the communication of strategic marketing strategy
When Chris Marriott said,
“Marketers often get lost in the ‘how’. They need to force themselves up a level and ask: “What’s the overall strategy?”
he got marketers to put their managerial caps on. He also had me intrigued by the shift towards the strategic way of thinking as a means of achieving success, which can be applied not only to marketing, but a wide range of disciplines.
Sun Tzu‘s The Art of War is an ancient Chinese text that presents a philosophy of war for winning battles and managing conflicts. Fortunately, I’m not about planning wars in the military sense, but The Art of War has applications to Western marketing concepts. Low and Tan (1995) examined this very connection, discussing what it takes for a company to succeed when confronting its competitors.
However, Rule (1981) highlighted the need to change the culture of an organisation to allow a new strategy to be implemented synergistically. This week I have learnt that communication is critical to the successful development to organisational strategies. This knowledge will be handy when it comes to Assignment 3 (namely, the control mechanisms requirement for South Oz Winery’s SMP).
consumer needs in the wine industry
I am very pleased to report that this subject will focus on wine marketing! Assignment 3 will require us to develop a Strategic Marketing Plan for a fictitious winery (more on that in posts to come). Week one’s lecture included documentation that featured in The Queensland Wine Business Conference (2007). The following elements of the marketing plan were discussed in class:
- Understanding consumer needs
- Relation to the strategic marketing process
- Customers and the distribution channel
- Consumer decision-making process & behaviour model
- The evoked set (in terms of brand awareness)
- Involvement levels in decision making
- Perceived risk & individual factors influencing consumer behaviour
- Market segmentation and positioning
The readings for this week included a paper by Quinton and Harridge-March (2003), who conducted a study to determine if wine producers in the UK use the Internet as a fundamental part of their marketing strategy. A key point that I have drawn from reading this paper, is that success for online providers can be attributed to a consumer-oriented interface, and with considerable strategic planning and application.
the proof is in the plan
Ringbakk (2007) states that, “corporate planning is in trouble”. She highlighted the importance of strategic planning and action planning in (particularly, North American) organisations. Sull and Donald (2010) add that strategic planning plays a pivotal role in ‘operational agility’. This point can be applied to my group assignment, as I’d much rather succeed than fail!
Some further reading on strategic planning can be found here.
Nick Ryder's Blog 
Great content Nick!
Looks great too. Love the photography.
This is good, I actually wanted to read it!
Hi Nick,
You have a great writing style that is conversational and compelling. I really enjoyed reading your blog. I agree that one of the key’s to the successful integration of a strategy is communication. The article on “Communicating Your Strategic Plan” provides the backbone for such internal communication.
Great work, Nick! Wonderful to see you incorporating both the lecture and the readings into your post, and adding to your content via outside links. Internal comms/internal marketing is so important to the success of strategy, and it is often left to look after itself. And businesses wonder why they fail!
I agree with Sophie – your writing style is excellent, and blogging suits you!
Also agree with Han and Rachel – your visual presentation is very engaging, and I did want to read on.
Hi Nick
I like your blog, your writing style is great and your blog layout is appealing. I agrre with your comment in regards to Sun Tzu, his philosophy can be applied to business. I also agree with Rule and yourself, that communication and workplace culture is essential in the success of developing successful workplace strategies.
I really like the content, keen to see a couple of images in there though to make it a little more visually stimulating! 😛 Other than that, awesome work!