Strategy Statement Can Focus Marketing Efforts
3/11/99

Promotions, advertising, and public relations are the three components of marketing communications but college stores, like many other small businesses, don't always have the dollars for extensive programs in all three. According to Business Week Online, a business positioning strategy statement can help stores determine how to budget marketing bucks to achieve the biggest bang.

The positioning strategy statement should identify these components in detail:

  • The store's products and services, especially those that are different from competitors' products and services.


  • How those products and services will be provided or performed.


  • Other attributes that set the store apart from competitors.


  • The store's target customers and end users.


  • The store's direct competitors.


  • How the store's prices are situated in relation to competitors' prices (higher, lower, or about the same).


  • The store's "personality traits"—how does the store come across to customers?


The next step is to use the positioning strategy statement to develop a key marketing message that will correspond with the needs of target customers. This message will form the heart of the store's marketing campaign and will serve as the unifying factor for all promotional activities, public relations programs, and advertisements. The marketing message could evolve into a store slogan or an ad tagline, but its primary purpose is to provide an internal focal point for the store's marketing communications.

The final step is to set up a marketing budget. Business Week Online says that many retailers fail to budget a specific amount for marketing and instead just assign whatever is left over after all other expenses are budgeted. The 1999 NACS College Store Industry Financial Report indicates that college stores serving four-year schools, on average, spend roughly half of 1% of net sales on advertising; stores serving two-year schools average only 0.10%. Business Week Online notes that retail stores (of all types and sizes) typically spend 4% to 6% of net sales on a variety of marketing programs, including advertising.

One approach to establishing a marketing budget on a shoestring is to create a list of available promotional, PR, and advertising options with costs. Select those options that will provide the highest and most immediate return on investment, making sure each option fits the goals of the marketing message. Ideally, the budget should include activities in all three marketing areas but financial limitations (or legal limitations on how an institutional store may market itself) might make it necessary to concentrate on just one or two areas.

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Sound Off!

Jennifer (jhunj@mskcc.org) 6/8/1999 4:30:27 AM

In one of my courses, I was assigned to write a strategy statement for a particular product; however I have never written one in the past. This is my first advertising course. Would you be able to provide an example of one? I am aware of what information should be included in the statement; but on paper, how should it be presented? What is the standard format?

Joseph F Dunphy MBA (jfdunphy@bellatlantic.net) 3/15/1999 9:09:03 AM

If school book stores do have a strategy, and can print it,
it would be useful to put it on one large web page so that
publishers could access the data, and target
promotions accordingly. end message.

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