Question

Is a marketing strategy focused on attaining, exploiting, and maintaining a long-term competitive advantage necessarily consistent with gaining sales with pricing?

Answer 1

A good marketing strategy that is focused to build long term competitive advantage, also includes effective pricing strategy. With this pricing strategy, the marketers help to generate sales and gain market share. Here, the pricing strategy depends upon the nature of product, the value creation by the product and its positioning in the market. On this basis, the marketers make either a low cost pricing strategy, or best cost strategy or value based pricing. It helps the sales team to increase the sales and generate revenue for the market. Hence, pricing and resulting sales, is always the part of marketing strategy, focused to achieve competitive advantage. For example, Apple has iPhone product that helps Apple to build long term competitive advantage. But, Apple has made a value based pricing that is generating huge sales revenue to the company. So, sales is operation, along with the marketing strategy at work. Unlike Apple, Amazon, is applying best cost pricing strategy, that is focused to deliver products at low price, but with quality service delivery. It also creates a long term competitive advantage while sales are being created. So, sales and pricing are the part of marketing strategy, working to achieve long term competitive advantage.