Opportunity provided by Strategic Marketing Plan

"The planning is everything. A plan is nothing."

Dwight Eisenhower  ( The President of USA in WWII)

Most of the plans you make will never turn out to be right because you will do better or worse than what you planned But that is not the reason for dropping the planning process because it is never wasted. It brings all the stakeholders, planners and executives together, makes them consciously and collectively see the future of their enterprise, foresee opportunities and problems, build on each other's perspecticves and make a joint plan in a cooperative fashion.


Given its due importance, time and attention; such annual planning of the marketing strategy can really make a difference to the sales, profits, competitiveness and well being of your company. 

This article will help you examine if your company is doing your annual planning well.
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What is Marketing Strategy after all ?

The words "Marketing Strategy" are so loosly used today that we have forgotten what it really means. Today it can mean any or all of the following things 

• Future of business
• Ambition of the business
• Break up of sales planned in the plan period
• Break up of expenses budgeted in the plan peiod
• Main expeditures and programs
• the main capital expenditure plan
• the maon actions to attract customers
• Proposed organizational recruitment / promotion charts 
• the pricing plans
• The main measures against the competition
• the main actions to recruit and motivate partners
• the main efforts to promote the sale and prices
• the effort to communicate the superior quality
• How to combat competitors and threats 
• How to locate and capture opportunities 
• Influencing the entities in the environment 

It cannot , and should not - mean so many things so I am giving here a specific outline to what a strategic marketing plan must contain.  

If you make it into too many pages it becomes an operating plan. If it is too short it may contain only intentions and may not be of much operational use. It is an art to make a plan short and yet practical and referable.  

The proof of the utility of the marketing plan is that more people in more departments open it more often for reference and coordination and performance oriented dialog. 

It is clear to me that the actual practice of formulating and practicing marketing strategy leaves a lot to be desired in many companies. In fact what remains in such companies is only the routine annual process run by the budget department.  In such cases the only purpose left is to have a vehicle of  conveying the budget to the ERP system so that it enables spending of the money.

It is actually a pity because there are many useful reasons to do the marketing strategy   It is an oportunity for all in the organization to feel a part of the overall business, talk freely to consolidate the latest experience , revise assumptions, understand what all is happening in the environment and then decide 

• what seems to be working so it can be done on a larger scale 
• what does not seem to be working and hence needs to be dropped or drastically changed 
• what needs to be fixed and re-tested

Ultimately the purpose of any annual strategy is to enable the business to redeploy its resources in the best possible manner every year. Therefore, if you are not undertaking a proper strategic planning at least once in a year you are skipping a rejuvenation opportunity.

How much in detail the plan should be prepared ? The following are the important decisions in marketing planning and hence only those who have the authority to take such decisions should be given the specific responsibility for (1) a given prodct line (2) a certain set of customers (3) a certain channel  (4) or a certain geography  - or a combination thereof. Only one person should be squarekt held accountable - although he may have bosses or subordinates - but the marketing plan responsibility is his. He needs to plan and deliver the results for the products, customers, channels and markets.

For example : XYZ will be responsible for making a marketing plan for all varients / packs of  Halo brand shampoo for the continent of Africa through distributors and retailers but the sale through carrafour and Duty Free outlets will not be under XYZ.    

From my experience there should be a marketing plan prepared for any business 

1. which has a product manager 
2. more than 40% of the marketing manager's sale
3. its own unique marketing environment (5Cs)
4. it is seen as an SBU
5. Has its own / significant sales force / promo budget 
6. that is recognized as a source of future growth
7. that is competitively important
8. that is seen as strategically important 
9. that is important to the collaborators
10. that is important to the customers 

The structure of the strategic marketing plan follows 3 sequential sections

SECTION 1 

MARKET ENVIRONMENT

The forecast of the Market Environment that is likely to prevail  during the planning period (normally the accounting year). Under this section you need to cover 

The internally generated actions and changes the company has planned during the plan period ( Method recommended : make a list of ALL Opportunities, Obstacles, Threats, Areas of positive performance and then tick mark the ones which you wish to address in the ensuing plan period. ) 

The actions and changes the company has planned during the plan period to address the issues created by specific parties in the market environment by 3Cs ( Customers, Competitors, Collaborators). ( Method recommended : make a list of ALL exigencies likely to be created by 3Cs and then tick mark the ones which you wish to address in the ensuing plan period. ) 

The actions and changes the company has planned during the plan period to address the issues created by non-specific parties in the market environment PESTEL ( Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Ecological and Legal). ( Method recommended : make a list of ALL exigencies likely to be created by PESTEL and then tick mark the ones which you wish to address in the ensuing plan period).   

SECTION 2 :
MARKETING STRATEGY  

MVC Model

Please remember that 3 independent facts need to de found out about the market in order to realistically forecast the sales that we will acheive during the plan period

• Market Potential :  Number of customers (Decision Making Units) and their total consumption which is likely to be the source of our business in the plan period. This is an upper limit on how much can we sell.
• How competitive are we : This is a % of the market potential mentioned above that is likely to find us as the better value for them than what they are getting now from others
• Our reach : What % of our target customers can we reach more effectively than our competition and thus create an opportunitiy for our sale. 

Viwed this way there are 3 ways by which you can increase your sale (separately or together)

• Market Potential :  Increase the source of your business. More is the source, more is your potential.
• Our competitive Value : Make ourselves a better value for the customers' money than what our target competitors can.
• Our reach : Trying to reach more number of our target customers more effectively

Marketing Mix

Once you are done with the MVC model you can write down your marketing mix in a more traditional format called MARKETINg MIX for each market : Calendarize what will happen in which month and with what effect

• Product
• Place
• Price
• Promotion
• People
• Process
• Proof

Mission and Vision

If you want to make any changes to long term plans you should write them down under this.

SECTION 3 

MARKETING ACTIONS 

AND BUDGETS 

Under this you should focus on which expenditures and actions you are likely to increase, keep the same, reduce, eliminate or change. 

Major Actions under staff, structure, systems, mission, vision and resource development and allocation should be covered here.