Financing and Marketing Management

Unit 17 - Types of Marketing Strategy

17.2. General Marketing Strategies
These set the direction for all marketing efforts by describing, in general terms, how marketing will achieve its objectives. There are many different General Marketing Strategies, though most can be viewed as falling into one of the following categories:

• Market Expansion
• Market Share Growth
• Niche Market
• Status Quo
• Market Exit

Market Expansion
With this strategy marketers look to grow overall sales in one of two ways:
Grow Sales with Existing Products – With this approach the marketer seeks to actively increase the overall sales of products the company currently markets. This can be accomplished by:

• Getting existing customers to buy more
• Getting potential customers to buy (i.e., those who have yet to buy)
• Selling current products in new markets.

Grow Sales with New Products – With this approach the marketer seeks to achieve objectives through the introduction of new products. This can be accomplished by:

• Introducing updated versions or refinements to existing products
• Introducing products that are extensions of current products
• Introducing new products not previously marketed.

Market Share Growth
This strategy looks to increase the marketer’s overall percentage or share of market. In many cases this can only be accomplished by taking sales away from competitors. Consequently, this strategy often relies on aggressive marketing tactics.
Niche Market
This strategy looks to obtain a commanding position within a certain segment of the overall market. Usually the niche market is much smaller in terms of total customers and sales volume than the overall market. Ideally this strategy looks to have the product viewed as being different from companies targeting the larger market.
Status Quo
This strategy looks to maintain the marketer's current position in the market, such as maintaining the same level of market share.
Market Exit
This strategy looks to remove the product from the organization’s product mix. This can be accomplished by:

• Selling the product to another organization
• Eliminating the product the company's product offerings