DEVELOPING MARKETING STRATEGIES AND PLANS

Dario Miocevic, PhD DEVELOPING MARKETING STRATEGIES AND PLANS

The Value Proposition • Every new entrepreneurial idea should start from analyzing the actual and potential market needs. • Besides being savvy, at the core of every new entrepreneurial ventureis identifying ways how to create more value for customers. • Firm’ssource of competitive advantage (resources, competencies, skills, etc)must make a significant contribution to perceived customer benefits.

How customers assess value?

Marketing Plan Process

External environment • Marketing opportunity: an area of buyer need and interest that a company has a high probability of profitably satisfying. • Environmental threat: challenge posed by an unfavorable trend or development that, in the absence of defensive marketing action, would lead to lower sales or profit

External environment • Six major forces in the broad external environment Demographic Natural Economic Technological Socio-cultural Political-legal

External environment • Three major constituents of the external micro environment Customers Competition Suppliers

Internal environment • Strengths • Weaknesses • e.g.,brand name, human resources, marketing capabilities, financial resources, location, etc.

SWOT Analysis Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats

Why are goals important? • They form basis for evaluating the performance. • They respresent a benchmark for assessing the marketing strategy effectiveness. • Goals are important input for budgeting.

Goals need to fulfill SMART criteria • Specific • Measurable • Achievable • Relevant • Time-bound

How is value proposition related to marketing strategy? • After deciding what’s your unique selling proposition, i.e., whether it is based on differentiating your offering (maximizing the value through benefits) and/or minimizing the total costs for customers, firm needs to decide on strategy: OVERALL COST LEADERSHIP DIFFERENTIATION FOCUS

Selecting target market(s) • Very important step in marketing plan is to determine the target market(s) for your product. In other words: „Who opts to buy our product/service” • Segmentation approaches • Targeting strategies

Targeting approaches Market Market offering Market offering 1 Segment 1 Market offering 2 Undifferentiated marketing Segment 2 Segment 3 Market offering 3 Segment 1 Market offering Segment 2 Differentiated marketing Segment 3 Concentrated (niche) marketing

Marketing mix development • Elements of marketing mix must be aligned with value proposition, positioning and overall marketing strategy: • Product • Price (Revenue model) • Promotion • Distribution

Feedback and control • Peter Drucker: it is more important to “do the right thing”—to be effective—than “to do things right”—to be efficient • The most successful companies, however, excel at both

Marketing Plan Contents • Executive summary • Table of contents • Situation analysis • Marketing strategy • Marketing tactics • Financial projections • Implementation controls

Evaluating a Marketing Plan • Is the plan simple/succinct? • Is the plan complete? • Is the plan specific? • Is the plan realistic?

Thank you for your attention 

DEVELOPING MARKETING STRATEGIES AND PLANS