Assignment on Developing and Managing a Strategic Marketing Plan

Introduction:Every business organization have 3 common sectors; finance, operation and management and marketing. Finance is the main key factor before initiate a business. After managing the finance or fund, the investor will look for the skill management to run the business or do the operational tasks. Then need the marketing; to promote their product and enhance the business profit and reputation.
All the three sectors need to work simultaneously and synchronously, otherwise company will face difficulty and most probably they will lose customers overall profit and reputation. Marketing strategy is very important for an organization. Every marketing executive and CEO faces challenges of urgent marketing strategies which affect the future of the organization for many years. Every organization needs to perform strategic marketing plan by analysing yearly all-inclusive reviews of markets and opportunities. Then they will take proper and immediate plans and actions to develop the strategies for the sake of business improvement. Here I will discuss the strategic plans of Camden Food Company and how to develop the plans and implementation.         

Principle of strategic marketing:

 John Scully mentioned that “Marketing Strategy is a series of integrated actions leading to a sustainable competitive advantage”. It analyzes how a business organization can best please its consumers and make revenue at it.

 The 7 important principles of strategic marketing for triumph are:

1.       Know the target group: We can classify the groups in several ways like gender, age, fashion, people etc. When we make products for a specific group, we exponentially get the interest from this specific group which create a great opportunity for marketing success.

2.       Share the genuine passion: If we are really passionate and enthusiastic regarding our product and service, we will eventually sell our product and service. Then buyer will fill the same passion and they will also do the oral marketing by inviting or telling their friends.

3.       Dare to be different and unique: If we make our product and service unique in quality, value and independence in the market, then it will become a brand which will increase profit.

4.       Understand the law of success: Need to be positive in marketing, if any customer doesn’t buy our product or neglecting us, don’t show any kind of dissatisfaction, and move to the next customer.

5.       Know our business purpose: We need to know our business objectives and purposes properly otherwise we can’t do profit through our service and products. For promoting the business, we can use websites, business cards, leaflets and overall need to show proper mannerisms.

6.       Find results oriented solutions: Sometimes we need to change our product, offer some promotion, and expand our production according to customer demands. Always try to be a result oriented.

7.       Never give up- Sometimes we do loss and sometimes we do profits. When we are facing loss or decrement in revenue, try to find out the solution and act upon that, but never give up. When we look up we can get up. [1]

Role of strategic marketing in an organization:

[2]

Strategic marketing play an important role in an organization in strategic planning. It illustrates marketing activities which has great impact on business, corporate and marketing strategic plan. Its activities are classified in to three basic functions.

First: marketers are working like a third party between organizations and customers. They are accountable for helping associations perform a marketing idea all over the strategic marketing process.

Second: marketers lend a hand gather and analyze information requisite to experiment the current condition and make out the trends of marketing atmosphere and assess the latent impact of these trends. This information and experiment act like an input for business, corporate and marketing strategic plan. 

Third: marketers are always dedicating in development works of business, corporate and marketing strategic plans. Marketing have great influence in an organization. Marketing philosophy has a great impact on strategic marketing planning which drives a company towards its goal. [2]

Processes involved in Strategic Marketing:

             The strategic marketing process have 3 crucial phases; planning, implementation and control. Planning phase is the most vital and important phase of a firm’s marketing strategy.

·         Planning Phase: First of planning phase is to do the SWOT analysis. It will help the organization to understand its present market value, internal and external factors which are favourable or unfavourable. In here marketers will find the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats and they will try to find out the strategies which minimize the threats with maximum opportunities.

Second step of planning phase is to take bazaar invention approach and entails target and purpose setting. Marketers will research about customer demand and needs. For competing with other competitors they need to change their strategic plan, technology, operation. Those analyses will help to control the future marketing, tell the organization who will be the potential customer, how to do the development and how to attract new customers.

Third step of planning phase is to decide the marketing process and marketing mix. It involves deciding the 4 p’s the product, price, place and promotions. The last result of this phase is to set attainable and measurable goals which can be measured in the control phase. 

  

·         Implementation: In implementation stage all the plans begin to turn into actions. All the schedules, developments and marketing programs are take places. All the products are available to the customers at right places with accurate prices. Close monitoring is needed to ensure effective market operation.

·         Control: the control phase did the comparison between result and set goals of planning phases. In this stage organization evaluates its process, outcomes and customer fulfilment. Its shows the planning gap between result and goal. Organization can analyse the data and take necessary steps to run their operation properly.[3]

 The link between strategic marketing and corporate strategy:

      Corporate strategy depends on four elements; primary target customers, the competition, tools of marketing and advantages. In primary target customers need to know who the customer for any specific product is and need to do the strategic research based on the demographics (age, education, sex, likes, personality, and dislike) factors. In competition it is really essential to develop a branding strategy which will cut a good market share by providing extra facilities and offers. Tolls of marketing will talk about unique selling proposition that will make the product unique and the promotional package will catch the attraction of the target customer through product name, colour, niche, identity, size, package, attire, business card, pricing, stationery, inside signs, order form, outside signs, hours of operation, consistency, special events, sales presentation. The advantages will make the products more advantageous than other brands. Overall the corporate strategy will be market oriented, realistic, specific, fit market environment, distinctive competencies and motivating. Corporate strategy will build profitable customer relationship, improve profits and invest in research. Corporate marketing increase market share, create local partnership and increase promotions.

    On the other hand strategic marketing make the corporate marketing easy because it already involved in market research which defines the market whom we are going to serve, develop a positioning message for my target customers based on the product benefits, determine the price according to the demographic and geographic factors, making a good distribution system and promoting the products through electronic media and print media. So strategic marketing is directly linked with corporate strategy because strategic marketing help the corporate to make their goals and destination more realistic. [4]

The tools used to develop a strategic marketing strategy:

Assess the value of models used in strategic marketing planning

For developing a strategic marketing strategy some tools are being used and they are discussing below: 

1.       Historical review and situation analysis: which analyse

·         external environment

·          market

·         customer

·         competitors

·          company

2.       SWOT analysis:

3.       Opportunity Matrix:

4.       Threat Matrix:

[5]

The links between strategic positioning and marketing tactics:

            Customer driven marketing strategy is divided in three components; market segmentation, market targeting, market positioning. Market segmentation determines different groups of buyers (segments) with distinct characteristics, behaviour or needs. Market targeting evaluates each segment’s magnetism and select one or more section to enter. Market positioning arranges a product to reside in a distinctive, desirable and clean place relative to competing goods in the minds of intention consumers.

            Positioning is a marketing process where marketers try to make a good image or identity in the mind of their target market for its band, product or organization. Strategic positioning process involves:

·         Define the competitive market where the product will compete

·         Identifying the product space in the current market place

·         Collect information regarding customer perception about the product on relevant qualities

·         Determining every product’s share of mind

·         Determining every product’s present position in the invention room

·         Determining the object market’s favoured mixture of attributes

·         Examine the fit between the position of the ideal vector and the position of our product

·         Always need to think positively as we are in right track

There are three kind of positioning concepts:

·         Functional positioning

Ø  resolve problems

Ø  Get favourable awareness by lenders and investors

Ø  Provide profits to consumers

·         Symbolic positions

Ø  Self-image enhancement

Ø  Ego recognition

Ø  Belongingness and communal meaningfulness

Ø  Touching fleeciness

·         Experimental positions

Ø  give sensory inspiration

Ø give cognitive inspiration [6]

The segmentation process divides the total markets into different market sections. Target marketing determines which section will be performed and market positioning determines the products. We need to develop a competitive marketing strategy which leads to tactics of marketing mix. Marketing mix will focus on four Ps- products, place, price and promotion and four Cs- customer solution, cost, convenience and communication. [5]

The merits of relationship marketing in a given strategic marketing strategy:

            Relationship marketing is a marketing which always focus and concentrate on the customer satisfaction and retention rather than a sales transactions. It provides the long term value of customer relationship and expands communication over invasive marketing and sales promotional messages. Huge growth of mobile technology and internet provide an ample opportunity for the business organization to make good relationship marketing with clients. Now most of the firms store the information of their important clients and send them greeting in various occasion, send message regarding promotions, offers which build a good rapport. The overall goal of this marketing is to find, attract and win new customer, retain and nurture those the company already has, attract previous customers back into the fold and deduct the marketing cost and client service.

            Camden Food Company is a sandwich and coffee shops. They are situated in all important stations in London. They serve only the organic foods which have great demand among the customers. In the weekdays they have regular customers for coffee or tea or sandwich or other organic food. Every day their regular client is increasing because they get good and prompt service from the stuffs and food quality is quite good. The company always focus on customer satisfactions and retentions. Most of the regular customer now brings their friends to this shop; they work as a verbal promoter. Company stuffs give discounts or give some extra facilities to its regular customers which attract new customers to come and shopping. At various occasion company provide some gifts to the regular customers, which give them confidence.

Marketing strategy of Camden Food Company:

            Camden Food Company always provides organic food which is too much healthy and nutritious. There are lot of organic foods like sandwich, wraps, bloomers, coffee and hot beverage and so on. Sometimes they need to change their product on behalf of the customer satisfactions and demands. Like in winter people like soups and hot foods, then the management always think to provide some hot stuffs. They provide various kinds of soups including some vegetarian’s soups and foods. On the other hand in summer people ask for cold foods and cold beverages. Management provides cold stuffs as much as they can. The demands for the product are determine by the top management according to the strategic marketing plan. They use previous year’s transaction data and analyse present market scenarios. They make a strategic plan and marketers act upon the plan. Sometimes there are some gap between the strategic plan and end result, and this gap is minimized by the marketers. Marketers inform their managers and mangers inform their top bosses, then they change their strategic plans which make great revenue for the business organization.

Conclusion:

             A ship without a sail never rich its destination. It is totally true for business. A business without proper planning never make a profit and it will face its extinction very soon. A strategic plan is very import for an organization to run its business very effectively and smoothly. Everyday technology is changing in a rapid way and customer demands are also changing with the time being. For competing in modern market we need to do the market survey at regular basis and need to know the present business trend and need to experiment about customer demand and satisfactions. Without proper marketing strategic plan and its implementation, it is really tough to survive in present day market competition. Every organization needs to employ more people in market research or spend more times to get proper knowledge about the present and future market conditions.

 References:

1.        Strategic Principle of Marketing-7 Essential Principles of Strategic Marketing for success by Jan Verhoeff, Last modified on: 01-05-07, Accessed on: 26-05-11, Available on: http://ezinearticles.com/?Strategic-Principles-of-Marketing---7-Essential-Principles-of-Strategic-Marketing-for-Success&id=547673

2.       Marketing’s Strategic Role in the Organization, Accessed on: 26-05-11, Available on: http://www.mhhe.com/business/marketing/bearden01/graphics/common/ch03.pdf

3.       McFarland, Allison (2001). Developing A Strategic Marketing Plan For Physical
Education. Physical Educator. Early Winter 2001, Vol. 58 Issue 4, p191-198.

4.       Corporate branding strategy, Accessed on: 26-05-11, Available on: http://www.pycco.com/corporate-branding-strategy.html

5.       Principles of marketing, chapter-2 (Strategic planning) Accessed on: 26-05-11, Available on:http://www.scribd.com/doc/45885643/Principles-of-Marketing-Chapter-2-Strategic-Planning

Positioning (Marketing), Last modified on: 04-04-11, Accessed on: 26-05-11, Available on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positioning_(marketing)