Question:
The learner works as a marketing manager. He has been asked to write a report, to be presented to the board of directors, on how a strategic marketing plan should be developed and managed in an organisation.
Strategic marketing is the foundation of the marketing as it will define the marketing style of an organisation. In this report, the planning phase of marketing strategy will be discussed for the organisation. Further, managing the strategy in marketing provides the company to achieve the long-term objective. This is a key factor for finding the way to manage the strategy in the organisation. In the planning phase of a firm, strategic marketing is one of the most important matters for the strategy maker as it will create the strategy for the whole firm at the same time.
Strategic marketing plan may be a single name; however its diametric reach is much larger. It makes the firm to have a different identity from the others. Further, it provides the firm to make a different culture within a competitive environment and formulating the objective as per the strategic intent (Brennan and Brennan, 2008). Strategic marketing will be a part of the strategic management. It helps the organisation to compete in the highly competitive market and also helps the firm to utilise its limited resources for taking the opportunity to excel in the highly competitive market. It provides the management to make the firm more profitable maintaining the effective customer relationship (Doole and Lowe, 2005). Strategic marketing is associated with few process of strategy where some situational analysis is done before making any decision. In this process, management makes decision on resource allocation, implementation of plan and monitoring of the plan. Before making any decision, management goes by some results from some analysis like SWOT, PESTEL etc. SWOT analysis provides the insight of internal and external situation of the firm (Parry, 2005). SW – indicates the internal situation such as strength and weakness of a firm that may be detected within the operation level to strategic level. OT indicates the external analysis for the firm where it is assessed with the peers company in the market. It provides the management to know the opportunity and threat in the firm’s business. The strategy of marketing is developed using many tools and in different parts. One of the most important tools is 7’P of marketing where both product and service marketing are present. This tool will help the management to know the trends and changes in market (Proctor, 2000). It also provides the firm with a detail analysis on market so that management will be able to segment the market and know the target specifically. From 7’P firm will know the strategy required for product, place, price, promotion, people, process and physical evidence differently so that it may manage the resources in a proper way. After this stage, the market analysis provides the firm idea on segmentation of market for your market, which helps the management to identify the customers. Further, it gives the information regarding the position of the company in the same segment industry. It is important as it will provide the firm to make its target better and it also provides the information on the target customers. The process involves the implementation of the plan within constraints. The limited resources of the company may open new challenges in this stage and management may change their decision due to non-available of resources. After this step the formulated strategy is implemented and monitored by the management for finding the gap of the planning. The last stage is the controlling phase of the marketing strategy (Ranchhod, 2004).
For making the strategic marketing planning success, some models are used by the management. All the models used are useful in different perspective of marketing. The models are Ansoff matrix, BCG matrix, 7’P and Porter five force strategies. The 7’P model is already defined in early section. Ansoff matrix is associated with the new product development of a firm and new market penetration by the existing product that shows the chance of success for the firm in an expansion mode (Wilson and Gilligan, 2005). It delivers the firm analysis on the new product development in the existing as well as new market. New product development of the company is really important and risky for the firm so that management needs to be cautious before launching the product. Further, it also provides the analysis for new market for the existing product, which helps to expand the business of the firm. BCG matrix predicts the market share and growth of market for any specific product. Using this tool, management gets the advantage of predicting the situation for the existing product and make decision of business for the future. BCG is the measurement of relative market share with the growth in product (Proctor, 2000). Using this matrix, management will be able to make decision of staying in a business or making it a scrap. 7’P model is helpful in planning the marketing process matching with the objective of the company. It provides the insight of the separate strategy for the seven elements such as price, product, promotion, place, people, process and physical evidence. Further, it is also an important tool for matching all the P’s for making the strategy successful. It helps the management to make decision on matching the price of the product, promoting it at right place with the help of right people and process. Porter five force strategies is the ideal tool for assessing the competitive strategy of a firm. It describes that firm has competition from the peer companies and further it has to compete with the various stakeholders’ strategy for reducing the risk in its business. The industry rivalry is an external factor that cannot be controlled by the management but they have to deal with the stakeholder management. Here they have two main objectives to achieve – minimising the threat of the business and minimising the bargaining power of the stakeholders. The threat from the new entrants and new products are the main concern about the model analysis of Porter (Parry, 2005). New entry of any company in same segment will intensify the competition for the firm. New substitute of the existing product makes the existing product to face challenges in the market and it may possible that firm has to reject the old product due to loose the competition. Bargaining power of the suppliers may make the company to buy raw material at higher cost, which may make the company uncompetitive in the market due to rise in the cost of production. If there is more peers company, then company has to face the challenges from them in terms of price, promotion etc. it increases the bargaining power of the customers as it provides the customers with different choices to buy the products. It is also a matter of concern for the company as it reduces the monopoly of the market resulting in intensified competition in market. The rivalry in the industry among the peers company is not good for any firm as it makes the management to make decision to under price its products due to the survival within competition of the peers company.
Strategic positioning of the product/service is important as provides the firm the sense of success in a competitive market. It provides the business to be positioned its product in the market so that it can develop the business in various segment. Positioning is important as it provides the key metrics such as price, place of the products. It develops the business model for the product that must be accompanied by the company for the specific company (Doole and Lowe, 2005). Positioning of the product provides valuable information on the price and placing the products. The right price and right place is important for any product as it will be defined by the target market where the purchasing power of customer has to be matched with the price of the product. It also provides information relating to promotion of the product.
Relationship marketing is essential in this context as it provides the management to make the loyal customer base for its stable business operation (Erdman, 1937). Relationship marketing has three working principle for making profit and driving the business towards the sustainability (Helm, 2005). It also provides the both parties – sellers and customers to meet their objective. The key element of relationship marketing is satisfaction of customers – providing the firm to retain the customer for a long time. Using the relationship marketing, firm may get the advantage of attracting new customer; retain the old ones and reduction of cost due to promotion and costs related to marketing. In addition it also makes the beneficial of having loyal customers base and drawing the customers to pay more for the product in future. Relationship marketing is also the factor for developing new product as per desired by the customer that helps the company to develop its intellectual property (Bruhn and Frommeyer, 2005).
Conclusion
From the above report, it may be concluded that strategic marketing process is not a single event as it is recorded already. It is a process consist of planning, implementation and controlling – three stages. Planning process is the most essential as any incorrect planning may change the situation for the company. Further, without implementation the plan a firm may not face the success of the good plan – that is the reason for getting involved with the implementation for the long time by the top management. The system has implemented may become obsolete anytime as the business environment is changing every time. Thus, management needs to implement a controlling measure or monitoring system for the implemented system so that firm may be able to change their strategy whenever necessary.
References
Books
Bradley, F. (2005). International marketing strategy. Harlow, England: Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Brennan, R. and Brennan, R. (2008). Contemporary strategic marketing. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Clarke, I. and Flaherty, T. (2005). Advances in electronic marketing. Hershey PA: Idea Group Pub.
Cohen, W. (2005). The marketing plan. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Doole, I. and Lowe, R. (2005). Strategic marketing decisions in global markets. London: Thomson Learning.
Emerald Group Publishing., (2005). Customer Relationship Management. Emerald Group Publishing.
Ferrell, O. and Hartline, M. (2005). Marketing strategy. Mason, Ohio: Thomson South-Western.
Parry, M. (2005). Strategic marketing management. London: McGraw-Hill.
Peelen, E. (2005). Customer relationship management. Harlow, England: FT Prentice Hall.
Peter, J. and Olson, J. (2005). Consumer behavior and marketing strategy. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Ranchhod, A. (2004). Strategic marketing in practice 2004-2005. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.
Roberts-Phelps, G. (2003). Customer relationship management. London: Thorogood.
Walker, O. (2006). Marketing strategy. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irvin.
Wilson, R. and Gilligan, C. (2005). Strategic marketing management. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann.
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