Strategic Marketing Planning

Marketing Strategy

• Four elements of strategic context are defined, but not detailed.

Strategic Marketing Planning

• Vision: A statement of desired future state for an organization. It guides the organization.
• Mission: Defines the company's purpose, encompassing what business it's in, its customers, and its goals. Good mission statements are realistic, specific, highlight distinctive competence, and motivate. A market-oriented mission focuses on how the product improves quality of life, rather than just the product itself. Crucially, "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it."
• Organizational Values: Acceptable standards of behavior that shape organizational culture and guide individual actions.
• Organizational Goals: Desired outcomes of organizational activities (short-term and long-term), such as profit, market share, share value, ROI, or customer numbers.
• Resources and Capabilities: Internal assets and skills that can be leveraged.
• Competitors: External entities competing for market share.
• External Environment: Influences impacting the company, categorized into factors like demographics, economics, social-cultural aspects, technological advancements, ecology (resources and environmental impact), and politics (laws, agencies, lobbying).
• Target Customers: The intended recipients of the marketing efforts.

Process and Activities

• Strategic Marketing Planning Process: Involves three phases:

  • Analysis: Gaining market insights.
  • Formulation: Defining marketing strategy goals.
  • Implementation: Developing and executing plans for the strategy.

• Strategic Market Analysis: Examining diverse factors influencing a market, including demographics (population characteristics), economics (consumer purchasing power), social-cultural forces (value systems), technological, ecological (natural resource impact), and political environments (laws).

• Five Forces Model: A framework to analyze a market, evaluating bargaining power of suppliers and buyers, threat of substitute products, threats of new market entrants, and internal competition.

• SWOT Analysis: A tool to assess an organization's internal strengths and weaknesses and its external opportunities and threats. It aids in formulating a strategic position. Examples can include Netflix.

• Internal & External Factors: Helps identify the strategic position and inputs for choices about future strategy.

• Generic Strategies: Companies differentiate itself by cutting costs or offering unique products.

• Strategic Marketing Goals: Strategies for dealing with varying market phases:

  • Hold: Maintaining current market share.
  • Harvest: Focusing on short-term profit maximization in declining markets.
  • Niche: Catering to specific segments with high levels of service and differentiation.
  • Divest: Removing offerings with negative cash flow.

• Growth: Achieving increased sales or market share. Ansoff's Matrix (present/new products, present/new markets). Examples are Ben & Jerry’s.

Strategic Market Action

• Competitive Advantage: A long-term benefit resulting from a unique value-creating strategy.

• Steps for gaining advantage: Identify competitors, conduct competitive analysis.

• Generic Strategies (Porter):

  • Cost Leadership: Offering a competitive edge by creating a low-cost structure.
  • Differentiation: High differentiation products and programs.
  • Focus: Pinpointing specific sub-markets, meeting unfulfilled needs. (Focused cost leadership, focused differentiation).

• Porter's Value Disciplines: Three value disciplines outline diverse strategies for market success: Operational excellence, product leadership, and customer intimacy.

• Competitive Positioning: Different roles in a market: Leader, Challenger, Follower, Nicher.

• Cooperation: Working with competitors for mutual benefit— increasing customer value, sharing risks and knowledge, and more efficient resource use.

• Platform Strategies (vs. Linear value chain): Facilitate exchanges between different interdependent groups (consuming-producing), creating connections, and removing barriers through information sharing and data circulation.

Strategic Marketing Implementation

• Implementing Marketing Plans: Factors that affect implementation include organizational culture, structure, available resources, and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

• Marketing Metrics: Measures of strategy effectiveness, including profit, sales, return on sales, awareness, market share, new product introduction, and metrics to measure customer satisfaction.

Writing a Marketing Plan

• Elements: Executive summary, overall objectives, product/market background, marketing analysis (understanding of market, customers, and competition), marketing strategies (target markets, competitive advantages, positioning), marketing goals (outcomes), and marketing programs (marketing mix for each target market).

This quiz explores the essential elements of strategic marketing planning, including the vision, mission, organizational values, goals, and available resources. Understanding these components will help in formulating effective marketing strategies. Test your knowledge and see how well you grasp these critical concepts!