3.0 The Importance Of Marketing Planning
The importance of having marketing plan is it provides an unambiguous reference point for activities throughout the planning period. However, perhaps the most important benefit of these plans is the planning process itself. Beside, marketing planning also provides framework to think about what you want to achieve, when you want to achieve it and what actions are needed to achieve it where marketing planning also made the company able to target the best customer, competitive advantage to beat competitor, keeping abreast of marketing development, maximizing returns for the organization, fully utilized the resources, minimizing threats and to knowing the organization strength and weaknesses. Beside, a good marketing plan will fulfill these five purposes in detail:
- It explains both the present and future situations of the organization. This includes the situation and SWOT analyses and the firm’s past performance.
- It specifies the expected outcomes (goals and objectives) so that the organization can anticipate its situation at the end of the planning period.
- It describes the specific actions that are to take place so that the responsibility for each action can be assigned and implemented.
- It identifies the resources that will be needed to carry out the planned actions.
- It permits the monitoring of each action and its results so that controls may be implemented. Feedback from monitoring and control provides information to start the planning cycle again in the next time frame.
The marketing plan must continually take due to shifting in market conditions especially in changing customer needs and competitive threats. Next, marketing plan as a prerequisition to raise fund either a large company looking for additional money or a small startup company.
4.0 The Challenges Of Marketing Planning
- Analyze the markets, marketing environments, customer expectations, competitors and trends.
- To determine the core target markets (segments)
- Identify what the competitive advantage that a company must have.
- Statement of specific goals and product or service positioning
- Development of marketing mixes to ease in marketing programmed
- The determination or required budgets
- The specification of schedules and allocation of marketing tasks
- Performance monitoring and evolving market conditions
4.1 Marketing challenges and opportunities in the new economy include:
- A shift in power to customers
- A massive increase in product selection
- Changes in the way we communicate , read the news, and entertain ourselves
- Changing customer perceptions of value
- Shifting demand patterns for certain product categories
- New sources of competitive advantage
- New concerns over privacy, security, and ethics
- Vague legal jurisdictions
5.0 Contents Of A Marketing Plans
The marketing plan is a physical document that is responsible for communicating the strategic marketing planning process. It outlines the specific actions intend to carry out to interest potential customers and clients in product and/or service and persuade them to buy the product and/or services offers.
5.1 Executive Summary
The plan begins with management or executive summary is brief summary of main goals and recommendation.
This consists of examining market research, auditing business and current situation (situation analysis) and carefully scrutinizing the soft drink industry and possibilities forCoca Cola in the market. Once Coca Cola have carefully analyzed the internal andexternal business environment and critically examined the industry in general themost suitable marketing strategies will be selected and these strategies will beadministered by effectively and continually monitoring external threats andopportunities and revising internal efficiency procedures.
5.2 Situation analysis
Situation analysis comprises of three main categories which are market analysis, SWOT analysis and product life cycle.
1.Market Analysis:
The market analysis investigates both the internal and external business
environment. It is vital that Coca cola carefully monitor both the internal and external aspects regarding its business as both the internal and external environment and this influences Cokes success and survival in the soft drink industry.
-Internal Business environment:
The main attributes in the internal environment include efficiency in the production process, through management skills and effective communication channels.
-External Business environment:
It refers to forces that can affect a whole industry and, in fact, a whole economy. Changes in the external environment will create opportunities or threats in the market place Coca cola must be aware off such as fluctuations in the economy, changing customer attitudes and values, and demographic patterns that will create opportunity or treats in market place of Coca Cola.
2. SWOT Analysis
Table 1: SWOT Analysis
3. Product Life Cycle
Figure 2: Product life Cycle
The standard product life cycle tends to have five phases: Development, Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline. Coca-Cola is currently in the maturity stage, which is evidenced primarily by the fact that they have a large, loyal group of stable customers.
5.3 Marketing Objectives
The purposes of objectives include:
- to enable a company to control its marketing plan.
- to help to motivate individuals and teams to reach a common goal.
- to provide an agreed, consistent focus for all functions of an organization.
All objectives should be SMART i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic,
and Timed.
*Specific - Be precise about what you are going to achieve
*Measurable - Quantify you objectives
*Achievable - Are you attempting too much?
*Realistic - Do you have the resource to make the objective happen (men, money, machines, materials, minutes)?
*Timed - State when you will achieve the objective (within a month? By February
2010?)
Example for marketing objectives:
1.Market Share Objectives:
To gain 60% of the market for soft drink industry by September 2007.
2.Profitability Objectives:
To achieve a 20% return on capital employed by August 2007
3. Promotional Objectives
To increase awareness of the product on the market.
4. Objectives for Survival
To survive the current market war between competitors.
5. Objectives for Growth
To increase the size of the worldwide Coca Cola enterprise by 10% .
5.4 Selecting Target Market
It is crucial to select which market segments have greatest potential. Most Coke products satisfy all age groups as it is proven that most people of different age groups consume the Coca Cola product. This market is relatively large and is open to both genders, thereby allowing greater product diversification.
The most apparent method used by Coca Cola is with no doubt the differentiated
marketing method as Coke satisfies a range of different markets. Diet coke
satisfies the weight consciousness, regular coke, sprite, fanta the average
human, coffee, iced tea etc. Each group of beverages satisfy a particular group of people but majority the average human.
5.5 Developing The Marketing Mix
The marketing mix refer to four factors: product, price, promotion and place or distributions .
a. Product: The core product is what the customers wanted and its
benefits.
I. Positioning- a process of creating the image the product holds
in the mind of customers relative to competing product .e.g coca cola and Franklins both make soft drinks, although Franklins may try to compete they will still be seen as down market from Coca Cola. Positioning helps customers understand what is unique about the products when compared with the competition.
ii. Branding- Coca cola trend mark is red and white colors. It use
individual brand strategy as major product.
Iii. Packaging- Protect the product during transportation. It allows
designing promotional schemes to generate extra revenue and
advertisement.
b. Pricing: Setting the price based on Cost based Pricing, Market based pricing and Competition based Pricing.
c.Promotion: Common tools to promote a product Coca Cola also utilizes below the line promotions such as contests, coupons, and free samples. These activities are an effective way of getting people to give your product a go.
d.Place: Aspect is the respective distribution channels that Coca Cola has elected to transport and sell its product.
5.6 Financial Forecasts
There are five major marketing expenditures, which include research costs, product development costs, product costs, promotion costs and distribution costs. Once these costs and revenues are forecasted, management can then decide which combination of marketing mix strategies will deliver the most sales revenue at the lowest cost.
5.7 Implementing
Implementation is the process of turning plans into actions, and involves all the
activities that put the marketing plan to work. Successful implementation depends
on how well the business blends its people, organizational structure and company culture into a cohesive program that supports the marketing plan.
For its further success, Coca Cola must impose several key changes. Production
needs to be on time and meet the quota demanded from wholesalers. It must also be efficient so as not to build inventory stocks and inventory prices. The forms of promotion such as advertising must be attracting and enticing to the target market to get the greatest amount of exposure possible for the product. This will ensure the success of the product in the stores. Distribution of the product must be efficient. This problem has already been taken care of with convenient transport routes to commercial areas and transport already being arranged.
5.8 Monitoring And Controlling
It is a process of accesses for any variances in budget and actual. There are three tools Coca Cola should use to monitor the marketing plan. They are the following:
i. Sales Analysis
The sales analysis breaks down total business sales by market segments to identify
ii. Market Share Analysis
iii. Marketing Profitability Analysis
The main section of the plan presents a detailed analysis of the current marketing situations as well as potential threats and opportunities. It next states major objectives for the brand and outlines the specifics of a marketing strategy for achieving them. A marketing strategy consists of specific strategies for target markets, positioning, the marketing mix and marketing expenditure levels. In this section, the planner explains how each strategy responds to the threats, opportunities and critical issues spelled out earlier in the plan. Additional sections of the marketing plan lay out an action program for implementing the marketing strategy along with the details of a supporting marketing budget. The last section outlines the control that will be used to monitor the progress and take corrective action.
Figure 3: Contents Of A Marketing Plan
6.0 Conclusion
Planning is a process for accomplishing purpose. The steps involve in planning are analysis, planning, implementation and control. Marketing planning is a system or process of assesses to marketing opportunities and resources determine marketing objective and develop a thorough plan for implementation and control. The marketing planning process commonly operates at 2 levels either strategic marketing plan or tactical marketing plan. The marketing plan is a physical document that is responsible for communicating the strategic marketing planning process. There are eight components of marketing plan: executive summary, situation analysis, marketing objectives, selecting target market , developing market mix, financial forecast, implementing, monitoring & controlling.
7.0 References
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R. Saxena (2002) Marketing Management, 2nd ed. Mc Graw Hill Co. Ltd, New Delhi. Pg 68-84
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P. Kotler & K.L. Keller (2006) Marketing Management, 12th ed. Pearson, New Jersey. Pg 43-44,60-61
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S. Dibb, L. Simkin,W.M. Pride & O.C. Ferrell (2006) Marketing: Concepts & Strategies 5th ed. Houghton Mifflin Co, Boston. pg 713-785
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Helen Meek & Richard Meek (2001). Marketing Management. Financial World Publishing.
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Philip Kotler & Gary Armstrong (2006). Principles of Marketing, Eleventh Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall.
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Philip Kotler, Kevin Lane Keller, Swee Hoon Ang, Siew Meng Leong & Chin Tiong Tan (2006). Marketing Management, An Asian Perspective, Fourth Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall.
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Ferrel, O. C, Hartline, M. D. (2005). Marketing Strategy. 3rd ed. Thomson South-Western. Ohio.
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Lehmann / Winer. 2005. Product Management. 4th ed. McGrawHill Co. New York
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