Marketing Strategy

Marketing is more crucial than ever today. Marketing must be more intelligent to make sense of market complexities, and more imaginative to standout from the crowd of competition. Marketing has always been a creative discipline, yet it is often conventional in its execution. In today’s challenging and intensely competitive markets, marketers have a critical role to play in driving strategic direction. They must lead the development and delivery of customer propositions through value disciplines, and have a greater role in developing and aligning how propositions are delivered operationally. Today’s marketing must go well beyond the conventional 4 P’s of Marketing and be applied in a creative, focused and disciplined manner.

Brand Positioning & Value Propositioning

The brand is a precious and special intangible that in many businesses is the most important asset. In markets where globalization and faster communications are producing savvier and better educated customers, brand positioning and value propositioning is becoming more critical than ever in building brand equity. There are many great brands entering global markets, however many brands rely too strongly on their names and logos, and focus too heavily on the products and companies they help identify. Value perceptions range throughout the world given the variations of economic development and levels of sophistication. Brands must connect with people first and foremost, and clearly define value propositions that are differentiated, credible and relevant.  

Strategy Alignment

Strategy is about choices, deciding where and how to compete and how to win. Strategy gives people clarity of direction, decides what resources to develop, and connects all the functional and fragmented parts of the business into a coherent approach. However, many strategies are inadequate for today’s globalization of markets. They are developed with insufficient context, and they are developed inside out rather than outside in. They seek to do what has always been done, even if it is increasingly out of sync with the markets. Marketing should be the driving force of strategy, ensuring that it is driven by the challenges and opportunities in the markets and defining actions to create, grow, sustain or defend customers, markets, revenues and earnings.

Professional Selling

In today's rapidly evolving markets, a needs-based selling approach is required to maximize each and every selling opportunity and to establish a high level of sales professionalism and excellence. Needs-based selling is determining customer needs before proposing solutions. The process is simple, easy to apply, effective and efficient. The process has 6 steps 1) Determining who the target customers are, 2) Diagnosing specific customer needs and problems, 3) Differentiating products and services that meet or exceed customer expectations and solve problems, 4) Demonstrating value creation in financial, strategic and people terms, 5) Delivering a compelling presentation to all decision makers and stakeholders, 6) Documenting outcomes. A highly effective and efficient professional selling strategy and methodology underpins a company’s success in penetrating Asia's highly competitive markets.