Strategic Marketing Process Essay Example

Strategic marketing process has a primary objective to pull all marketers’ efforts together and through unified and consistent approach achieve established business goals. It is usually laid down in a marketing plan that is regularly reviewed and adjusted with account of changing circumstances and situation on the market. This process of three consecutive stages including planning, implementation and control will only be successful and efficient if all steps are integrated and jointly targeted towards single set of objectives. Marketing plan outlines a way from where company is now to where it intends to be using a number of different options and eventually evaluates if the job done was effective.
Any company has an ultimate target to reach individuals who will buy and use its products and thus make it profitable and prosperous. Therefore before developing any strategies and marketing mix it should divide all consumers into separate segments, define their identifying characteristics and then come up with objectives and options that will meet their needs. Moreover, having identified segments, the company may come up with separate marketing mix for each of them in order to meet relative targets.
In this respect planning of range of products that will be manufactured should comply with what customers want and what they need as these characteristics may vary across different segments. The company should decide the kind of products and specifications they should have when produced, what amount is needed and when the perfect timing is. Clark is convinced that times of companies mandating what customers will buy have passed and now these are customers whose preferences prevail and companies should consider that if they want to succeed and increase brand loyalty.
Pricing highly depends on underlying strategies which aim at the increase of company’s presence on the market, short-term profits or creating customers’ loyalty towards its brand (The Association of Business Executives, 2008). But first of all it is essential to be familiar with its customer and with what can be afforded in light of existing competition on the market. According to Clark, low prices are attractive but they lead to loyalty to prices and not company, meaning that customers may easily switch to competitor if he offers lower prices. However, following the example of the UK chain of supermarkets Asda, which offers outstanding service in addition to affordable prices for customers who are looking for cheap products, it is still possible to achieve high level of customer retention (Clark, 2007). The only thing needed is to feel the target audience and what it is sensitive to.
The plan of distribution should be based on the main strategies and objectives of marketing plan and it should be tailored in a way that takes into account the product characteristics, segmentation (if it is a mass-market or a specialized one) and other standards or product requirements (The Association of Business Executives, 2008). If the product is delivered in a perfect condition to the right place at the exact needed moment of time that matches customer’s needs, this will also contribute to stronger loyalty (Clark, 2007).
After first three marketing mix elements’ planning is completed, company should develop also promotion strategy and decide upon which communication channels will deliver its messages to each and every segment in the most efficient way. Target audiences should become aware of all offers that company has and all benefits from purchasing these products. This will push them towards certain actions and by sending right messages the company will encourage its audiences to stay with it for next purchases too.
Implementation phase implies that the company has moved from planning process to certain actions that bring it closer to corporate objectives. It may follow one of four options which reflect orientation of business: production, product, sales or marketing orientation. The last one is the most effective in terms of mutual satisfaction, since the customer agrees to pay reasonable price for good products and the company gets justified profits respectively. It doesn’t make the customer buy only what the company has and wants to offer, but is rather perceptive to customer’s needs.
Besides that, since different segments have varying buying habits, requirements to service and other peculiarities and provided that they are big enough to produce profits, the company may assign separate specialists who have relevant knowledge and skills to deal with these segments and address loyalty-related issues in a more efficient way.
The last phase in strategic marketing process is control. For as much as implementation of marketing plan should lead the company to success, it is essential to conduct assessment of whether it has reached the top and if all the objectives have been achieved. If the company fails to make all stages integrated into single process it will most likely fail to achieve success and upon thorough assessment and analysis it will have to discern weak points in the previous experience and go back to the first step (The Association of Business Executives, 2008).
At this point it may be concluded that any company should identify market segments before it proceeds to strategy development and goal setting. It should make sure that all phases of marketing process are integrated and address certain target audiences’ needs in order to create distinct segmentation in their field of business and aim all efforts on establishment of strong customer loyalty that will be achieved easier if the company follows all steps correctly.

References

Clark, P. (2007). The 6 key factors that influence customer loyalty. The Wise Marketer. Retrieved 27 January 2015, from http://www.thewisemarketer.com/features/read.asp?id=108
The Association of Business Executives. (2008). Advanced diploma in business management. Strategic marketing management. Retrieved from https://ru.scribd.com/doc/55461052/54/A-MARKET-SEGMENTATION
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