Training Course: Strategic Marketing Planning

Training Course Summary:

This programme is designed to give managers from all disciplines an understanding of how to construct a marketing strategy. It will give marketing executives the knowledge they require to develop and communicate marketing strategies and enable non-marketing executives to support the role of marketing within the wider business plan.

Who Should Attend:

Managers and executives who need to know how to construct a marketing strategy for their organisation.

Training Course Overview/Content:

Introduction and Objectives

Marketing in the organisation
• Understanding the role and scope of marketing
• How marketing contributes to the organisation
• How marketing objectives are aligned with other objectives and how they can conflict

Customer focus and culture
• Understanding the importance of customer focus
• How customer focus drives the organisation
• The effect of corporate culture on customer focus

Understanding the environment
• How to assess the limitations of the organisation
• Understanding the micro-environment
• Assessing the macro-environment
• Analysing competitors

Defining the position
• How customers perceive your organisation
• How the organisation perceives itself
• Establishing a position
• The role of branding and how it affects position
• Making the message consistent
• Developing a strategy statement

Segmentation and targeting
• Developing a sense of direction
• The principles and practice of segmentation
• Profiling and targeting
• Defining customers by potential lifetime value

Setting marketing objectives
• How to define the objectives
• Making the objectives SMART
• Using higher level objectives to set lower level objectives

Evaluating strategic options
• Looking at a range of possible strategies
• Matching strategies to resources and context
• Push pull and profile

Constructing the marketing plan
• Product range, service and price
• Using the right communications methods
• Establishing and communicating the message
• Developing and supporting channel partners
• Tackling the issue of culture
• Putting the right processes in place
• Using CRM to make the plan work
• Policing the brand
• Putting it into practice

Setting the budget
• Key elements in the budget
• Getting a return on investment
• Monitoring spend

Measuring effectiveness
• Implementing the plan
• Why measurement is necessary
• Defining the measurement criteria
• Measuring the impact of different marketing actions
• Justifying the cost of marketing against results

Review of Programme