Strategic planning and the marketing process pdf

Successful application of strategic marketing into the marketing plan first requires answering these three questions:. Understanding these tasks through research and analysis helps fulfill the role of strategic marketing.

The role of strategic marketing is defined as determining what a business needs to be and become to consistently beat competitors by consistently delivering better value. After answering the questions mentioned above, you can advance to the next stage—the strategic marketing planning stage. The strategic marketing objectives are fundamentals that give meaning to what the process of strategic marketing is known for.

The strategic marketing objectives are as follows:. With these objectives in mind, the process of strategic marketing can be executed with a more tactical edge. Though each phase seems to perform differently, all are interdependent. This makes the strategic marketing approach a full-circle process.

The findings and results of each phase in the strategic marketing process meet the goals set by the previous one until the objective in the planning phase is achieved. Planning is the first phase of the strategic marketing process. This phase is the most important because it lays down the groundwork for the subsequent phases.

Here, identification and assessment are key. Goals, merits and shortcomings are identified while assets and liabilities are assessed. This analysis proves beneficial in identifying the direction in which an industry is moving, understanding prevailing trends and gaining an approximate assumption of how well an organization might perform against competitors. A proper SWOT analysis becomes a major factor in developing a strategic marketing proposal for an organization.

A marketing mix is a popular business model organizations use to formulate and pursue their marketing activities. It comprises four key factors, namely: product, price, place and promotion. These are also known as the 4Ps of marketing. A marketing mix will help meet objectives brought to light in the strategic marketing proposal based on the SWOT analysis conducted. It aims to strengthen the organization on selling and brand fronts by focusing on its 4Ps. Product will focus on what commodity or service is being planned for launch by the organization.

Price focuses on the price point planned for the sale of the product. Based on research, factors such as flexibility, discount and anticipated value are to be taken into account. Place focuses on the most advantageous channels of distribution online, offline or telemarketing , key advertising locations for assuring maximum exposure and transit and storage. Promotion is the process of identifying and implementing how the product will be advertised and introduced into the market.

Establishing achievable and measurable goals for a product boosts teamwork and efficiency in having them met and, therefore, is one of the best ways to achieve success for the product.

As the name implies, this phase is where the strategic marketing proposal and all the data generated from the planning phase are implemented. This phase can be seen as a review of the entire process. Based on the statistical data gathered from the sales in the second phase, the figures are evaluated with a plan to see if they live up to expectations. If yes, then the strategic marketing process has been successfully implemented.

If the result is dissatisfactory, the plan needs to be worked on again. With evaluation, this process completes a cycle. Another cycle of strategic marketing begins right after, and it is built upon the results of the preceding cycle. The difference between strategic marketing and marketing strategy will help shed light on what sets them apart, so as to better understand how to best make use of each of these processes:. There are various approaches and action steps for strategic planning.

One of which has been summarized below. It is a joint attempt between Board and staff, which can be achieved by forming a special strategic planning committee of members from the Board and staff and delegating proper balance of authority and responsibility for the effort. Some of it can be done by the committee, while Board and staff planning retreats are likely to be required, during each phase of the planning process.

Major steps have been described below:. This evaluation covers both an external environment — finding and fixing opportunities and threats — and an internal environment — analysing organizational strengths and weaknesses.

Consider political, economic, social, and technological factors and their impact on your organization. This includes changing demographics, economic and political trends, and effects of new or changing laws that affect the working of the organization, social values, communications and other technological factors. The result of the environmental scan should be an analysis of organizational strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats.

Recorded or documented, the assessment requires close review and discussion by the committee. The meeting for strategic planning process begin with a presentation of these results of the environmental assessment. In most of the cases, these results are presented to the Board before the planning meetings begin.

If there is some discrepancy about issues of the organization, it is possible to move immediately to the main objective and then goals. If there is no agreement on general directions and organizational goals at all, it becomes necessary to find issue priorities and learn critical choices. This might be done in several ways.

For example:. Whatever method is used, the discussion should reach some level of agreement about issues or choices that need to be taken care of and the decisions made under the strategic planning process. Begin your strategic planning process by agreeing on:. The development of a shared vision is best done with both Board and staff involvement and coerciveness. Short steps from the vision to goals — the statement that describe the vision are essentially missions.

It is extremely important to divide the vision into a series of major objectives of the organization, as status statements that describe the organization.

The major emphasis should be on broad strategies, which should be related to specific goals. The Board provides a blueprint, while the staff or the planning committee does the detailed analysis. Whatever specific approach is used, particular criteria for assessing and selecting among strategies should be given consent. Thereafter, the planning committee must always consider the reasons to properly delegate responsibilities for their implementation.

After developing the longer-term parts of a strategic plan, it is now time to ensure a specific work plan, to start the implementation. Therefore it becomes difficult to develop particularized annual plans except for the first or perhaps the second year covered by the strategic objective.