4.2 Marketing Planning

• Marketing plan

  • is a document outlining an organisation's marketing objectives and the marketing strategies to be used to achieve these objectives. 
• Marketing audit


  a review of the current position of an organisation's marketing mix, in terms of its strengths and weaknesses and consideration of opportunities and threats facing the organisation.
• The marketing plan is likely to include details of the following elements of components:

  • Marketing objectives that are SMART (specific, measurable, agreed, realistic and time bound), 
  • An assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of competitors in the market 
  • Methods of market research to be used to identify target markets 
• Marketing planning 


  is a systematic process of devising marketing objectives and appropriate marketing strategies to achieve these goals.
• The typical marketing planning process involves the following 5 stages:

  1. Marketing Audit
  2. Marketing Objectives
  3. Marketing strategies
  4. Monitoring and review
  5. Evaluation
• Marketing planning Advanatges

  It improves an organisation's chance of success.

  • The marketing planning of course doesn't guarantee success, but it can help managers identify and deal with anticipated problems. 
  • The various functional areas of a business will also have a clearer idea of the organisation objectives and the constraints in which they are to operate. 
  • Thus a key role of marketing planning is to allow marketing managers to have better control of their operations.
• Marketing planning Disadvatages


  Marketing plans can be inflexible and become outdated quite quickly as they dont allow for sudden changes in market
• Segmentation, targeting and positioning marketing model

  is a commonly used strategic approach to modern marketing. 
• The STP marketing model consists of three steps:

  1. Segmenting the market.
  2. Targeting the most commercially valued groups of customers.
  3. Positioning the firm's offering in the market.
• Market segment

  refers to a distinct group of customers with similar characteristics (such as age or gender) and similar wants or needs. 
• Targeting 


  refers to each distinctive market segment having its own specific marketing mix.
• Consumer profiles are 


  the demographic and psychographic characteristics of consumers in different markets, such as their age, gender, occupation, income level, religion, marital status and purchasing habits. 
• Market segmentation 


  is the process of splitting the market into distinct consumer groups to better meet their needs.
• Demography 


  is the study of the characteristics of the human population within a certain area, region or country.
• Product position map (or perception map) 


  is a visual tool that reveals customer perceptions of a product or brand in relation to others in the market
• Premium products 


  are of goods and services of high quality and high prices,
• Economy Products 


  are those of low quality but at appropriately low prices,
• Bargain Products 


  are goods and services of highly quality but with low prices.
• Cowboy products = 


  are of poor quality yet highly priced. These products are positioned to deceive customers.
• Advantages for product Position maps

  • Information in a perception map can also help businesses to refine their marketing strategies. 
  • Quick and easy to interpret 
  • Inform marketing managers about market opportunities and threats 
  • Threats will be met with repositioning of product
• Disadvantages for product position maps

  Simplicity in presenting potentially complex market research findings
• Repositioning 


  is a marketing strategy that involves changing the market's perception of a firms' product or brand in comparison to rival businesses.
• The three stages of positioning:

  1. Identifying the competitive advantages of the product in question
  2. Deciding on which aspects of these strengths should be marketed
  3. Implementing the desired positioning by using an appropriate marketing mix
• Professor micheal porter proposed three generic/basic competitive strategies for business to achieve market positioning success:

  • Cost leadership 
  • involves the business aiming to excel as low-cost suppliers of particular economy products
  • Differentiation 
  • involves producing distinct products to distinguish them from those supplied by competitors, having a distinctive or unique selling point can give the organization competitive advantages 
• niche market 


  = targets a specific and well-defined market segment
• Advantages of niche marketing

  • Better marketing focus 
  • Able to charge higher prices due to less competition
  • Highly specialized in meeting needs and wants
• Disadvantages of niche marketing

  • Limited customer base
  • Few opportunities to exploit economies of scale 
  • Successful niche markets can attract new entrants into the industry, leading to more competition
• Mass Marketing

  • refers to undifferentiated marketing. It is an approach to marketing that ignores targeting individual market segments. 
• disadvantages of mass marketing

  • High barriers to entry - high set up cots
  • Heavy competition - marketing budgests nust be substantial to remain competitive 
  • Lacks focus and may not satisfy individual needs and wants
• Advantages of mass marketing

  • Economies of scale by supplying products in mass markers - helping them to cut unit costs and/or raise profit margins
  • Able to use a single marketing campaign to address entire market 
  • Large customer base - earning higher sales revenue and more profits
• Unique selling point

  • is any aspect of a business, product or brand that makes it stand out from competitors.
• Differentiation


  is the act of distinguishing a business or its products from rivals in the industry
• Common methods of differentiation revolve around the marketing mix

  Promotion 

  Place 

  People 

  Processes

  Physical environment 

  Packaging 

  Product 

  Price 
• The advantages of differentiation

  • Price advantages 
  • Brand recognition and loyalty 
  • Distribution advantages
• The disadvantages of differentiation

  • Costly 
  • Economies of scale cannot be exploited 
  • Excessive differentiation can confuse customers