Explore the vast range of titles available.

Although social media use is gaining increasing importance as a component of firms’ portfolio of strategies, scant research has systematically consolidated and extended knowledge on social media marketing strategies (SMMSs). To fill this research gap, we first define SMMS, using social media and marketing strategy dimensions. This is followed by a conceptualization of the developmental process of SMMSs, which comprises four major components, namely drivers, inputs, throughputs, and outputs. Next, we propose a taxonomy that classifies SMMSs into four types according to their strategic maturity level: social commerce strategy, social content strategy, social monitoring strategy, and social CRM strategy. We subsequently validate this taxonomy of SMMSs using information derived from prior empirical studies, as well with data collected from in-depth interviews and a quantitive survey among social media marketing managers. Finally, we suggest fruitful directions for future research based on input received from scholars specializing in the field.

Marketing organization is the interface of the firm with its markets and where the work of marketing gets done. This review of the past 25 years of scholarship on marketing organization examines the individual and integrative roles of four elements of marketing organization—capabilities, configuration (including structure, metrics, and incentives), culture, and the human capital of marketing leadership and talent. The authors indicate that these four elements are mobilized through seven marketing activities (7As) that occur during the marketing strategy process. These activities enable the firm to anticipate market changes, adapt the strategy to stay ahead of competition, align the organization to the strategy and market, activate effective implementation, ensure accountability for results, attract resources, and manage marketing assets. How well the firm manages these seven activities throughout the marketing strategy process determines the performance payoffs from marketing organization. Future research priorities outlined for the elements of marketing organization, their integration, and their impact on the 7As offer directions for the study of organizing for marketing excellence.

Understanding customer experience and the customer journey over time is critical for firms. Customers now interact with firms through myriad touch points in multiple channels and media, and customer experiences are more social in nature. These changes require firms to integrate multiple business functions, and even external partners, in creating and delivering positive customer experiences. In this article, the authors aim to develop a stronger understanding of customer experience and the customer journey in this era of increasingly complex customer behavior. To achieve this goal, they examine existing definitions and conceptualizations of customer experience as a construct and provide a historical perspective of the roots of customer experience within marketing. Next, they attempt to bring together what is currently known about customer experience, customer journeys, and customer experience management. Finally, they identify critical areas for future research on this important topic.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing the development of social media marketing strategy in an international context. We specifically look at the potential drivers and barriers throughout the social media marketing strategy development process and how cultural differences shape social media marketing strategy decision-making among firms in international markets.Design/methodology/approachThe study is conducted with an inductive research approach involving in-depth interviews with 32 firms from Finland, China and Brazil. Using inductive data analysis, we identify both internal and external factors that drive and hinder the development of firms’ social media marketing strategies. Moreover, we explore the essential elements in social media marketing strategy development based on the key practices observed among these firms, which enables us to conduct a comparative analysis of how cultural values influence the development of social media marketing strategies.FindingsOur findings underscore the importance of both internal (i.e. resources and capabilities) and external (i.e. market-level and country-level) factors that influence the development of social media marketing strategy. Our analysis also unveiled four key practices throughout the social media marketing strategy development process: social selling, content marketing, risk management and relationship management. Additionally, we identified three distinct mindsets regarding firms’ social media selling objectives across companies in the three countries.Originality/valueThe comparative approach provides novel insight into firms' international social media marketing strategy. Our proposed conceptual model shows the development process of social media marketing strategy in the international context. The research propositions highlight the role of cultural values and open up new avenues for future research.

Marketing scholars have recently embraced the study of the corporate upper echelons—the executives and board members atop the organizational hierarchy. However, management scholars have researched the upper echelons for decades, with frequent forays into the marketing strategy domain. As a result of progressing in two separate disciplines, the literature on marketing strategy and the upper echelons is fragmented and disjointed. We develop an organizing framework to review extant research and assess and synthesize the knowledge in the upper echelons marketing strategy domain. Our review covers the 14 most influential marketing and management journals from 1984 through February, 2020. Given the relative newness of this research within marketing, we develop a conceptual model fusing existing theory in the upper echelons and marketing strategy literatures, and use this to identify key blind spots and underdeveloped areas of knowledge caused by the two fields’ independent evolutions. Finally, we also examine challenges associated with conducting research in this area and provide recommendations to help researchers and reviewers navigate these challenges to advance theory and practice.

It seems to be common sense that to increase profits, firms should prioritize customers (i.e., focus their efforts on the most important customers). However, such a strategy might have substantial negative effects on firms' relationships with customers treated at a low priority level. Prior research does not indicate satisfactorily whether and how customer prioritization pays off. Moreover, although customer prioritization may be strongly present in firms' marketing strategies, firms frequently fail to implement such a strategy. Therefore, it is also important to investigate empirically by which means firms can facilitate implementation. The authors address both issues and conduct a cross-industry study with 310 firms from business-to-consumer and business-to-business contexts together with two independent validation samples. The results show that customer prioritization ultimately leads to higher average customer profitability and a higher return on sales because it (1) affects relationships with top-tier customers positively but does not affect relationships with bottom-tier customers and (2) reduces marketing and sales costs. Furthermore, the ability to assess customer profitability, the quality of customer information, selective organizational alignment, selective senior-level involvement, and selective elaboration of planning and control all positively moderate the link between a firm's prioritization strategy and actual customer prioritization.

This paper proposes a domain statement for strategic marketing as a field of study and delineates certain issues fundamental to the field. It also proposes a definition for marketing strategy, the focal organizational strategy construct of the field, and enumerates a number of foundational premises of marketing strategy. The domain of strategic marketing is viewed as encompassing the study of organizational, inter-organizational and environmental phenomena concerned with (1) the behavior of organizations in the marketplace in their interactions with consumers, customers, competitors and other external constituencies, in the context of creation, communication and delivery of products that offer value to customers in exchanges with organizations, and (2) the general management responsibilities associated with the boundary spanning role of the marketing function in organizations. At the broadest level, marketing strategy can be defined as an organization’s integrated pattern of decisions that specify its crucial choices concerning products, markets, marketing activities and marketing resources in the creation, communication and/or delivery of products that offer value to customers in exchanges with the organization and thereby enables the organization to achieve specific objectives. Chief among the issues that are fundamental to strategic marketing as a field of study are the questions of how the marketing strategy of a business is influenced by demand side factors and supply side factors.

This conceptual article examines the relationship between marketing and sustainability through the dual lenses of anthropocentric and ecocentric epistemology. Using the current anthropocentric epistemology and its associated dominant social paradigm, corporate ecological sustainability in commercial practice and business school research and teaching is difficult to achieve. However, adopting an ecocentric epistemology enables the development of an alternative business and marketing approach that places equal importance on nature, the planet, and ecological sustainability as the source of human and other species' well-being, as well as the source of all products and services. This article examines ecocentric, transformational business, and marketing strategies epistemologically, conceptually and practically and thereby proposes six ecocentric, transformational, strategic marketing universal premises as part of a vision of and solution to current global un-sustainability. Finally, this article outlines several opportunities for management practice and further research.

Over the past decade, several studies have argued that customer satisfaction has high relevance for financial markets because it has a significant impact on stock returns. However, little attention has been given to understanding the impact of customer satisfaction on the risk of stock returns. The finance literature suggests that investors that judge performance only in terms of returns place more resources than warranted in risky opportunities, forgo profitable opportunities, and apply misguided performance evaluations. Accordingly, this study develops, tests, and finds empirical support for the hypotheses that positive changes (i.e., improvement) in customer satisfaction result in negative changes (i.e., reduction) in overall and downside systematic and idiosyncratic risk. Using a panel data sample of publicly traded U.S. firms and satisfaction data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, the study demonstrates that investments in customer satisfaction insulate a firm's stock returns from market movements (overall and downside systematic risk) and lower the volatility of its stock returns (overall and downside idiosyncratic risk). The results are robust to alternative measures of risk, model specifications, and concerns related to sample composition criteria raised in some recent studies. Therefore, the results indicate that customer satisfaction is a metric that provides valuable information to financial markets. The robust impact of customer satisfaction on stock returns risk indicates that it would be useful for firms to disclose their customer satisfaction scores in their annual report to shareholders.

The authors present the results of a study that empirically tests a model connecting national export-promotion programs with export performance through the intervening role of export-related organizational resources and capabilities, export marketing strategy, and export competitive advantage. The study reveals that the adoption of specific national export-promotion programs positively strengthens the firm's export-related resources and capabilities, which in turn are instrumental in developing a sound export marketing strategy. By realizing this strategy, the firm enjoys competitive advantages related to costs, products, or services, which in turn help it achieve superior export performance in both market and financial dimensions. In addition, the firm's export market performance has a positive impact on export financial performance. This study also shows that the effect of national export-promotion programs on export-related resources and capabilities is stronger among smaller firms and, for some programs, among firms with less export experience.