Factors affecting overall marketing strategies:
1. Competitors counter moves: this differ with the various marketing inputs. Most competitors can easily and quickly match or other wise adjust to orice changers. However they often find it diffculgt to follow or to reliate against product innovations. The explains why many marketer seek to gain differential advantage over their competitiors by varying product characterististics as alterning promotion than prices.
2. Synergistic potential: marketing inputs are capable of being mutually reinforcing or having synergistic potential and marketer should consider this working towards and optimum overall marketing strategy. Displays and advertisements can be made mutually reinforcing since the displays repeats the advertising efforts message at a time when the consumer is in an outlet where the product is one sale. Product inputs and marketing channel inputs can be mutually reinforcing depending upon the effectiveness with which they are integrated.
3. Substitutability: the selection of marketing inputs is also affected by their degree of substitutability. It is important to know the extent to which one type of input can be substituted for another type in as much as the nature of marketing objectives such as that of returning a certain level of profit presents a decision maker from making unlimited use of all inputs. A marketing strategist must ask himself. Consideration of such substitutability helps in determining which inputs to include and which to emphasize in the over all marketing strategy.
4. Diversity in productivity levels of various marketing inputs: the marketers should recognize that not all inputs have equal productivity some inputs need a minimum level of use before they begin to have measurable effects. An advertising message must often be repeated several times before consumer become aware of it. the lower cost per consumer contact of ratio maganizes and bill boards often make it possible with a limited budget to present a much stronger impact on consumrs.
5. Elasticity of marketing inputs: different marketing inputs are elastic and they influence the demand o the product. The marketing manager must recognize that effect on the product. For example a manufacture determines different prices for different customers or for different areas only on the basis of varying elasiticity of demand. More often the prices for wholesaler's retailers and consumers are different in almost all the markets. The marketing manager must consider all the above factors in mind while formulating the overall marketing strategy. The strategy must also be elastic so as to incorporate all the strategic factors of the competitors as and when required.