1.1 Marketing with Intention

Marketing isn’t about guessing what customers want. It’s about making calculated bets and building a plan to win. At its core, a marketing strategy is just that: a plan to win. It lines up everything a company does to deliver value to the right customers and outmaneuver the competition.

That means answering three questions:

  • Who are we trying to serve?

  • Who are we competing against?

  • How are we going to win?

You don’t need a complicated formula. You just need to get the essentials right:

Marketing Strategy = Target + Marketing Mix

First, choose your target: the customers whose needs you understand and can serve better than anyone else. Then, build a marketing mix that delivers value on their terms: the right product, at the right price, through the right channels, with the right message. Do that well, and you’re not just making sales—you’re building a competitive advantage.

Here’s the big-picture view, what we call the Marketing Strategy Toolkit.

Figure 1.1: Marketing Strategy Toolkit

Every strategy needs a frame. That frame gives structure to your thinking, limits the chaos, and helps you focus on what matters most. a marketing strategy means setting the boundaries and priorities before bringing your strategy to life. It means answering the following questions:

  • What problem are we solving?

  • What outcomes do our customers care about most?

  • What constraints are we working with (budget, time, capabilities)?

  • What tradeoffs are we willing to make?

Framing is what separates a scattered list of ideas from a cohesive plan. It helps you stay focused, aligned, and honest about what success looks like—and what it doesn’t. Throughout this book, we’ll show you how to frame strategy before you build it. Because when you define the game, you’re not just playing—you’re playing to win.

Let’s break it down. Targeting isn’t just picking a group. It’s choosing customers whose needs you understand and can serve better than anyone else.

Then comes the marketing mix: product, price, promotion, and place (distribution). These are your levers. When you align them around your target, you’re exceeding expectations—you’re creating value. Real value for the customer. Real profits for the company. That’s the heart of strategy: making choices that add up to something powerful.

Strategy in Action: Warby Parker Frames the Market

When Warby Parker launched in 2010, they didn’t just start selling glasses—they framed their strategy first, building clear answers to each of the four framing questions.

  1. What problem were they solving?

    Eyeglasses were expensive, and the buying experience was clunky and outdated. Most people didn’t know that one company (Luxottica) dominated the industry and kept prices sky-high. Warby Parker saw an opportunity to disrupt.

  2. What outcomes did customers care about most?

    Customers wanted style, affordability, and convenience—without sacrificing quality. They wanted to look good, spend less, and avoid the hassle of going to a store.

  3. What constraints were they working with?

    As a startup, they had no retail presence, no brand awareness, and a limited budget. They couldn’t outspend the competition—so they had to outmaneuver them.

  4. What tradeoffs were they willing to make?

    They wouldn’t compete on luxury or sell through third-party retailers. Instead, they focused on direct-to-consumer only—cutting out the middleman to keep prices low and control the experience. They even launched their brand with a home try-on program that let customers pick five frames to test out at home for free.

Results

By framing their strategy up front, Warby Parker made focused decisions with a clear purpose. They didn’t try to do everything. They concentrated on what mattered most to their customers—and stuck to it.

And it worked, with results everyone could see:

  • Rapid Growth: Warby Parker hit their first-year sales targets within three weeks of launch and sold out their top 15 styles in four weeks, amassing a waitlist of 20,000 customers.

  • Valuation Milestone: By 2020, the company was valued at $3 billion.

  • Revenue Expansion: In 2023, Warby Parker reported $669 million in revenue.

  • Social Impact: As of 2019, they had donated over 5 million pairs of glasses through their “Buy a Pair, Give a Pair” program.

This example underscores the power of strategic framing: making deliberate choices that align with customer needs and company capabilities, leading to sustainable growth and impact.

Pro Tip

That’s the power of framing your strategy. It keeps you focused. It turns constraints into creative moves. And it gives everything that follows the best possible chance at working.

References

Groth, A. (2012, February 9). Warby Parker's year of insane growth: 'We hit our first-year sales targets within the first 3 weeks'. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/warby-parkers-year-of-insane-growth-we-hit-our-first-year-sales-targets-within-the-first-3-weeks-2012-2Wikipedia.

“Warby Parker.” General company background and historical valuation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warby_Parker

Carpetta, C. (2024, May 24). Warby Parker’s $669M impact: How they inspired many copycats. Bigblue. https://www.bigblue.co/blog/warby-parkers-669m-impact-how-they-inspired-many-copycats.

Gonzalez, J. M. (2024, December 12). Warby Parker—An advertising and marketing strategy case study. G&Co. https://www.g-co.agency/insights/warby-parker-advertising-and-marketing-strategy-case-study.

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