To be successful – even viable – any business must be seen as valuable by its customers, either by providing advice or solutions, being convenient, or cheap. And to effectively support your company’s value proposition, marketing strategy has to differentiate your company, create competitive advantage, and support profitable growth.

Such strategy doesn’t just write itself. To deliver value you have to understand what is valuable to your customers – what do they need and want? To create competitive advantage, you need to understand how your competition is addressing those same customer needs and do it better – with better product solutions, smarter advice, greater convenience, or a lower price.