The Strategic Marketing Plan Training

Introduction

A marketing plan clarifies the key marketing elements of a business and maps out directions, objectives, and activities for the business and its employees. This course tackles several aspects of a company's marketing and promotion plan such as the marketing mix (the 4Ps), the evaluation of marketing opportunities, researching, analyzing, and identifying target markets, and developing a strategic position for the company in order to implement the strategy. The course covers everything from the preparation and implementation of the marketing plan to measuring and evaluating the results of the organizational marketing efforts. Marketing is an exciting, fast-paced, and contemporary business discipline. We are always engaged in marketing activities, either as buyers or as sellers. Marketing involves anticipating, managing, and satisfying demand via the exchange process.

Marketing involves a wide range of activities as:

• Marketing research and market analysis.
• Broadening an organization’s scope
• Consumer analysis
• Product and product price planning
• Distribution planning
• Promotion planning
• Managing the marketing process and the marketing mix.

Marketing managers make marketing-related decisions like choosing who customers are, what goods and services to offer, where to sell these goods and services, the features to stress in ads, and the prices. They also determine how to be ethical and socially responsible, and whether to sell products globally (in addition to domestically).

Objectives

In this 5-days Training Course, participants will learn:

• To illustrate the exciting, dynamic, and influential nature of marketing
• Apply a logical step-by-step process to produce a sound marketing plan
• Devise a marketing plan that builds on marketing audit findings
• Use marketing audit findings to identify effective strategies and tactics
• Develop the components of the strategic marketing plan
• Identify and implement the different marketing warfare strategies (offensive, defensive and flanking)
• To define marketing and trace its evolution with a special focus on the marketing concept, a marketing philosophy, customer service, and customer satisfaction and relationship marketing
• To show the importance of marketing as a field of study
• To describe the basic functions of marketing and those who perform these functions
• To examine the environment within which marketing decisions are made and marketing activities are undertaken
• To differentiate between those elements controlled by a firm’s top management and those controlled by marketing, and to enumerate the controllable elements of a marketing plan
• To enumerate the uncontrollable environmental elements that can affect a marketing plan and study their potential ramifications
• To explain why feedback about company performance and the uncontrollable aspects of its environment and the subsequent adaptation of the marketing plan are essential for a firm to attain its objectives.
• To define domestic, international, and global marketing Domestic marketing covers a firm’s efforts in its home country. International marketing involves goods and services sold outside a firm’s home country.
• To explain why international marketing takes place and study its scope
• To explore the cultural, economic, political and legal, and technological environments facing international marketers.
• To analyze the stages in the development of an international marketing strategy
• To learn how to build, and integrate and analyze a strategic marketing plan

Training Methodology

This is an interactive course. There will be open question and answer sessions, regular group exercises and activities, videos, case studies, and presentations on best practice. Participants will have the opportunity to share with the facilitator and other participants on what works well and not so well for them, as well as work on issues from their own organizations. The online course is conducted online using MS-Teams/ClickMeeting.

Who Should Attend?

• Heads of Marketing
• Directors of Marketing
• Marketing Managers
• Marketing Executives
• Product Marketing Managers
• Sales Managers and Directors
• Market Analysts
• Business Development Managers and Directors
• Communications Managers and Directors
• Public Relations Managers and Directors
• Project Managers and Directors
• Media Managers and Directors

Course Outline

Day 1: The Marketing Concepts

• Scope and functions
• Competitive pressures changing the world
• The smart bomb strategic approach
• Definition of strategic planning
• Organizing the general planning framework

Day 2: The Marketing Planning Process

• The benefits of planning
• Reasons to write a marketing plan
• The marketing plan format
• The marketing planning process
• Setting 'SMART' objectives and goals
• Linking the marketing strategy to the vision, mission, and objectives of the company

Day 3: The Business Situation Analysis

• The components of a company’s environment
• The framework for competitive analysis
• Components of internal analysis
• Components of the external analysis
• Competitive and customer analysis
• Environmental analysis
• 'SWOT' analysis
• The five forces diagram

Day 4: Planning Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning

• Basis for segmentation
• Benefits of segmentation
• The market segmentation process
• Criteria for B to B segmentation
• Effective positioning
• Steps in market segmentation, targeting, and positioning

Day 5: Strategy Development

• Considering different strategic alternatives ('TOWS' analysis)
• Analyzing different marketing strategies
• The growth strategy matrix
• Factors shaping the choice of strategy
• Blue ocean versus red ocean strategies
• Workshop: formulating strategies and contingencies

Tactical Planning Applications

• Setting the scene: the marketing mix
• The components of the marketing mix
• Using the marketing mix model
• Workshop: setting the marketing mix