in New German. Even within the marketing organization of a company, complexity can reach a level where such an ongoing orientation in one direction could be very helpful. The gap between corporate vision and practical marketing implementation is a field that can be well filled with a concept I call the marketing mandate.
The marketing mandate succinctly describes the mission and orientation of marketing activities toward a higher-level goal. It is not a strategic plan and certainly not a list of measures - in a sense, it is the marketing department's elevator pitch.
"We make sure new customers are aware of us and engaged in meaningful interactions with the sales team."
"We want to become the strongest brand in X."
"We want to tap into the untapped potential that lies within our existing customers."
A marketing mandate, like a political mandate, is limited in time and place. It does not stand on the flag in front of the company headquarters, nor does it have to think for the whole world. But it should describe which marketing focus will enable the greatest value contribution to the company's success at a given point in time.
Often marketing mandates move in the following subject areas:
Brand building: The primary goal here is to build awareness in the market. Companies that want to build a strong brand image often rely on mass communication tools such as traditional advertising, PR, or even reach-oriented use of social media.
Market certainty: If a company has difficulties positioning itself in the market, developing market certainty can be an important goal. The task of communication is then to better understand and change the external perception of the brand so that the target group develops a positive attitude. This goal is more likely to be pursued by established brands that have to leave their established terrain due to current changes in the market.
Product and service optimization: This objective is often pursued in product marketing and is typically only one (important) aspect of the communicative objective. However, close cooperation with market researchers ensures that this mandate can provide very valuable insights for the overall strategy.
Increasing demand: the most common target, which can be further specified as described above.
Sales support: A very important objective, especially for complex and lengthy sales processes, which can be managed by agreeing service level agreements between sales and marketing. For example, it can be determined how much time is spent on the creation of sales materials, competitor comparisons, and sales websites.
Customer acquisition: One of the specifications for increasing demand. In this objective, communication focuses on winning new customers. Efficient cooperation between sales and marketing is required here.
Customer expansion: Even though many companies are aware that 20 percent of their customers are responsible for 80 percent of their sales, surprisingly few focus on the continuous expansion of their existing customers. Often, cross-selling and upselling are seen only as a side show and the focus is placed on classic goals such as increasing demand or brand building.
Customer loyalty: Unlike customer expansion, customer loyalty focuses on the long-term preservation of the customer relationship. Companies that focus on this in their communications often use loyalty programs, exclusive customer events, or customer advisory boards to convey exclusivity to their most important customers.
Are you wondering how best to focus your strategic marketing and bring it to life? I look forward to hearing from you!
