Chapter 3: Develop a Marketing Plan and Strategy

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A.  Warming Up

Introduction

Instruction:

Think, Speak Up, and Do It (ThiSuDo)

ü  Which of the following points do you discuss when drawing up a marketing plan? Are there any factors you can add?

 

B.  Reading Text

Reading Comprehension

Instruction: Read the following text silently and loudly!

 

Effective marketing starts with a considered, well-informed marketing strategy. A good marketing strategy helps us define clear, realistic, and measurable marketing objectives for our business.

Our marketing strategy affects how we run our business, so it should be planned and developed in consultation with our team. It is a wide-reaching and comprehensive strategic planning tool that:

• Describes our business and its products and services
• Explains the position and role of our products and services in the market
• Profiles our customers and our competition
• Identifies the marketing tactics we will use
• Allows us to build a marketing plan (the tactics to deliver) and measure its effectiveness.

A marketing strategy sets the overall direction and goals for our marketing, which differs from a marketing plan. A marketing plan outlines the specific actions we will take to implement our marketing strategy. For example, our marketing strategy could be developed for the next few years, while our marketing plan usually describes tactics to be achieved in the current year.

Developing a marketing strategy that includes the components listed below will help us make the most of our marketing investment, keep our marketing focused, and measure and improve our sales results.

Identify our business goals.

Align our marketing strategy to the business goals outlined in our business plan; we can then define a set of marketing goals to support them. Our business goals might include:

• increasing awareness of our products and services
• selling more products from a particular supplier
• reaching a new customer segment.

When setting goals, it's critical to be as targeted as possible to effectively measure the outcomes against what we set out to achieve. A simple criterion for goal-setting is the SMART method: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.

State our marketing goals

These marketing goals could be long-term and might take a few years to successfully achieve. However, they should be clear and measurable and have time frames for achievement.

Make sure our overall strategies are also practical and measurable. A good marketing strategy will not be changed every year but revised when our approach has been achieved or our marketing goals have been met. We may need to amend our strategy if our external market changes due to a new competitor or technology or if our products change substantially.

Research our market

Research is an essential part of the marketing strategy. We need to gather information about our market, including its size, growth, social trends, and demographics (population statistics such as age, gender, and family type). In addition, it is essential to keep an eye on our market to know of any changes over time so our strategy remains relevant and targeted.

Profile potential customers

Use the market research to develop a profile of the customers we target and identify their needs. The profile will reveal their buying patterns, including how they buy, where they buy, and what they buy. Again, regularly review trends, so we don't miss out on new opportunities or become irrelevant to our marketing message.

While we try to find new customers, ensure our marketing strategy also allows us to maintain relationships with our existing customers.

Profile our competitors

Similarly, as part of our marketing strategy, we should develop our competitors' profiles by identifying their products, supply chains, pricing, and marketing tactics.

Use this to identify our competitive advantage – what sets our business apart from our competitors. We may also want to identify the strengths and weaknesses of our own internal processes to help improve our performance compared with our competition.

Develop strategies to support our marketing goals

List our target markets and devise strategies to attract and retain them. An example goal could be to increase people's awareness of our products. The mean strategy could be to increase our online social media presence by posting regular updates about our product on Instagram or Facebook; advertising in local magazines targeted to people; or offering discounts for students.

Use the '7 Ps of marketing.'

Reach our selected market by utilizing the 7 Ps of the marketing mix. If we can choose the right combination of marketing across product, price, promotion, place, people, process, and physical evidence, our marketing strategy is more likely to succeed. We can choose any combination of these to achieve our marketing strategy.

Test our ideas

In deciding our tactics, do some online research, test some ideas and approaches on our customers and staff, and review what works. We will need to choose several tactics to meet our customers' needs, reach the customers within our target market and improve our sales results.