A marketing plan beings with
the identification (through market research) of specific customer needs and how
the firms intends to fulfil them while generating an acceptable level of
return. Marketing is the process of developing and implementing a plan to
identify, anticipate and satisfy customer demand, in such a way as to make a
profit.
A sensible way to manage the
sales and marketing of a company is to find a systematic way of identifying a
range of options, to choose one or more of them, then to schedule and cost out
what has to be done to achieve the objective (McDonald, 1999).
Marketing planning is a
logical sequence and a series of activities leading to the setting of marketing
objectives and the formulation of plans for achieving them. Companies go
through a kind of management process in developing marketing plans. This
process is usually informal to small undiversified companies. However, in
larger diversified organisation, the process is often systematised.
This process is simple and
involves a situation review, the formulation of some basic assumptions, setting
objectives for what is being sold to whom, deciding on how the objectives are to
be achieved.
The marketing plan focuses on issues relating
to the four Ps: product, price, place and promotion.
Managers have to consider the
following questions when making a marketing plan:
Product – Who will buy it and
why? How is it better than its competitors?
Price – What pricing strategy
will the company choose? Is the plan to sell large volumes so that economies of
scale can keep the price low?
Place – How will the product be
distributed? Will it be sold by retail stores or by direct marketing?
Businesses should also
consider using the SWOT analysis - looking at the products Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
Promotion – What is the
advertising strategy? How will the product be packaged? What will its
marketplace positioning be? (Alvarez, Raeside, & Jones, 2006).
A marketing
strategy forms part of a marketing plan. It explains how a product will be
distinguished from its competitors. A sales plan should then give details of
promotional events and campaigns that will deliver the strategy.
References
McDonald, M. (1999). Marking plans: How to prepare them, how to use them (4th ed.). Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers.
Alvarez, J., Raeside, R.,
& Jones, W., (2006). The importance of analysis and planning in customer
relationship marketing. Database
Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, 13 (3), 222 - 230. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libaccess.hud.ac.uk/docview/233329202/fulltextPDF?accountid=11526.
