THE ROLE OF ANALYTICAL MARKETING IN FORMULATING PROMOTIONAL AND DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY

Formulating business and marketing strategy requires analytical support from the analytical marketing methodology, both in terms of the initial informing of decision makers, and in terms of measuring the effects of applied decisions. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the symbiosis between analytical marketing and strategic decision making under promotion and distribution setting. The processes of creating promotional campaigns and establishing distribution networks are viewed as iterative processes consisting of logically  defined stages. The author answers the following questions: what are the critical business decisions at every stage, what are the information inputs needed for any decision and which analytical marketing methods can help in their preparation. One of the main conclusions of this paper is that it is desirable for a marketing manager to understand the entire process of market analysis in order to eliminate the risk of reliance on incorrect data and information in decisionmaking. Marketing managers, who introduce a new product, are expected, before making a key strategic decisions, to understand the basic assumptions of individual
methods, pros and cons of the methods used and to know how to interpret the produced research results.

Key words: analytical marketing, strategy, promotion, distribution.

JEL Classification: M30, L19