Strategic Marketing and Marketing Planning Process - Essay Example

Strategic marketing In general, marketing can be defined as a set of actions aimed at promoting and selling the product. Selling, whether goods or services, is one of the most important aspects of running a business. However, as times change, the overall concept of marketing changes. While several decades ago the purpose of marketing was to sell, today it is in delivering value to potential clients. This point of view is also supported by Grönroos (2006), whose updated definition of marketing states that it involves not only creating, communicating and delivering value, but also building and supporting customer relationships in beneficial for the company and the stakeholders manner. Therefore, it can be said that the goal of strategic marketing is in defining the course the business should take in order to achieve its strategic goals. At the same time, unlike tactical marketing, which is focused on strategy implementation, strategic marketing involves actual development of the strategy to be implemented. Based on company’s business objectives, strategic marketing deals with determining who the potential customers are, why they would buy the product or service, what it would take them to purchase and so on (Ignite Marketing Group, LLC, 2009). Consequently, strategic marketing performs such functions as market research and segmentation, targeting, and positioning the product. Completed, these tasks then become the basis for conducting an effective marketing campaign, which, in order to be effective, have be well planned. Marketing planning process The marketing planning process, therefore, is the process of planning a marketing campaign for the product or service on the basis of information gathered from market research. However, the very first data to consider in the process of marketing planning is the overall business’ goals and objectives, because the actual goal of marketing is to achieve the set goals (Rooney, 2004). On this matter White and Uva (2000) distinguish three levels of planning activities that help businesses in defining their marketing strategies. According to the authors (White and Uva, 2000), they are: Company’s strategic plan, which outlines organization’s mission and goals, as well as some broad strategies for achieving those goals. Strategic marketing plan, which defines the general marketing objectives of the company. Operating marketing plan, which determines the tactics of implementing the strategic marketing plan. However, the strategic marketing plan, being the link between organization’s objectives and practical implementation of chosen strategies, is an essential element of the planning process, because it determines particular and precise goals and strategies to be implemented to achieve those goals. The very first thing to define in the process of marketing planning is company’s mission, meaning its orientation in the market – what customer groups the company serves and what needs its product satisfies. It involves conducting an internal analysis of the company, which should be followed by an external analysis of the environment in which the company operates. A profound analysis of competition, technological, economic, political, legal and social (cultural) environment will help to define the opportunities to develop and risks (threats) to manage. All this information will, then, help to conduct a SWOT analysis of the company and to develop specific, measurable, attainable, rewarding and time-specific (SMART) objectives, on the basis of which the marketing strategy, along with the evaluation and control metrics, will be designed. In addition, essential elements of the marketing planning process are market segmentation, targeting and positioning. Market segmentation After the company’s target market has been determined on the basis of previously gathered information, it is needed to segment it. This need arises from the fact that the overall market is represented by numerous customers with different demographic (age, gender, education and income levels, etc.) and non-demographic (i.e. values, preferences) characteristics which, in their turn, form different types of buying behaviors (Yankelovich and Meer, 2006). So, the goal of market segmentation is to divide the heterogeneous market into several, homogeneous in some aspect, segments. The goal of conducting such a segmentation is in determining a few, the most promising and prospective, market segments to focus on. Otherwise, if marketing activities of the company are not focused, the business is possible to “spread its resources too thinly to combat competition pressure” (White and Uva, 2000, p.10). The most common segmentation criteria are demographics, geographic, psychographic and consumer (behavioral). Whichever segmentation type (or their combination) a company uses, depends, of course, on the product and objectives. For example, Mariott International works in a multisegment market and presents different products to different market segments: Marriott Suites for permanent vacationers, Courtyard By Marriott for business travellers, Fairfield Inn for those who can’t afford more expensive rooms, Residence Inn for Extended Stay. It can be seen that in this case the company used: price segmentation and offered different products for people with different income levels; psychographic and behavioral segmentation - and satisfied the needs of permanent vacationers; demographic, psychographic and behavioral segmentation to offer a special product to business travellers. So, it is obvious that market segmentation aims at matching particular types of people with the particular product. This gives businesses higher chances of meeting the needs of the representatives of its market and determines the target customers for the particular product. . Targeting After market segmentation has been conducted, it’s time to choose the groups of people to which the company will be selling its product. Unlike mass marketing, which involved selling one product to everybody, target marketing selects separate groups of prospective clients for different products. A company may choose one of the several target marketing strategies, which include multisegment marketing, concentrated or niche marketing. For example, Mariott’s strategy described above belongs to multisegement marketing, because the company has as much as fifteen different types of facilities to satisfy the needs of different groups of people (Tanner and Raymond, 2012). The advantage of this strategy is that it allows to respond to change faster, to allow customers to choose among many products and to reduce risks related to product life cycle, because if one product is at the end of its life cycle, another one may compensate for it. Concentrated marketing requires a narrower focus. An example of such would be a company that sells its product only to some specific buyers, even though others might also be interested in that product. Niche marketing, in its turn, targets an even smaller group of customers. For instance, Swarovski with their crystal jewels or religious channels on TV are bright representatives of niche marketing, targeting one selected group of people. Another way of targeting is microtargeting, where a target segment may consist of even one individual. The marketing mix in this case is very personalized and the examples include holiday packages or custom motorcycles. Positioning As the target audience has been defined the product should be positioned in the most effective way, meaning that the particular product should be differentiated from other products, whether similar or not. A company may choose positioning against a broad market offering, for example, paper glasses as a substitute to plastic ones. Positioning against a price segment would involve positioning, for instance, local provider’s services against more expensive services of a large company. It is also possible to position against a usage segment, thus presenting, as an example, one type of butter as the bests for toasts. An example of positioning against geographic segment is presenting a brand of coats as the best for certain climate. Presenting a car brand as the safest would be an example of psychographic positioning targeted at people concerned about safety (Thomas, 2006). Similarly, it is possible to position a product against nearly any market segmentation characteristic. References Grönroos, C., 2006. On defining marketing: finding a new roadmap for marketing. Marketing Theory, 6(4), pp.395-417. Ignite Marketing Group, LLC, 2009. Strategic vs. Tactical Marketing [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 20 February 2013]. Rooney, H.L., 2004. Strategic Marketing - Using Information to Grow Your Business [pdf] Outcome Concept Systems, Inc. Available at: [Accessed 20 February 2013]. Tanner, J. and Raymond, M.A., 2012. Principles of Marketing, v. 2.0. [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 20 February 2013]. Thomas, J.W., 2006. Positioning [pdf] Decision Analyst. Available at: [Accessed 21 February 2013]. Yankelovich, D. and Meer, D., 2006. Rediscovering Market Segmentation. Harvard Business Review, February Issue: pp.1-10. Read More