Download Market Planning

Market Planning
The marketing plan is used to carry out the marketing strategy. It has 3 main elements.
1. The marketing activities to be undertaken.
2. The timing of actions.
3. The reasons behind each action.
It helps to coordinate all the firms activities and departments, e.g. sales and production
would need to know about any new advertising campaign.
When drawing up a marketing plan it is important to take account many factors. These
may include:
•
Historical data- previous plans, experiences etc.
•
Current trends- these are found via masses of data collected about the current state
of the market.
•
Future expectations- e.g. competition , technology, market.
•
Financing- this often limits what can be done.
The marketing plan
WHAT IS A MARKETING PLAN?
Where are we now?- Need for a marketing audit analysing the current situation. This part of
the plan will also state/identify assumptions which are built into the marketing plan. For
example, the economy will grow by 2%, there will be a 1% increase in taxation, and so on.
Where do we want to go?- A statement of marketing objectives – usually expressed in terms
of market share, sales revenue, etc.
How are we going to get there?- Strategies and tactics – strategies are broad statements of
how the objectives are going to be achieved. Strategies usually include features of the
product’s marketing mix. Tactics specify programmes of what is to be done. This will normally
include:
•The sales plan
•The promotion plan
•The market information plan
These plans of action will be expressed in terms of budgets. Overall this is the marketing
budget. It will include targets and the allocation of funds for advertising and promotion,
research, distribution and personal selling.
Evaluating success and control- Taking corrective action where necessary, and assessing
performance.