2_Easy_Marketing Planning and Management

• Key tasks required for company and business unit planning should be identified for marketing planning and management

Defining the Corporate Mission

• Requires clarifying the organization's core purpose and long-term goals
• Key questions to consider:
  • What is our business?
  • Who is our customer?
  • What do our customers value?
  • What will our business become in the future?
• Characteristics of a good mission statement:
  • Focuses on a limited set of goals.
  • Emphasizes major policies and values.
  • Identifies the main markets or customer groups served.
  • Takes a long-term view.
  • Is short, memorable, and meaningful.

Building the Corporate Culture

• Corporate culture is defined by the shared experiences, beliefs, norms, and values influencing how members interact and work
• A customer-centric culture differentiates an organization in changing markets
• Corporate culture influences employee behavior, attitudes toward innovation, and serving customers.

Defining Strategic Business Units (SBUs)

• An SBU is a single or a group of related businesses
  • Can be managed separately from the rest of the company
  • Has its own competitors
  • Is led by a manager responsible for strategic planning and profit
• Each SBU needs its own strategy consistent with the broader corporate mission
• SBUs may focus on specialized (narrow) or diversified (broad) product portfolios

Allocating Resources Across SBUs

• Companies often have multiple SBUs with varying potentials
• Top management decides how to invest in, grow, or "harvest" each unit
• Key factors in resource allocation:
  • Market Attractiveness (e.g., size, growth, profitability)
  • Company's Competitive Position (e.g., market share, strategic assets, core competencies)
  • Synergies among SBUs (e.g., shared R&D, shared distribution channels)
• Portfolio Models (e.g., the BCG matrix) can compare SBUs and guide investment decisions
• Generalized Resource-Allocation Strategies include growing, holding, or divesting SBUs based on performance

Developing a Market Offering

• The process involves understanding strategy vs. tactics
  • Strategy: Specifies the target market and value proposition
  • Tactics (Marketing Mix): Attributes called the 7 Ts (product, service, brand, price, incentives, communication, distribution) to bring the strategy to life
• The tactics cannot be designed without defining the target customers and the unique value offered
• Once the strategy is defined, an offering is created to fulfill customer needs better than the competition

Identifying the Target Market

• Involves the Five Cs:
  • Customers: Whose needs are you trying to address? (B2C vs B2B)
  • Collaborators: Which partners can help create, deliver, or promote your offering?
  • Competitors: Who else is targeting the same customers and trying to satisfy the same needs?
  • Company: What resources and capabilities do you have?
  • Context: What external forces affect how you operate?
    • (social, technological, regulatory, economic, physical)

Developing the Value Proposition

• The 3-V Principle suggests that a product should have:
  • Customer Value: Why the target market should choose your offering over the competition
  • Collaborator Value: Why potential partners would prefer to collaborate with you
  • Company Value: Why this particular offering is worth your firm's investment

Designing the Marketing Tactics

• Optimal value aligns happy customers, profitable partnership deals, and strong company returns
• The 7 Ts include:
  • Product: The actual item or solution offered
  • Service: Value delivered without transferring ownership
  • Brand: The identity that distinguishes your offering from competitors
  • Price: The amount of money customers pay and collaborators receive
  • Incentives: Temporary boosts to enhance value
  • Communication: Informing or persuading customers, collaborators, and other stakeholders
  • Distribution: How the offering reaches customers
• The 7 Ts influence the offering's attractiveness, awareness, and availability
• They are considered a more detailed, modern version of the 4 Ps

Creating a Market Value Map

• Business model visualization is the key
• Market Value Map will link:
  • Target Market (defined by the Five Cs)
  • Value Proposition (customer, collaborator, and company value)
  • Market Offering (the seven tactical decisions)
• Specialized market value maps include:
  • Customer Value Map: Focuses on superior value for customers
  • Collaborator Value Map: Details how you partner with suppliers, distributors, etc
  • Company Value Map: Clarifies how the offering meets the organization's internal goals

Explaining the Process of Marketing Planning

• Is achieved via Goal-Strategy-Tactics-Implementation-Control (G-STIC) framework
  • Goal: Your primary success criterion
  • Strategy: Defines the target market and value proposition
  • Tactics: The concrete activities that execute the strategy (marketing mix, 7 Ts)
  • Implementation: Turning your strategy and tactics into reality
  • Control: Tracking performance and market conditions to ensure you're on course to meet the goal

Control

• Involves tracking performance and market conditions to ensure goal achievement
  • Performance Evaluation: Compare outcomes to benchmarks
  • Monitoring the Environment: Keep an eye on external changes
  • Adjusting the Plan: Refine strategy, tweak tactics, or rethink overall approach based on changes or performance gaps
• Resource Development: Acquire needed competencies and assets
• Offering Development: Create actual products/services including design, pricing, and branding
• Commercial Deployment: Rolling out the offering across the necessary markets

Actionable Marketing Plan Components

• Executive Summary: A brief overview of the entire plan
• Situation Overview: An assessment of internal and external conditions
  • Company Overview: Firm history, culture, resources
  • Market Overview: Analysis of competition, opportunities, target segments
• Exhibits: Appendices, tables, charts, and detailed data for discussion support
• Specialized Marketing Plans: Product development plans, communication plans, and segment-specific plans

Modifying the Marketing Plan

• A marketing plan should be revised whenever internal or external market factors shift enough to affect the plan's viability
• Revisit the G-STIC Framework.
• Conduct a Marketing Audit (if needed): comprehensive, systematic, unbiased, and periodic.
• Plans should be updated when any change in the Five Cs makes it less effective