THE PLANNING PROCESS

-Marketing audit - Internal and external and the SWOT
-Mission statement
-Corporate objectives (SMART) ROI, ROCE
-(Corporate strategies for production, finance, HR, admin etc. as well as marketing.)
· Quantitative and qualitative forecasting
· Gap analysis

-Marketing objectives (SMART) sales/profits over 3/5 years e.g. £3 m over 3yrs
· Assumptions
· Constraints
· Critical success factors
Marketing strategies (Ansoff’s matrix)
Reasons for strategic choice
Strategy 1 - market penetration
Marketing mix strategic positioning
Product - make it better than the competition
Price - premium pricing
Place - indirect; concentrated distribution
Promotion - advertising; personal selling
Other resource implications
Finance, staff, production etc. etc.
Target market
Size and customer profile
Competition
Major players and market share in this market
Strategic monitoring and control mechanisms
e.g. weekly senior management meetings
Strategic marketing objective -e.g. £1m over 3 yrs (this strategy only)
Strategy 2 - New product development
‘Use all the same headings identified under strategy 1’
Marketing tactics - take one strategy e.g. strategy 1 and detail the plan rolling it out over the first 6 months
adding on a new month as the old month is completed. It should include a detailed:
Product Plan
Price and finance
Place (Distribution)
Promotion
Plus:
Allocation of responsibilities
Budgets
Performance indicators
Monitoring and control mechanisms
Timings
(following a Gantt chart type formula; an example can be seen on StudentShout.com – marketing research
category – creativity section).
Marketing Tactics
Strategy 1
Tactical objective. E.g. £500,000 over the first 6 months.
Allocation of responsibilities
Detailed budgets
Marketing research
Detailed customer profile
Detailed product plan
Detailed price plan
Detailed distribution plan
Detailed promotion plan
Clear week-by-week performance indicators across all areas Monitoring,
Control mechanisms - to see that what needs to happen - happens
Contingency plans in case the plan deviates - Feedback and evaluation