WHAT IS STRATEGIC MARKETING PLANNING?
Every CEO and marketing executive periodically faces urgent strategic marketing challenges that can affect the future of the company for many ears. Frequently these decisions are made without having an opportunity to study the situation and make the best possible decision.
Making spur of the moment strategic decisions reduces the likelihood that these decisions are the best.
A better approach is to perform an annual comprehensive review of markets and opportunities, then make long-term strategic decisions without the distractions of day-to-day marketing and sales activities. Daily decisions then fit into the company’s overall strategic marketing goals.
It’s important for a strategic marketing planning process to look at the company from the customer’s point of view by asking questions that have a long time horizon, such as:
- What needs or problems cause customers to consider buying from our company?
- What improvements in the customer’s personal or business life can we enable or improve?
- Which customer market segments are attracted to our company or products?
- Which customer motivations or values lead people to decide to purchase our products?
- What changes or trends in our customer base are affecting their general interest or attraction to products like ours?
Strategic vs. Tactical Marketing Plans
What makes a strategic marketing plan different from a more tactical marketing communications plan? The key difference is the focus on meshing overall customer situations with your overall company direction.
For business-to-business marketers, this means combining industry sector segmentation and product use with other factors related to purchase decisions. These include the purchase criteria and decision motivations that affect large, enterprise size purchases.
For example, the trend toward increased use of outsourcing to both domestic and global vendors creates markets for those suppliers. However, those vendors need to have a strategic marketing vision in order to see these new markets early enough to take advantage of the opportunity.
For consumer marketers, this means using geographic and demographic segmentation, as well as psychographic segmentation (i.e., values, attitudes, lifestyles), and product usage motivations.
For example, the aging population bubble creates a general increase in demand for a wide range of products. It also creates market niches that are large enough to make product development and marketing worthwhile.
The same shifts can also reduce demand for other products. These long term shifts in markets are frequently misinterpreted as short-term competitive pressures or fluctuations in the economy. Instead of increasing advertising or sales efforts, it might be better to abandon a declining market.
Without a strategic marketing plan a company could waste resources or miss an opportunity.
What’s the cost of missing an opportunity? Of course, it’s impossible to know at the time the opportunity is missed, but years later it will become clear when a competitor opens a new factory or enters a new market — and their revenue grows faster than their competitors.
In other words, the annual cost of a strategic marketing plan review is miniscule compared to the revenue, market share, and profitability it can generate.
Developing the Strategic Marketing Plan
The strategic marketing plan process typically has three stages:
- Segment the market
- Geographic
- Demographic
- Psychographic
- Behavior
- Profile the market segments
- Revenue potential
- Market share potential
- Profitability potential
- Develop a market segment marketing strategy
- Market leader or product line extension
- Mass marketing or targeted marketing
- Direct or indirect sales
After analyzing market segments, customer interests, and the purchase process, it’s time to create the strategic marketing plan. The strategic marketing plan document usually includes:
- Situational Analysis – Where is the company now?
- Market Characteristics
- Key Success Factors
- Competition and Product Comparisons
- Technology Considerations
- Legal Environment
- Social Environment
- Problems and Opportunities
- Marketing Objectives – Where does management want the company to go?
- Product Profile
- Target Market
- Target Volume in Dollars and/or Units
- Marketing Strategies – What should the company do to achieve its objectives?
- Product Strategy
- Pricing Strategy
- Promotion Strategy
- Distribution Strategy
- Marketing Strategy Projection
How to Use a Strategic Marketing Plan
Once a company’s executive team has approved the strategic marketing plan it’s time to take the next step — create the tactical marketing programs and projects needed to implement the plan.
These tactical programs usually include:
- Product Development Plan
- Marketing Communications Plan
- Sales Development Plan
- Customer Service Plan
Benefiting from a Strategic Marketing Plan
The top-down process of developing a strategic marketing plan helps insure that all tactical marketing programs support the company’s goals and objectives, as well as convey a consistent message to customers.
This approach improves company efficiency in all areas, which helps improve revenue and market share growth, and minimizes expenses — all of which lead to higher profitability.
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MANAGING A PRESS EVENT
Sometimes, you may want to invite a group of journalists to an event which you are planning. This could be a product demonstration, press announcement or corporate hospitality event. In general, it is not advisable to stage a press conference, but better to rely on individual press briefings. This is because a press conference generally requieres hard news in order to work well, can be difficult to manage and even expose the company to sometimes unwelcome lines of questioning.
Whilst they are generally busy people working to tight deadlines, journalists do like to get out and meet contacts and companies face to face. Organising an event which combines a news or feature opportunity with a chance to meet key people, socialise and see new products or initiative close up can be very successful, both in making productive contacts and generating coverage.
Before you plan a press event, be very clear about your goals. They might include: getting publicity for a new product, service or development; extending your press contacts; showing your organisation’s strength; or developing you key staff’s communication skills.
10 Steps to a successful press event
- Plan ahead. At least two weeks before the event, talk internally about what you want to do and how you want to do it
- Talk as a group about what messages you want to communicate and what material you have to use as a hook
- Prepare background information and a press release to hand over
- Decide how many journalists the event will comfortably accommodate
- Prepare an invitation list of target media
- Draft invitation letter include response facility, either via post, faxback or e-mail
- Follow-up invitations by telephone to confirm attendance and any special requirements
- Allocate a “Chair” or moderator to make welcoming statement and introductions to the event
- Engage journalists from the point of view of their interests and specialisations
- Follow up the event with requested information or further contact
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EFFECTIVE NEWS RELEASES
“Is this newsworthy?” That is the first question editors ask when they receive a news release. You have one paragraph, perhaps 20 seconds maximum, to seize the editor’s attention or the release goes in the waste bin.
“Newsworthy” means your story is about somethign that the editor’s listeners, viewers or readers will find interesting. Before composing a news release, make sure you have something worthwhile to say. Tackle the main point immediately in the first paragraph, and make it with absolute clarity.
Your release will be one of many received by the news desk, so it must make an impact straight away. Here are 10 general tips to improve your chances of having your release reported in the media:
- Make sure your subject is “newsworthty”. Try to give it a sense of immediacy.
- Use news release paper, or write “news release” at the top of the first page which should be on letterhead paper.
- Present the essential facts immediately in the first paragraph, especially the “who” and “what”. Always write your release so that it make sense if the editor is short of space and deletes paragraphs from the bottom up.
- Use a punchy, factual, eye-catching headline. News editor skim read 50 or 60 stories a minute, so your story must grab attention immediately.
- Adopt a simple, plain language style. Avoid jargon, and ensure the information is easy to understand. Clarity is a must. Fancy, pretentious writing will obscure your message and reduce your chances of gaining coverage.
- Keep your release concise, informative and interesting. Use one and a half or double line spacing. Do not go to more than two pages.
- Keep each paragraph tight, with no more than four short sentences.
- Put the date at the top of the release so news editor know that the story is still current.
- Leave adequate space at the top and in the margins for the sub-editor to make any changes.
- Do not underline words. This is an instruction for journalists to use italics.
Other points to remember!
- Be prepared to cut & paste the story into the body of your email;
- For local media, your stroy should always have a local angle;
- Human interest stories are unusual angles interest the media;
- Journalists are not paid to use the material you supply;
- You cannot dictate how much of the copy will be used or when it will appear;
- The amount of space or air time a publication or radio station gives you tis their editorial decision;
- You are not entitled to see the finished copy!
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