There are two types of strategic marketing consulting. The first is the development of strategic marketing
plans including product and service development, pricing strategy,
distribution and possibly the most high profile, promotion and
advertising.
The second type of strategic marketing consulting is focused more on
marketing management. Not the development of the marketing strategy, but
the management of the implementation. This is often where the largest
investment resides for marketing focused organisations.
The first can be simplistically defined as effectiveness - developing
marketing strategies and plans to effectively deliver the business
objectives for growth. The second is about marketing efficiency,
developing implementation processes, structures and agreements to
maximize the effectiveness of the marketing investment while minimizing
waste, duplication and cost.
Of course efficiency without effectiveness is pointless. There is no
point increasing efficiency at the expense of effectiveness. But
likewise a pure focus on effectiveness without constantly monitoring and
improving efficiencies means reduced returns on that investment.
An article in Harvard Business Review July-August 2005 showed that
company strategy was only 60% realized in implementation as often the
focus was on the strategic development and not the implementation
process. The same holds for marketing strategy implementation, with many
organisations suffering inefficiencies in the process due to poor
process management.
While there has been an increased focus in this area with many
procurement functions within organisations targeting marketing spend for
attention, often this amounts to nothing more than cost reduction
rather than increased efficiencies at the expense of effectiveness.
Strategic marketing consulting goes beyond the first steps of marketing
procurement and uses as the foundation the strategic requirements of the
marketing plan. Rather than simply looking at the suppliers engaged
from a procurement, or sourcing, perspective the approach is to take a
strategic view of the marketing requirements and then aligning the
external and internal resources to best deliver these needs.
Having established the strategic marketing structure it is then a matter
of engaging the various suppliers in the most effective manner possible
to focus the outputs to the marketing and organization requirements
detailed in the marketing strategy.
The type and number of suppliers will depend on the requirements of the
marketing strategy and the financial investment respectively. The type
of engagement will be dependent on their suppliers' role and level of
strategic importance in delivering the marketing plan and the defined
outcomes. This will vary by brand, market and category depending on the
strategic requirements.
This approach to strategic marketing consulting delivers an efficiency
model and plan that is perfectly aligned to the marketing strategy to
ensure that both efficiency and effectiveness are delivered.
Strategic marketing
