marketing plan «

Posts Tagged ‘marketing plan’

Setting objectives

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

Businesses of all sizes set goals and objectives in some form or another to guide them in the right direction. Whether these are formal or informal, knowing when and where to set objectives is the key to successful marketing planning – Objectives form the foundation of your marketing plan and create the metrics for future control and evaluation of marketing activities.

Tip: Objectives should be used to put the detail behind
the forever vague corporate mission statement.

As the saying goes, success by the inch is a cinch, success by the yard is hard! Don;t tackle objectives in their entirety, break them down into multi-level objectives such as: corporate level objectives – these concern the business as a whole; divisional objectives which focus on specific areas or departments within the company; functional objectives such as the marketing mix, and lastly, campaign objectives.

Examples of Multilevel Objectives

Corporate objectives – these should come from your mission or vision statement:

• Market standing – total sales or market share
• Innovation – targets for product or service development, cost reduction, financing, operational Performance, human resource and management information
• Physical and financial resources – acquisition and use of resources
• Profitability – increase earnings per share or return on equity
• Manager performance and development
• Employee performance and attitude
• Public responsibility

Divisional objectives;

• Increase new customers by 10%
• Increase retention levels from 50% to 75% within 18 months
• Acquire 15 new customers every month within 12 months.

Marketing Mix Objectives;

• Increase market share by 10%
• Aim to achieve 75% customer awareness of our brand in our target markets
• Improve profitability by 5%

Campaign Objectives;

• Generate 1,000 new leads for sales team
• Increase direct mail response rates by 10% through creative tests

External and Internal Influences

When setting objectives also consider the environmental factors, nature of the business and stakeholder influences that can have an overall effect on your company mission and objectives – such influences are sometimes overlooked in the planning stage.

Environmental factors;

• PESTLE
• Micro
• Corporate social responsibility
• Globalisation

Nature of the business:

• Market situation
• Products
• Technology

Organisational culture;

• History and age
• Leadership and management styles
• Structure and systems
• Mission and vision
• Culture

Stakeholders (employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers, creditors);

• Who do you serve?
• Balance of power and influence of various Stakeholders
• Governance and accountability

SMART Objectives

And last but not least, don’t forget that all objectives need to be SMART. SMART objectives are more likely to be completed because by nature they are clear (specific) – this means that you know exactly the details of what needs to be achieved. Furthermore, you have an indication when it has been achieved (measurable) because you are measuring completion. In general, a SMART objective is likely to be completed because as a rule they must also be achievable.

Prior to setting a SMART objective, other factors such as resources and available should be taken into account. This will ensure that the objective is also realistic. Last but not least we need to consider our objectives against a timescale/deadline. This will helps employees to focus on the tasks required to achieve the objective. Having a timescale in place stops people postponing the completion of tasks.

• Specific
• Measurable and expressed in quantifiable terms
• Acceptable to stakeholders
• Realistic and achievable
• Time bound

Tags: campaign objectives, corporate objectives, marketing plan
Posted in How To Do... | No Comments »

Definition of marketing

Monday, April 26th, 2010

What is it? The Chartered Institute of Marketing definition: “The management process which identifies, anticipates and supplies customer requirements efficiently and profitably” – Chartered Institute of Marketing (2008).

What this is saying is that Marketing is a management process that should be considered at board level and the marketing strategy should be integral to the firm’s business plan. A company will also use market research and environmental scanning to identify and anticipate customer needs, and then build a marketing plan, in the form of a marketing mix.

The marketing plan and marketing mix offered by the company must then go on to exceed the customers expectations at all times, but it must do so efficiently and profitably. It does this by selecting certain products/services and segments that will allow this to happen. So, 'marketing' happens when a company’s focus is on the customer, everything is geared towards what the customer wants. It takes into account things that the competition is doing. It looks at the cooperation between the different functions within an organisation, and responds to changes both in the environment and the customers needs, rather than trying to push the company’s own objectives into the market all of the time.

Focus is also on profit rather than on number of sales or turnover.

Role of a Marketer: Marketers effectively manage the marketing mix whilst acting as across function champions within a company. They project manage, co-ordinate, advise and inspire creativity whilst always looking after the overall company brand image.

Marketers also act as the following;

• Guide
• Deliverer
• Communicator
• Co-ordinator
• Negotiator
• Customer Voice
• Strategic partner

When to engage Marketing? Marketing should be used now and every day. It should be embedded within your company. It’s a management process, and as described clearly in the CIM definition, is integral to the business plan. Even seasonal businesses must continually reach out to customers or risk having to rebuild their sales every year.

Marketing should be used for;

• Establishing environmental scanning for opportunities and threats
• Understanding an organisation’s strengths and weaknesses
• Creating a sustainable competitive advantage
• Understanding where a brand needs to be in the future
• Creating and delivering marketing plans to get there
• Establishing management information systems to identify progress

What does it achieve? Marketing activities ultimately result in a marketing oriented company.

The characteristics of which are;

• You are driven by customers needs
• Your customers can be grouped together according to their different needs so that products can be tailored to suit
• Customers always have access to information and advice they need on how to use a product or it’s availability
• Employees are involved with the final quality of products and services and don’t just rely on their production departments
• Enables delivery of customer value

A common regret of most failed companies is that they didn’t initialise any marketing programs prior to failure. Bringing in new customers without prospect databases, not having marketing tools or materials and often little or no name recognition in the marketplace is tough. However the role of a marketer in managing the marketing mix, acting as across function champion, project managing, co-ordinating, advising and inspiring to ensure corporate identity is protected, means that you do not have to go it alone.

Key steps:

• Conduct a Marketing audit and analysis of your current state
• Identify your objectives – link in with business plan
• Identify your strategy – long term plans
• Create you short term tactical marketing communications; marketing mix
• Evaluate the process • Re-audit and adjust tactical plans as necessary

Top Tips: Invest in professional marketing advice or support. This can mean as little as bouncing ideas off a marketer, outsourcing the role or employing someone full time, it depends on individual circumstances. And secondly, develop a plan, use it but remember the fluidity of its nature; evaluation and control should be a critical part in your ongoing development. Always remember that the definition of marketing is about satisfying customer’s needs profitable, and to do so it needs an appropriate marketing orientation.

Tags: marketing definition, marketing mix, marketing plan, marketing strategy
Posted in How To Do... | 3 Comments »

Marketing Planning Cycle

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

The marketing planning cycle; Analyse, Planning, Implementation and Control (APIC) is a model used to visually illustrate the 4 stages of planning within a marketing environment.

The cycle starts with the audit and analysis step. In a new-business-start-up this forms the first part of the overall business planning and objectives. For existing businesses, the planning will generally come as a result of a major event, such as a recession, after a major change in technology or competitor activity. However, in both cases, annual reviews of the audit, analysis and planning stages are typical in most market orientated companies.

Following the Audit and analysis comes our actual planning. Here we write up the marketing plan, including; results of audit and analysis, marketing objectives, marketing strategy and overall tactical plans. These activities are synchronised with the overall corporate mission, strategies and objectives.

The implementation stage consists of your marketing and promotional mix. This also includes communications and delivery of activities derived from media plans.

Finally, with control/evaluation we examine our overall performance in meeting our objectives, by utilising a number of metrics. These will include measures such as; how well we are meeting the expectations of our customers , where we are strong/weak/vulnerable, how can we meet or exceed expectations in future in light of known opportunities and threats and what else do we need to do?

The information that is received back as a result of the control/evaluation feeds back into the overall planning and implementation. This minor tweaking and adaption of the planning cycle continues and is an ongoing process.

Tags: marketing plan, marketing planning, marketing strategy
Posted in How To Do... | No Comments »