A marketing strategy often begins with a mission statement. A good mission statement normally focuses on the benefits you offer to your customers, and links to your corporate mission. To develop your marketing mission statement, start by reading your corporate mission statement. If you don’t have a corporate mission statement, it’s time to develop one. A good marketing mission statement will focus on the underlying market needs and customer benefits which are critical to good marketing. This is normally a subset of the corporate mission, which establishes fundamental goals for the quality of your business offering, customer benefits, customer satisfaction, employee welfare, and compensation to owners.
A good corporate mission statement can be a critical element in defining your business and communicating to employees, vendors, and customers, as well as owners, partners, or shareholders. The corporate mission statement is an excellent opportunity to define what business you are in. This can be critical to understanding your keys to success. In a similar way, an accounting practice is probably in the business of offering peace of mind as much as it is tax reporting and financial statements. A medical office is concerned about preserving health as much as treating sickness. A graphic artist is in the business of communication and marketing, not drawing and painting.
Value-based marketing experts recommend a mission statement that includes what they call a “value proposition. It summarizes what benefits you offer, to whom, and at what relative price. Using this reasoning, a tire company might be selling the benefit of highway safety to safety-minded consumers (especially parents) at a price premium.