Good Example Of Market Plan Essay

Strategic Marketing Process

10.2.2015

Introduction

The aim of the paper is to describe the strategic marketing process and its three key phases of planning, implementation, and control. While going through the key strategic marketing process steps, the paper addresses key topics such as importance of market segmentation and its impact on customer loyalty.
Strategic Marketing Process
The process of strategic marketing refers to the way in which an organization plans to put together its major objectives, targets, plans and choices into a unified and organized whole . Planning, implementation and control are the key steps of the strategic marketing process. In order to gain competitive advantage over others in today’s highly competitive and cut throat global world, it is imperative that companies adapt and learn the skill to efficiently and successfully manage the marketing process .

Planning

The key to development of an effective marketing plan in today’s competitive global environment is market segmentation. An organization needs to differentiate and tailor its offer to specifically cater to the different segment of customers it targets. Each set of customer presents different requirements and challenges that need to be satisfied in order to be successful. There are several market segmentation variables such as demographic, behavioral, psychographic and geographical which form the basis of segmentation .
According to the marketing guru, Kotler, gaining customer loyalty is the ultimate objective of strategic planning process. Also, a sustainable and cut-throat competitive advantage can be developed on the basis of customer loyalty only

Implementation

Going into action defines the implementation phase. The planning phase addresses the who and why of the marketing activities and strategies whereas the implementation phase addresses the where, when and how. Four basic skills are required to effectively implement marketing program i.e. diagnostic skills, identification of company level, implementation skills and the evaluation skills .
For example, free physical therapy is provided to dancers by Healthsouth Corporation in order to get free publicity and marketing. This in turn helps them build customer loyalty and lets them achieve their strategic goals of achieving high customer satisfaction.
After analyzing growing demand and health care patterns, a health care organization decided to open a new medical specialty in opthalmogy (eye diseases). To translate this plan into specific assignments and people activities, each department must complete their specific actions. Such as commercial lead must analyse the feasibility and related costs; facilities and operations need to assign dedicated facility/space to the new department’ human resources must compile a list of best potential department leads for opthalmogy; and finally the marketing department must decide on how to promote the new service

Control

As the word suggests, controlling refers to structurally managing and monitoring marketing activities by analyzing the marketing results closely, diagnosing key gaps and issues, which is then followed by taking corrective actions accordingly.
There are four types of marketing control in companies i.e. annual-plan control, profitability control, efficiency control and strategic control. The annual plan encompasses the annual goals/objectives such as sales achievement, estimated profits and all such goals which are established in the annual plan of the company. Profitability control refers to examine and evaluate from where the company is making money and from where it’s loosing. It also looks into which areas to invest in and which areas to divest. The evaluation of spending efficiency and analyzing the impact of marketing expenditures is the aim of efficiency control. Lastly, for strategic control, the senior management is responsible to scrutinize whether the corporation is pursuing the most lucrative opportunities .
Mobile and digital technology has revolutionized the entire global market place however the healthcare industry is the slowest in adapting to this technology due to various regulations and highly scrutinized industry . The controlling function of the strategic marketing process requires organizations to track the results of their activities as well as monitor changes in the external and internal environment. The marketplace keeps changing and the companies should review their implementation, strategies and in some cases objectives as well. The consumers in today’s day and age have become digital oriented and its imperative to fulfill their needs. Use of flexible strategic planning to maintain a viable fit with the evolving environment is key to high-performance organizations. Moreover, ultimately, the aim of any marketing organization is to make the customer the basis of its controlling function .

Conclusion

A virtuous feedback/feed forward system is vital to the processes of planning, implementation, and control. Any organization failing to achieve its goals and targets then it points out towards two directions; either its failing to implement the plan or the plan is irrelevant and needs review.

References

Kotler, P. (2002). Marketing Management, Millenium Edition (Custom Edition for University of Phoenix ed.). Pearson Custom Publishing.
Kotler, P. (1984). Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning and Control (5th ed.). Prentice Hall.
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2011). Marketing Management (14 ed.). Prentice Hall.
Pearl, R. (2014, 11 09). 5 Things Preventing Technology Adoption In Health Care. Retrieved 02 09, 2015, from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertpearl/2014/09/11/5-things-preventing-technology-adoption-in-health-care/
Proctor, T. (2008). Strategic Marketing: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Segal, M., & Giacobbe, R. (1994). Market Segmentation and Competitive Analysis for Supermarket Retailing. International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management , 22 (1), 38-48.