Marketing Strategy and Financial Performance: The Case of Chocolate Industry in Macedonia

Different business performance of the companies for many researchers is understood through the influence of marketing. This can be explained through the theory of strategy, since this theory is answering why different companies have different financial performances. The basic purpose of market research is that it allows the determination of a strategy for operation of the enterprise on the market, and establishes the needed specific actions which are to be taken for the strategy implementation, thus designs a marketing model at a level where it creates an organization fully committed to the consumer. The marketing strategy of an enterprise is a complete and unbeatable plan or instrument specifically designed to achieve the set of marketing objectives that will influence the financial performance of the company. The implementation of marketing strategy and its influence to the company financial performance is becoming very important as a topic for practitioners, but also for researchers interested in marketing and finance fields. Actually, the marketing function is assigned for obtaining and gathering financial resources from the environment in order to guarantee continued firm operations. Strategic planning is a managerial process of developing and maintaining the strategic relationship between the companies and changing market opportunities, and is based on development of a mission or strategic direction, goals, strategy, and business portfolio of markets and products (Paley, 2007). Marketing strategy predetermines the choice of target market segments, positioning, marketing mix and allocation of resources. The authors propose a marketing strategy which includes two consecutive steps: first - market segmentation and selection of target group of consumers and second – creation of a marketing mix. Key words: marketing strategy, financial performance, chocolate industry, Macedoni