Many years ago I gave a presentation named “What is Marketing?”. As part of this I created the following simple slide, to explain the differences between inbound, outbound, strategic ……..marketing. Might not be 100% accurate but not far off either. 
Marketing Functions
The most important thing for any marketing / communication plan! Way too often marketers forget the basics and jump straight into messaging or even tactics, when following the simple rule of segmenting – targeting – positioning – messaging. When positioning is done correctly there’s no doubt about what and who the product / service is for and what it’s uniqueness and value, out of which the messaging almost flows ”automatically”. Positioning is a very good acid test, and if not convincing enough the success rate diminishes. One other common mistake is trying to write a positioning statement like a message or tag-line. Fails every time.
A while ago I got involved in doing some brand research around customer intimacy. The company I was doing this for had selected this as their strategy (out of three possible ones according to some marketing gurus: customer intimacy, product leadership and operational excellence) and wanted to know how they were doing. The attached document briefly discusses the methodology. In the end, companies can call their strategies whatever they want, but if the brand attributes doesn’t resonate with their customers or a chosen strategy isn’t economically viable something have to change. Brand Value Drivers in B-2-B