Strategic and operational marketing: two sides of the same coin!

Marketing is a fundamental pillar of any business, helping to enhance the value of products and services in an ultra-competitive environment. It is often divided into two categories: strategic marketing and operational marketing. We take a look at the roles, objectives and differences between the two.

Strategic marketing: tactics first!

The role of strategic marketing

Strategic marketing is the backbone of the company, and its aim is to define the main directions that will enable it to achieve its growth objectives. The aim here is to focus on a long-term vision of the company's development.

This phase of reflection is essential. It enables a clear and coherent strategy to be devised, avoiding ‘navigation by sight’.

At this stage, the methods, systems and resources to be implemented to develop sales performance are defined.

GOOD TO KNOW
In fine, strategic marketing serves to ensure consistency between product policy, pricing policy, communication policy and distribution policy - the famous ‘marketing mix’.

The stages of the strategic marketing phase

There are several steps to determining a marketing strategy:

• Market analysis to determine where the opportunities lie (find out more about our short course in market research).
• Benchmark competitors and analyse their positioning (create a mapping).
• Monitoring trends, market forecasts and changes in buyer behaviour.
• Defining and analysing targets (persona) in terms of their needs and desires, their motivations for buying, their obstacles and objections, etc. This may involve qualitative and/or quantitative customer research.
• Market segmentation according to the growth, size and demand of each segment.
• Defining the value proposition for products and services.
• Choosing objectives and performance indicators (KPIs).
• Finally, choosing the strategy: levers and channels to be used.

In increasingly competitive markets, it's clear that creativity is the key to a company's ability to stand out from the crowd!

Would you like to find out more? Join our short course in marketing strategy.

Operational marketing: time for action!

The role of operational marketing

Once the marketing strategy has been decided, it's time to execute the plan! This is where operational marketing comes into play, the real ‘armed wing’ of strategic marketing.

In this phase, the aim is to implement the (more or less long-term) actions that have been defined upstream, during the strategic phase.

Finally, operational marketing (or ‘tactical’ marketing) is the translation of the strategy into a realistic and measurable action plan.

The aim? To focus on short- and medium-term measures, to get results quickly.

GOOD TO KNOW
Operational marketing is bound to evolve, as it adapts to the pace of the market and changes in buying behaviour.

The principal means of operational marketing

Digital marketing, point-of-sale marketing or hybrid marketing, there are many strategies to deploy... and many tools! Unsurprisingly, the choice of tools depends entirely on the marketing strategy that has already been decided.

A number of factors will influence the company's choice: the target, objectives, resources (tools, people), budget and time constraints, for example.

Depending on the function, you can find:

• Creating, launching and managing online and/or offline advertising campaigns (social networks, newspapers, magazines, radio, etc.)
• Organising and managing events
• Creating content on social networks, via a newsletter, lead magnet, etc.
• Writing SEO-optimised content via a blog
• Sending sales emails (emailing campaigns)
• Distributing flyers
• Search engine advertising (SEA)
• Managing a community on an Instagram, LinkedIn or TikTok account

Operational marketing actions are deployed according to an annual action plan and analysed using key performance indicators (KPIs).

Here are a few examples:

• The conversion rate (download, registration, purchase of a product or service, etc.)
• Cost per acquisition for advertising campaigns
• Click-through rate
• Interaction rate on social networks
• Sales volume

Need to go further?

The key differences between strategic and operational marketing

Although strategic marketing and operational marketing have the same overall objective - to grow the business - their roles are fundamentally different.

Duration of decisions

Strategic marketing is used to define a direction and therefore provides a long-term vision for the company. When defining this strategy, the consequences are planned for at least 3 to 5 years.

Its ‘little brother’, operational marketing, focuses on implementing short-term actions in the weeks and months ahead. This is an execution phase, where results are expected fairly quickly.

The analysis process vs. the execution process

Strategic marketing focuses primarily on analysing markets and targets, as well as choosing resources and planning actions.

Operational marketing, on the other hand, concentrates on carrying out these tasks, following the back-planning (as closely as possible!).

Temporal scope

Finally, we need to take time into account. Whereas strategic marketing looks to the future, operational marketing acts in the present to achieve short-term objectives.

Strategic and operational marketing: opposites or complementary?

It's simple: you can't have one without the other!

Without strategy, operations are ineffective. And without the operational phase, the strategy remains nothing more than a theoretical idea.

So, strategic marketing provides the roadmap and operational marketing enables that strategy to be transformed into concrete results.

They are two stages in the same plan, two sides of the same coin. They should not work in isolation, but in perfect coordination.

The success of one depends on the other: for the success of the company, it is crucial that the two ‘departments’ work together.

What does this mean in practice? The company will need to put in place working and organisational methods that will enable good communication and coordination between the teams.

A true orchestral conductor, the marketing manager will be equipped with key skills, particularly in terms of team management and leadership.

To summarise

Strategic marketing and operational marketing are two links in the same chain. Strategic marketing determines the direction to be taken over the long term, while operational marketing translates this direction into tangible, measurable actions.

It can also be said that strategic marketing defines the ‘what’, while operational marketing focuses on the ‘how’.

While it's important to understand the fundamental differences between these concepts, the most important thing is to learn how to combine the two approaches to maximise your marketing impact.