Marketing Planning Components - Essay Example

? Marketing Audit Marketing Audit Table of Content Introduction 2 Market Planning 3 Marketing Objectives and Strategies 4 The Integration of Marketing Planning into Objectives and Strategies 4 Market Auditing 5 Importance of Marketing Auditing 6 Challenges in Marketing Audit 7 Implementation of Marketing Plan 9 Difficulties in Implementation of Marketing Plan 10 Conclusion 11 Introduction: This report assesses and evaluates one of the most important functions of the organization- marketing. Marketing planning is essential in any organization as it provides a systematic approach and gives the managers a deep insight about the existing relationship and integration of marketing function with the overall strategy of the organization. The report will discuss about the different components and steps of marketing planning, its importance in our organization, its implementation and the possible difficulties that could be faced while implementation of the plan. Market Planning: Market planning can be defined as “all rational, incremental and intuitive processes that guide a firm’s marketing to its future.” (RAO. 2007) When we talk about marketing planning it may seem as an easy process, however in reality it’s a complicated multifaceted process that involves every aspect of an organization. Marketing planning can be referred to activities that are undertaken by the managers to achieve marketing objectives. In other words it’s a process to identify range of options that are available to the manager in order to achieve marketing objectives and then evaluate those options and plan accordingly. The outcomes of marketing planning process are the marketing strategies to achieve marketing objectives. Marketing planning involves a systematic process of reviewing the situation, assumption formulation, setting objectives about whom to sell and how to, decisions regarding the achievement of objectives and scheduling and costing out activities required for implementation. (MCDONALD & WILSON. 2011) The market planning comprises of four basic components, these include marketing objectives, marketing audit, marketing strategies and resource allocation and monitoring. All these components are interlinked and are extremely important for marketing planning. I shall discuss these components in detail further. I’ve been emphasizing that the aim of the marketing planning is to achieve marketing objective, marketing objectives are something that the marketing function strives to achieve as a part of business strategic plan which usually includes increase in sales, awareness about products, creation of brand, increase in market share etc, then these goals are converted to objectives which are measurable, like increasing sales and market share by 15% within one year, this could be measured by analyzing annual sales data and industry data and other publications. (LEVENS. 2012) Marketing Objectives and Strategies In order to achieve these marketing objectives the company has to make marketing strategies. The marketing objectives identified must be in accordance with company’s overall objectives. Marketing objectives can be easily identified on the basis of marketing mix objectives which simplifies the objectives setting process which later on lays basis for marketing strategies to achieve those objectives. A marketing strategy is a series of action statements which are also known as tactics. Effective marketing strategy is critical to successful marketing plan; therefore these would be given extra importance when a marketing plan is being set up. (LANCASTER & MASSINGHAM. 2010) The Integration of Marketing Planning into Objectives and Strategies Planning itself includes goal setting and development of strategies to achieve those goals. The objective or goals and strategies to achieve these will be the outcome of marketing planning process. The marketing strategies tell what should be done and the strategic and operational plans guide how the strategies should be implemented. The initial step of any planning would include information gathering from internal and external environment then it is implemented and constantly monitored. No planning is successful without proper information therefore extensive marketing research and forecasting need to be done. One of the very important steps highlighted during marketing planning and information gathering process is the SWOT analysis of the market to indicate what can and cannot be done. The SWOT analysis helps in identifying the internal strengths and weaknesses and external environment’s threats and opportunities which provides the basis for marketing strategies to achieve the marketing objectives. Marketing research can play a very important role in the initial stages of market planning and in its implementation and as a feedback process too. We can use it to research and learn more about our customer’s requirements, satisfaction and expectations etc. The marketing plan should be designed in a way which outlines what levels of marketing research are required and how will it be applied. Practically when we will start the marketing planning processes we need to consider other aspects of our business too as no strategy takes place in isolation. Marketing planning should also take into account different relationships in organization for e.g. how different marketing personnel work with each other and with people and department in organization, how the company will work with the supply chain and other stakeholders etc. Effective planning process will lead to clear understanding of objectives, formulation of strategies and their implementation to achieve those objectives. (LEVENS. 2012; ARMSTRONG & KOTLER. 2000; JOOSTE. 1999; BRINK ET AL. 1999; LANCASTER & MASSINGHAM. 2010) Market Auditing: “A marketing audit, like an accounting audit, is an instrument to measure the value, risks and effectiveness of your marketing efforts” (PARMERLEE. 2000) Marketing audit is a systematic and formal review of marketing plans and strategies into action. We can get it done by the external independent auditors or by the personnel of the marketing function internally. The marketing audit is an information gathering process; it is often the first step of the marketing planning and it involves asking questions, collecting and analyzing information about the current market situation which can be later analyzed and converted to marketing objectives and into strategies in order to achieve these objectives. If we won’t know about our current situation realistic decision making can be tough. Therefore marketing audit is a situational analysis and an examination of current position of the company’s marketing position which tells the company where we are now. (RAJU ET AL. 2006; WRIGHT. 1999) Importance of Marketing Auditing: The objective of the whole activity is to evaluate the value creation done by the marketing process and function for its customers and to have an insight beyond the regular market reports, sales and forecasts. Audit can serve as a means to identify any problem arising in the marketing function. Practically most of the companies go towards audit when something starts going wrong for e.g. a decrease in market share, decrease in sales, falling margins, inefficiencies accompanied by underutilized production capacities etc. The companies in such situations start taking actions like reorganizing the sales force, changes in product mix, reducing prices and cost cutting etc, these all steps might help however if the problem isn’t identified and defined no steps will be able to recover the position. Therefore, a marketing audit helps define the problem in marketing processes and functions so that they could be resolved and corrective actions should be taken. Marketing auditing will help us find out what our customers in current and targeted markets expect from us, it will even highlight the limitations and barriers a company can face in entering or expanding in a new market and can analyze the potential costs associated with these problems, it will even tell us how what value a market can give us that is sales revenue, volume and earning potential etc. A market audit can further lay the basis of future market decisions. (RAJU ET AL. 2006; PARMERLEE. 2000) Challenges in Marketing Audit: The process of market auditing basically involves study of market and gathering of information for a particular market either for entering a market or expanding in the existing one. This research would include information collection from internal and external environment and the analysis of this information. There are various factors that affect an organization and an infinite amount of information that would be available to the managers while auditing. The biggest challenge faced would be to select and obtain the relevant information and irrelevant information should be discarded. Another critical matter to be looked upon would be to start the process with a view of inside to outside organization or vice versa. The information gathering of external environment will include information gathered for micro and macro environments. The macro environments will deal with the components of environment and factors prevailing in the environment, the analysis can be undertaken by SWOT and PESTEL analysis. The other kind of information required will be of immediate micro environment which will include information gathering about suppliers, customers, competitors, stakeholders and public etc. Apart from the external information gathering, internal information gathering is equally important. This will include information gathering about the organizations 7s which includes structure, system, strategies, skills, staffing, shared values and styles. The information about current marketing mix that is the price, product, place and promotion is extremely important too. From the external environment we need to understand and gather the information regarding the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors that affects the market in which we operate or intend to operate. From the internal environment we shall look for information about our internal processes and products, our marketing mix, product portfolio, channels of distribution, pricing policies, promotional strategies etc. This will also focus on financial issues like costs, revenues and profits level etc. (WRIGHT. 1999) Gathering and collection of such large amount of information and data will not be an easy job. As identified earlier, one of the biggest challenges we will be facing is the analysis of the data to identify what information is relevant and what is irrelevant for the purpose. Large amount of data is difficult to deal with; it often causes de-motivation in staff, becomes hectic and can be very time consuming. The activity can also be seen as a time consuming activity and may not be appreciated by marketing personnel. On the other hand gathering such large amount of data will be costly and it would further increase the costs and in some cases it may not even pass the cost benefits analysis test. Another issue that always arises with information is about the reliability of data, when our organization is planning to take strategic decisions on the basis of some information, it is extremely essential that the information is correct, accurate and reliable. At times in both internal and external environment, certain information is of high importance and the information holder may not be agreeing to release it, dealing with such issues can also be challenging in information gathering processes. (BURNS & BUSH. 2000) Implementation of Marketing Plan: Once a marketing plan has been made there is no use of it until it isn’t implemented properly. It is important to ensure that the marketing plan is followed up and adhered to. Implementation or following up a marketing plan means to convert these plans into actions assignments and ensure these plans achieve the planned objectives. Implementation of marketing plans needs lots of coordination and communication activities, marking of detailed job assignments, setting timeline and budgets etc. It should be noted that brilliant marketing plans don’t work out just because they are not implemented well, although it may seem that implementation is just the process of doing what we decided to do, still many problems can be faced in its actual implementation. (MCDANIEL, LAMB & HAIR. 2011) The process of marketing plan implementation involves allocating resources, regular monitoring and progress on action plan, effective organization to work with formal and informal networks within organization and interaction with people within the organization like employees and other departments and outside the organization like suppliers, customers etc. Strategy and its implementation go hand in hand and if something goes wrong it often gets difficult to distinguish whether the strategy had a fault or the implementation did. After implementation another important step comes of controlling. Implementation is only successful too if the controlling and monitoring activities are strong. Controlling will involve setting of goals and quantifying them, these will be measured by the actual work performed in order to measure performance. After measuring the performance an analysis will be done which will identify the reasons for the deviation in actual and planned performance so that the corrective action is taken. No marketing planning can be successful without proper implementation and control, without these the marketing plan is just a time wasting activity. (HAVALDAR. 2005) Difficulties in Implementation of Marketing Plan: Due to many failures in implementing marketing strategies, these days many organizations have adopted proper standardized procedures and controls to make effective implementation possible. However the implementation of a brilliant marketing plan can fail due to many reasons. These reasons mainly include lack of support from top management, until the CEO won’t show the interest in its implementation the marketing seniors will not be able to do much about it. There could be many other reasons which can cause difficulty in implementation of the plan for e.g. staff’s unawareness regarding the plan- this could be due to lack of training, workshops, proper guidance etc, lack of resources- that is if an unexpected shortfall arises in the implementation stage, lack of information or data- which earlier in the planning process was assumed will be provided later, lack of support of line managers- this could be due to lack of skills or lack of interest too, over planning- can result in to much details and excessive information in which the relevant information gets lost and makes it difficult for the staff to identify genuine objectives and strategies last but not the least the marketing plans needs to be taken seriously, its making and implementation can only be successful if managers and senior staff incorporates the plan into processes and company’s corporate strategy and not treat it like another bureaucratic activity. (MCDONALD & WILSON. 2011) Conclusion: Marketing planning can be beneficial to our organization if we properly work on each stage of its planning from marketing auditing process and information gathering, setting marketing objectives, formulating strategies to achieve the objectives to successful implementation of the plan and its control. By marketing planning we can achieve remarkable boost in sales, introduction of new products and increase in market share with an increase in profits and margins which all are important for our growth. Bibliography RAJU, M. S. S., XARDEL, D., DARMON, R. Y., TARONDEAU, J.-C., & SOM, A. (2006). Marketing management international perspectives. Chennai (Inde), Vijay Nicole Imprints Private Limited. PARMERLEE, D. (2000). Auditing markets, products, and marketing plans. Lincolnwood, Ill, NTC Business Books. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=68384. WRIGHT, R. (1999). Marketing: origins, concepts, environment. 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