Marketing Planning
Marketing planning is a strategic necessity. Every organisation should have a marketing plan. The marketing planning process begins with a situation analysis – a “where are we now?” This consists of a marketing audit of the external and internal business environments which encompass a number of areas including the PESTLE analysis, a competitor analysis and a portfolio analysis.
Once an organisation has identified where they are, they can pinpoint where they want to be; marketing planning is a journey. So the next question is “where do we want to be?”; in other words what are the marketing objectives? In a marketing plan, indeed in any plan, these should be SMART objectives and should include measures in order that the progress of the plan can be monitored.
Now the organisation knows where they want to be, they can decide how they are going to get there. This is the strategic part of marketing planning. Strategy involves deciding on how to achieve the marketing planning objectives. So whether this is penetration of an existing market, developing new products or markets or the risky diversification the organisation needs to make a decision on how to move forward. Who will they target? What will their message be? What products or services will they offer and what added value will their customers receive? How will the product get to market and how much will customers pay for it? These are all very important questions in the marketing planning process.
The final part of your marketing plan is to identify how to measure success – “How do we know we’ve arrived?”. This is why it is important to use SMART objectives in the first part of the marketing planning process. Success (or failure!) can be measured against initial objectives and appropriate changes made to tactics to ensure goals are achieved.
Marketing planning is a logical process and it does work.
Topic Index:
Marketing Planning
Marketing planning is a strategic necessity. Every organisation should have a marketing plan. The marketing planning process begins with a situation analysis – a “where are we now?” This consists of a marketing audit of the external and internal business environments which encompass a number of areas including the PESTLE analysis, a competitor analysis and a portfolio analysis.
Once an organisation has identified where they are, they can pinpoint where they want to be; marketing planning is a journey. So the next question is “where do we want to be?”; in other words what are the marketing objectives? In a marketing plan, indeed in any plan, these should be SMART objectives and should include measures in order that the progress of the plan can be monitored.
Now the organisation knows where they want to be, they can decide how they are going to get there. This is the strategic part of marketing planning. Strategy involves deciding on how to achieve the marketing planning objectives. So whether this is penetration of an existing market, developing new products or markets or the risky diversification the organisation needs to make a decision on how to move forward. Who will they target? What will their message be? What products or services will they offer and what added value will their customers receive? How will the product get to market and how much will customers pay for it? These are all very important questions in the marketing planning process.
The final part of your marketing plan is to identify how to measure success – “How do we know we’ve arrived?”. This is why it is important to use SMART objectives in the first part of the marketing planning process. Success (or failure!) can be measured against initial objectives and appropriate changes made to tactics to ensure goals are achieved.
Marketing planning is a logical process and it does work.
Topic Index: