Developing marketing strategies and plans - Essay Example

Chapter II: Developing Marketing Strategies and Plans To create good marketing strategies that adapt to the realities of the marketplace companies must be flexible. Marketing involves satisfying the needs and wants of the customer. Successful companies are able to deliver customer value while at the same time earning a profit. In the traditional view of marketing a company produces something and then sells it. This view does not consider markets in which consumers have choices. To succeed in such a market companies must design products that adapt to the needs of the customers.

Nirmalya Kumar “3V” approach to marketing states: 1) define the value segment or customers; 2) define value proposition; 3) define the value network that will deliver the promised service. The value chain was created by Michael Porter as a tool to identify ways to create more customer value. The value chain has five primary activities and four support activities. The five primary activities of the model are inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service.

The four support activities are firm infrastructure, human resource management, technology development, procurement. The holistic marketing view integrates the value exploration, value creation, and value delivery activities in order to build long term relationship with all stakeholders. The marketing plan is the central instrument for directing and coordinating the marketing effort. The two levels of the marketing plan are strategic and tactical. The strategic plan lays out the target market and value proposition that will be offered, while the tactical plan specifies the marketing tactics including product features, promotions, merchandising, pricing, sales channels and service.

The four planning activities led by corporate headquarters are: defining the corporate mission, establishing strategic business unit, assigning resources to each SBU, and assessing growth opportunities. Companies often define their business in terms of product. Assessing growth opportunities involve planning new businesses, downsizing, or terminating other businesses. Three types of growth strategies are intensive growth, integrative growth, and diversification growth. Strategic planning must consider an organization’s culture.

Corporate culture can be defined as a system of shared experiences, stories, beliefs, and norms that characterize an organization. A marketing tool that can be used to monitor the internal and external environment of an organization is SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. To evaluate opportunities companies can use the market opportunity analysis (MOA) to determine the attractiveness and probability of success. The three generic strategies developed by Porter are cost leadership, product differentiation, and focus.

Cost leadership involves achieving the lowest production and distribution costs in order to price your product lower than the competition and therefore achieve a higher market share. In the retail industry the company that has achieved cost leadership is Wal-Mart. Differentiation occurs when a company design a product or service that has unique qualities that makes it different than the competition. Companies that utilized differentiation strategies can charge a premium price for their product or service.

A company that has utilized a differentiation strategy in the food industry is Starbucks Cafe. Focus involves focusing on one or more narrow segments of the marketplace. Strategic alliances can be useful to promote the best interest of all parties involved in the alliance. Marketing alliances are very common in the business industry. Four categories of marketing alliances are product or service alliances, promotional alliances, logistic alliances, and pricing collaborations. Obtaining feedback from the customer is very useful in order to create marketing plans that satisfy the needs of the customers.

Weekly summary Week one was an excellent learning experience for me. The classroom discussion was interesting. I always thought that marketing was a science. The discussion this week made me realize that marketing can be categorized as an art. Another interesting discussion was about the marketing trends of the future. One of the hottest trends that I believe will impact marketing a lot is the growth in mobile adverting. The marketing industry is capitalizing on the popularity of smartphones.

The Classic Airlines scenario showed that the importance of emphasizing on the needs of the customer. The lack of emphasis on satisfying the customer cost Classic Airlines to lose over 160,000 customers the used to participate in their customer loyalty program. The textbook readings were good. I learned that good marketing plans attempt to provide the greatest possible value to the customers. Value can be added by providing better customer service. A technique that I learned about this week that can be very useful to perform analysis of a company is SWOT analysis.

The four letters of the SWOT stand for strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats.