How to Create Winning Marketing Strategies
Marketing strategy boils down to the product market fit. By fit I mean how well the product satisfies the needs of the people in the target market.
The magic happens when the marketer finds a target audience which she can uniquely identify and serve. For example, University of Phoenix was created when John Sperling recognized two things. First, the working adult was different from 18–24-year-olds. Second, traditional schools were ignoring working adults. He started with evening classes in business parks near freeways to serve people commuting from their jobs. He then moved online which was an even better format to serve people who are busy with jobs and families.
As the market for working adults matured so did the so did the strategies. Grand Canyon and Liberty focused on Christians. Capella and North Central targeted graduate students. Strayer and SNHU focused on geographic regions. UMUC and APEI served military students. ASU was the first real top tier university to go online seizing both the high ground on academic quality and the students who sought it. Each school defined the product market fit a little differently to create their winning strategy.
In other categories marketers have gone further and targeted based on values. Patagonia for example has targeted an environmentally conscious consumer and serves them with sustainably made and even recycled products. They only compete with the North Face or Columbia on the margins because they are serving a different customer.
In short, the better you define and understand the target audience, the better you can define a service that will meet their needs. Creating a unique fit between the market and the product is the first step in creating both competitive advantage and a winning marketing plan. While there are other sources of competitive advantage a winning strategy helps. Defining the product market fit is where it starts.