What is Marketing Strategic Planning
Marketing Strategic Planning means to plan all the activities of a business to ensure competitive advantages and profitability. Marketing Strategic planning involves adapting the firm to take advantage of opportunities in its constantly changing marketing environment.
Marketing Strategic planning engages a firm to take advantages from the available opportunities in frequently changing marketing environment.
Steps in Marketing Strategic Planning
Following are the steps in marketing strategic planning
- Defining The Company Mission
- Setting Company Objective and Goals
- Establishing Strategic Units (SBUs)
- Performing Situational Analysis
- Developing Marketing Strategy
- Implementing Planning
- Feed back
1. Defining the Company Mission Statement
Frist step in marketing strategic planning is defining the company mission statement. Mission statement a statement of organization’s purpose, what it wants to accomplish in the larger environment. The mission statement should be base on the following facts that it should be:
- Market oriented rather than product oriented
- Realistic
- Specific
- Fit the market environment
- Base on its distinctive competencies
- Motivating
2. Company Objectives and Goals
After to define company’s mission, the second step in marketing strategic planning is the company objectives and goals for each level of management, and the managers will responsible to achieve them. Marketing strategies are necessary to support these marketing objectives. If increase its market shares, the company should increase its products availability and promotion. To take place in new markets it should cut its prices. The company’s mission is translated into a set of objectives for the current period.
The objectives should be
- Specific and stated
- Achievable
For example “To increase our market share to 10% in one year”
3. Establishing Strategic Business Units
Most companies operate several businesses. A business must be viewed as a customer satisfying process, not a goods producing process. A business can be defined in three dimensions Customer Group, Customer Needs & Technology. Large companies manage variety of businesses for each business a strategy is needed. For instance there are 49 Strategic Business Units of General Electronic and there are three main characteristics of every SBU.
- It is single business or collection of related business that can be planned separately the rest of the company.
- It has it own set of competitors.
- It has a manager who is responsible for strategic planning and profit performance.
4. Performing Situation Analysis
Performing situation analysis is the fourth step of marketing strategic planning. In performing situation analysis a business analyze both internal and external environment.
Internal Environment
Each Business needs to evaluate its internal environment (Strengths and weaknesses) periodically. A company management or consultant review marketing, financial, manufacturing and organizational competitors and evaluate each factor as a major or minor strength and major or minor weakness.
External Environment
In External Environment the company analysis (opportunities & Threats), once the company examine its opportunities & threats which facing a specific business unit, it characterized it business in four outcomes business overall attractiveness.
- An ideal business is high in opportunities and low in threats.
- A speculative business in both major opportunities and threats.
- A mature business is low in major opportunities and low in threats.
- A troubled business is low in opportunities and high in threats.
5. Marketing Strategy
Strategy is the fifth setp of marketing strategic planning. Strategy is a game plan for getting the objectives. Every business must plan a strategy and achieve its objectives. Consisting of all marketing strategy and compatible technology strategy and sourcing strategy.
Types of Marketing Strategy
Overall Cost Leadership
In this strategy the business work hard for low production and distribution cost. So it price lower and win market share.
Differentiation
The businesses try to achieve superior performance in an important customers benefits area valued by large part of market.
Focus
Here business focuses one or more narrow market segments. The firm gets to know these segments either cost leadership or differentiation within the target segment.
6. Implementing Planning
A clear strategy may be useless if the firm fails to implement it carefully. In this stage managers will work a lot and get work from their subordinates. Successful marketing implementation depends on who well the company blends its people, organization structure, decision and reward system, and company culture into a cohesive action program that supports its strategies. The company’s formal organization structure plays an important role in implementation marketing strategy. The best example is Mckinesy 7s framework for successful implementation.
7. Feedback of Marketing Strategic Planning
After implementing its strategy the firm needs to track the result and monitor new developments in external and internal environment.
