MANAGING THE MARKETING PROCESS AND MARKETING PLANNINGChapter 4

BUSINESS PLAN

Purposes:1. It serves to develop a strategy and

communicate it to higher levels of management.

2. It serve as the justification of the budget request.

3. It provides an instrument for monitoring ongoing progress and making corrections during the plan’s implementation.

MARKETING PLANis the central instrument for directing and coordinating marketing effort.

Strategic Marketing Plan develops the broad marketing objectives and strategy based on an analysis of the current market situation and opportunities.

Tactical Marketing Plan outlines the specific tactics for the period, including advertising, merchandising, pricing, channels, service and so on.

THE MARKETING PROCESS

Consists of analyzing marketing opportunities, researching and selecting target markets, designing marketing strategies, planning

marketing programs, and organizing, implementing and controlling the marketing

effort.

TRADITIONAL PHYSICAL PROCESS SEQUENCE

•Design product•Procure•Make

Make the product

• Price• Sell• Advertise/ promote• Distribute• Service

Sell the product

THE VALUE CREATION AND DELIVERY SEQUENCE

Choose the value•Customer segmentation•Market selection/ focus•Value positioning

Provide the value•Product development•Service development•Pricing•Sourcing/ making•Distributing/ servicing

Communicate the value

•Salesforce•Sales promotion•Advertising

The Japanese have further developed this view of the value creation and value-delivery process by adding the following concepts:

♦ Zero Customer Feedback Time: Customer feedback should be continuously collcted after purchase to learn how to improve the product and its marketing.

♦ Zero Product Improvement Time: The company should evaluate all the customers’ improvement ideas, as well as the employee ideas, and introduce the most valued and feasible improvements as soon as possible.

♦ Zero Setup Time: The company should be able to manufacture any of its products as soon as they are ordered, without facing high setup costs or time.

♦ Zero Defects: The products should be of high quality and free of flaws.

ANALYZING MARKET OPPORTUNITIES Any marketing manager must analyses the long-

run opportunities in the market to improve the business unit’s performance.

Marketing research is an indispensable marketing tool for this purpose, in that companies can serve their customer markets well only by researching their needs and wants, their

location, their buying practices and so on.

RESEARCHING AND SELECTING TARGET MARKETS AND POSITIONING THE OFFER

Market segmentation is the process of dividing a market into distinct groups of

buyers with different needs, characteristics, or behavior who might

require separate  products or marketing mixes.

Market targeting is the process of evaluating each market segment's attractiveness

and selecting one or more segments to enter.

Target Market is a set of all actual and potential buyers.

Market positioning is arranging for a product to

occupy a clear distinctive and desirable place relative to competing products in the minds of 

target consumers.