BM 4.2 Market Planning

• Marketing Planning


  The process that involves an organisation deciding on the marketing strategies that would be the most effective in attaining its overall strategic objectives
• Marketing objectives

  • SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic/relevant, time-specific)
• Key strategic plans

  Steps that provide an overview of how the marketing objectives will be achieved
• Detailed marketing actions

  Specific marketing activities that are to be carried out
• Marketing budget

  Finance required to fund the overall marketing strategy
• Benefits of marketing planning

  • Helps to identify potential problems and seek out solutions to them
  • Setting SMART objectives improves the chances for a firm's marketing strategy
  • Sharing the marketing plan with other business departments improves coordination and provides the whole organisation with a clearer picture or sense where it's heading
  • Devising a marketing budget ensures that resources are not wasted on unprofitable activities
  • A clearly spelled out plan could improve employees motivation and inspire confidence about the organisation's future
• Limitations of marketing planning

  • Marketing plans may become outdated if organisations aren't quick to consider changes in the market conditions
  • The process may consume considerable resources in terms of time, expertise and money in designing the plans
  • Failure to prioritise marketing objectives may make it difficult for firms to tell whether they are meeting them
• Market segmentation

  A sub-group of consumers with similar characteristics in a given market
• Ways to segment markets

  • Demographic segmentation
  • Geographic segmentation
  • Psychographic segmentation
• Demographic segmentation

  • Considers the varying characteristics of the human population in a market, including age, gender, religion, family characteristics, ethnic grouping
• Geographic segmentation

  • Divides the market into different geographical sectors and considers factors including regions where consumers reside, climatic conditions
• Psychographic segmentation

  • Divides the market based on people's lifestyle choices or personality characteristics, including social and economic status, values
• Advantages of market segmentation

  • Helps businesses identify existing gaps and new opportunities in domestic as well as international markets
  • Designing products for a specific group of customers can increase sales
  • Segmentation minimises the waste of resources
  • Diversifies and spreads risks in the market, and thus increases market share
• Target market

  A group of consumers with common needs or wants that a business serves or sells
• Targeting strategies

  • Mass marketing
  • Segmented marketing
  • Niche marketing
• Mass marketing


  Undifferentiated marketing, where a firm ignores the differences within a specific market segment and targets the entire market
• Segmented marketing


  A strategy that targets several market segments and develops appropriate marketing mixes for each of these segments
• Niche marketing

  Appeals to smaller and more specific market segments, good for smaller firms with limited resources
• Consumer profile

  The description of the characteristics of consumers of a particular product in different markets, including gender, age, social status and income levels
• Product positioning


  Analysing how consumers define or perceive a product compared to other products in a market
• Position map/Perception map

  A way to display product positioning
• Importance of a position map

  • Helps a firm establish close competitors or threats in the market
  • Helps identify important gaps or opportunities in the market that the firm could fill by creating or offering new products
  • It's a simple and quick way of presenting usually sophisticated data
  • Helps a firm in targeting specific market segments to best satisfy consumers needs and wants
• Unique Selling Point (USP)

  The feature of a product that differentiates it from other competing products in the market
• Differentiating factor


  What makes a product unique and helps to explain why consumers choose one product over another
• Importance of having a USP

  • Helps to establish a competitive advantage
  • Leads to customer loyalty and brand awareness
  • Leads to improved revenue as customers can identify something special about the product in comparison to rival products
  • Makes the product or service easier to sell
• Sales representatives who see value in the product or even use the product will find it easier to passionately and persuasively sell the product
• Differentiation

  Enables an organisation to provide superior value to its customers and can boost its overall profitability and viability
• Product differentiation

  • Physical or perceived difference in a product
  • Can take the form of a product's features such as durability, performance, reliability, or other criteria
  • Can be a short term strategy as it can be easily duplicated
• Service differentiation

  • Includes customer service, delivery, and supporting business elements like installation and training
  • Ensures that its employees are provided with the right information and processes needed to better know their customers and understand their specific needs, which leads to greater customer service
• Price differentiation

  • Recognises that every customer is willing to pay a different price for a product
  • Through this a business can maximise its potential revenue by offering a differentiated product at a different price in each of its market segments
• Distribution differentiation


  • A path in which a good or service passes through until it reaches the end consumer
  • Can be an effective means of differentiation through providing immediate access to expertise, greater ease when ordering goods or services, or high levels of technical assistance
• Relationship differentiation

  • Through the organisation's personnel, including employees or team members with customer links
  • They are responsible for the day-to-day communication with customers, and are an important link between the product and the customer
  • If this link is broken then the business can be ruined
• Image/reputation differentiation

  • Usually created through other forms of differentiation, but can be controlled and managed by the business
  • Includes high product quality control, great service, or superior performance