Every company has to ask itself how it presents itself to potential customers, how it addresses them proactively and reactively, and how it designs its offering to be as attractive and suitable 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 in which the strategic considerations for a product, a brand or an offer can be translated into entrepreneurial action. Often, the focus is on developing an overarching marketing strategy and elaborating various strategic plans for the relevant individual disciplines. Examples would be the social media strategy or the online marketing strategy.

 

Since in every single marketing discipline the leap from a very long-term and intangible plan to tangible and implementable initiatives or measures has to be taken, this can easily lead to a confusing field of tension consisting of sub-strategies and implementation, which no longer fulfills the actual requirement of strategic thinking – namely to provide a guideline on what a company is working towards in the long term.

 

For precisely this reason, companies are committed to a "mission" or a "vision" at an organizational level - short guidelines that serve as orientation even in complex structures, as a kind of "North Star", as one would say in modern German. Even within a company's marketing organization, complexity can reach a level where such a continuous orientation in one direction could be very helpful. The gap between corporate vision and practical marketing implementation is a field that can be filled with a concept that I call the marketing mandate.

 

The marketing mandate describes in a concise form the mission and orientation of the marketing activities towards a superordinate goal. It is not a strategic plan and certainly not a list of measures – it is, in a way, the elevator pitch of the marketing department.

 

"We ensure that new customers become aware of us and are integrated into meaningful interactions with the sales team."

 

"We want to become the strongest brand in the field of X."

 

"We want to exploit the untapped potential that lies within our existing customers."

 

A marketing mandate, like a political mandate, is limited in time and space. It is not on the flag in front of the company headquarters and does not have to think for the whole world. But it should describe which marketing focus enables the greatest value contribution to the company's success at a certain point in time.

 

Marketing mandates often 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 the reach-oriented use of social media.

 

Market certainty: If a company has difficulties positioning itself on 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 traditional territory due to current changes in the market.

 

Product and service optimization: This objective is often pursued in product marketing and is typically only an (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.

 

Increase in 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 controlled 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. With this objective, communication focuses on acquiring 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 turnover, surprisingly few focus on the continuous expansion of their existing customers. Cross-selling and upselling are often only seen as a side issue and the focus is placed on classic goals such as increasing demand or brand development.

 

Customer loyalty: In contrast to customer expansion, customer loyalty focuses on maintaining the customer relationship in the long term. Companies that focus on communication in this area 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!

 

stefan.epler@epos-marketing.com