A crucial part of the offerer’s planning is the customer-oriented marketing strategies that define the company modus operandi.
Customer-oriented marketing strategies are articulated lines of action with a determined scope involving controllable marketing variables. Their objective is to satisfy the needs and desires of the buyer and consumer market in the most profitable way possible.
As stated in another post, marketing strategies can be wide or restricted in scope. Wide-ranging strategies involve all or almost all of the offerer’s controllable marketing variables: product mix, sales force, distribution channels, pricing, advertising, and promotion. Instead, restricted-range marketing strategies focus on just one or a few variables, such as the product-price composite.
The main wide-ranging marketing strategies are (1) imitation, (2) differentiation, (3) diversification, (4) segmentation, (5) focus, (6) competition centered on price, and (7) offer appreciation.
As strategies of restricted scope, it is worth mentioning: (1) product and service improvement, (2) disintermediation, (3) exploitation of ephemeral nature events, (4) financial impact attenuation, (5) life cost cycle reducing, (6) emphasis on offer externalities, and (7) team training, as shown in the figure below.
Despite this individualization, one needs to consider that a provider can simultaneously use several wide and restricted-range strategies.
For example, a soft drink manufacturer can imitate the market-leading competitor’s strategy (wide-ranging) and compete centered on price (restricted-ranging). Another, in turn, may choose to improve its line product and train its sales team (both restricted-range strategies) associated with the focus strategy (wide-range) on a market niche of natural drinks.
C. L. Eckhard, author of Pricing in Agribusiness: setting and managing prices for better sales margins.