From marketing to strategic marketing

　　Generally speaking, what marketing dominates is the traditional enterprise’s three major operating resources, while strategic marketing dominates the enterprise’s five major operating resources.
　　Human, financial and material are the three most important operating resources of an enterprise. Entering the era of knowledge economy, knowledge and culture have become the fourth and fifth largest business resources. From “three major management resources” to “five major management resources” is the inevitable result of the development of the times, and it is also the deepening of human understanding of the material world and the spiritual world. Today, this point of view has not only been generally recognized by the academic and business circles, but also proved by China’s increasingly in-depth market practice.
　　Strategic marketing has been an important research field in the marketing discipline since the 1990s, and it has a close relationship with enterprise management resources. Strategy is an enterprise’s choice for the future, and it is also the starting point of strategic marketing. Strategic marketing is a system and a refined marketing model, which includes all the processes of traditional marketing and is a qualitative change of traditional marketing. The essence of strategic marketing is to plan marketing plans and formulate marketing strategies at the height of competitive strategy, and it is an all-round marketing involving the overall development of enterprises. In the formulation of strategic marketing, on the one hand, it is necessary to fully consider the impact of the external environment on the development of the enterprise, and on the other hand, it is also necessary to study how to tap internal resources and maximize resource efficiency. Today, knowledge and culture as strategic resources for marketing are being proven by market practice.
　　The management guru Drucker once predicted that society will surely transform into a knowledge society, “The decisive ‘factor of production’ that really controls resources is neither capital nor land or labor, but knowledge.” One of the most distinctive features of the era of knowledge economy is the unprecedented improvement of the status of knowledge as a factor of production. In the era of knowledge economy, the reason why culture has suddenly become the key element of enterprise competition and the strategic resource of enterprise marketing lies in the special function of culture itself.
　　However, with the rapid development of the market economy and the ever-changing needs of customers, many companies still separate knowledge from products, brand from sales, and culture from channels. A prevailing view holds that brands cannot be eaten, and culture cannot be worn. This sentimental view is actually a contempt for the brand and a disdain for the culture. It is often said that “the competition of an enterprise depends on the brand, and the culture is behind the brand”. The brand is just an abstract symbol and name, and its connotation lies in the culture of integrity, quality and service. Enterprises are destined to go far.
　　Naturally, for marketing, products and sales are more important than anything else. However, in today’s extremely fierce market competition, how can sales be achieved without a brand? Even in the rural market with weak brand awareness, don’t think that low prices are the iron law that never fails, and sales are the key to becoming stronger and bigger. square. Enterprises that rely on “short, flat, fast” and “time difference” to dominate sales should not forget that the rural market is also experiencing an information revolution. With the vigorous advancement of the “Village Access” project, who said that farmers do not have brand awareness? Just like home appliances going to the countryside Like those jugglers in the tide, they think that farmers are easy to fool, but in the end they just hurt themselves.
　　Taking a comprehensive view of my country’s reform and opening up, the development of enterprises has gone through three stages, and its marketing competition also presents three characteristics: The first stage is product competition. At this stage, as long as it can produce marketable products, the enterprise has marketing competitiveness. At this stage, companies compete on “who can do it”, that is, whoever can produce products that meet customer needs will win the market. The second stage is service competition. The homogenization of products prompts enterprises to realize that advanced technology and products are not a panacea for enterprises to win competition. In order to win more customers, enterprises need to push product competition to service competition. At this stage, companies compete on “who can do it”, that is, whoever can do it well in terms of service may win customers. The third stage is cultural competition. With the profound changes in the market environment, product competition and service competition are becoming more and more difficult to achieve and attract customers. At this time, the competition among enterprises has risen to a new stage – cultural competition. At this stage, companies compete on “who is doing well”, and whether “doing well” or “doing poorly” depends on the evaluation of customers, and also determines customer satisfaction and loyalty. Compared with the previous two stages, “who does it well” will definitely test the company’s marketing wisdom and system capabilities more. It is this competition of “who does it well” that creates a broad market space for competition among enterprises and also It provides a greater scope for marketing.
　　Looking back at the history of management thought, for more than 100 years, enterprise management has gone through four major stages, namely from classical management to behavioral science management to management jungle and then to cultural management. This is an inevitable historical process. There is no doubt that cultural management can create greater market differentiation and competitiveness for companies.
　　Today, Chinese enterprises urgently need to move from marketing to strategic marketing. Strategic marketing based on resource and competition orientation and highly integrated capabilities will surely push marketing into a new era.