4.2 - Marketing Planning Flashcards
(36 cards)
What is market planning
Marketing planning is a process where a company must decide which marketing strategies will be the proper ones to attain their corporate and strategic objectives. It requires an analysis and information about a particular market. To achieve this, we need to formulate a “marketing
What is a market plan
A marketing plan is the document that outlines the firm’s marketing objectives and the marketing strategies to be used to achieve these objectives.
What are the 4 components of a market plan
•Marketing objectives – they need to be SMART (i.e. increasing sales in 10% by the end of the year)
•Strategic plans – steps to be taken to achieve the objectives
•Detailed marketing actions – specific marketing activities to be carried out (i.e. pricing strategies)
•The marketing budget - funds required for the marketing strategy
Some companies also include a marketing audit in their marketing plan which is basically an examination of the current climate in which the business operates. Market research plays a key role in this investigation.
What are 6 benefits of market planning
•Identifies needs and wants of consumers and determines the demand for product
•Helps in the design of products that fulfil consumers’ needs; setting SMART objectives
•Outlines measures for generating the cash for: daily operations, to repay debts and to turn into a profit.
•Identifies new and/or potential customers
•Improves coordination between departments in the firm
•Improves motivation and staff confidence
What are 4 limitations of market planning
•It is time-consuming and costly
•If the firm uses improperly analysed data, it leads to faulty marketing decisions
•Creates unrealistic financial projections if information is interpreted incorrectly, this could lead to the wrong marketing decisions
•Identifies weaknesses in the firm overall business plan which might create additional problems once the marketing decision have been made.
What is market segmentation
A market segment is a sub-group of consumers with similar characteristics in each market. Hence, a market segmentation is the process of dividing the market into smaller or distinct groups of consumers with the aim to meet their needs and wants.
Markets could be segmented Demographically, Geographically or Psychographic.
Define demographic segmentation
refers to market segmentation according to age, race, religion, gender, family size, ethnicity, income, and education. Demographics can be segmented into several markets to help an organization target its consumers more accurately.
What is geographic segmentation
happens when a business divides its market on the basis of geography. You can geographically segment a market by area, such as cities, counties, regions, countries, and international regions. You can also break a market down into rural, suburban and urban areas to identify consumers more accurately
What is psychographic segmentation
it involves dividing the market into segments based upon different personality characteristics, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles of consumers. The advantage of this segmentation is that it allows the firm to engage in product design and marketing in a focused manner.
What are 7 advantages of market segmentation
- The firm can spot and compare marketing opportunities examining the needs of each segment and determine to what extent the current offering satisfies these needs. Segments which have low level of satisfaction from current offerings represent excellent opportunities for the firm.
- The firm can modify its product/service since marketing appeals to suit the target segment
- Segmentation facilitates setting up of realistic selling targets and priorities
- Management can identify new profitable segments which deserve special attention
- Appropriate service packages can be developed for each market segment
- By using resources more effectively it is possible to deal with competition more effectively
- With the knowledge about different segments, the firm can better allocate the total marketing budget. Differences in customer response to different marketing tools serve as the basis for deciding on the allocation of market funds to different customer groups
What are 4 disadvantages of market segmentation
- Segmentation increases costs. When a firm attempts to serve several market segments they produce more and hence increase their cost of production
- Larger inventory (stock) must be maintained by both the manufacturer and the distributors
- Promotion and distribution expenditures increase when separate programmes are used for different market segments
- When characteristics of a market segment change, investment made already might become useless
What is a target market
A target market is the market a firm wants to sell its products and/or services to. It includes a targeted set of customers for whom it directs its marketing efforts. Hence, targeting is the process of marketing to a specific market segment.
What is an essential part of developing a market plan
Identifying the target market is an essential step in the development of a marketing plan. A firm can use these strategies: mass marketing (undifferentiated marketing), segmented marketing (differentiated marketing) and niche marketing (concentrated marketing)
What is mass marketing
when a firm decides to ignore market segment differences and appeals to the whole market with one offer or one strategy, with the aim to reach the largest number of people possible, sell more products and hence have a larger profit. We will use the example of chocolate (i.e. Cadbury, Mars or Nestle)
What is segmented marketing
is the process of dividing an entire market up into different customer segments. Targeting or target marketing then decides which potential customer segments the company will focus on. Segmented firms aim to get a stronger position in their segments (i.e. Toyota designs cars for different socioeconomic status)
What is niche marketing
Where a business targets a smaller segment of a larger market, where customers have specific needs and wants. Firm can market their products more efficiently and effectively by targeting the consumers they can serve best and hence get more profit (i.e. Hotel chocolat, Roll Royce, any luxury products, M&S, etc)
What is positing
Positioning is defined as an effort to influence consumer perception of a brand or product relative to the perception of competing brands or products.
It aims to simplify the overwhelming information that costumers might face when making the decision to buy a product. Therefore, marketers might plan a position that will give their products a competitive advantage in the market. The most useful tool for positioning is a position (or perception) map.
What is a position map
this is a visual representation of how the customer perceives a product in relation to other similar competing ones.
It is important to remember that this is all about ‘perception’ and perception differs from person to person, so do the results of the positioning map (i.e. what one person perceives as quality, value for money, etc, is different to someone else’s perception but there will be similarities)
What is mapped on a positioning map
Products or services are ‘mapped’ together on a positioning map. This allows them to be compared and contrasted in relation to each other.
What is the strength of a positioning map
This is the main strength of this tool. Marketers decide upon a competitive position which enables them to distinguish their own products from the offerings of their competition.
The marketer would draw out the map and decide upon a label for each axis. They could be price and quality or comfort and price or fashion and price. The individual products are then mapped out next to each other and any gaps could be regarded as possible areas for new products.
What is niche marketing
focuses on a small group of people who have specific needs and wants (i.e. gluten free products - crisps).
What is mass marketing
focusses on a large and broad part of the market where there are many similar products on offer. Consumers, in this case are less specific about their needs (i.e. just crips!).
What is the purpose of mass and niche marketing
The purpose of determining niche or mass markets is to target our “marketing” to those specific groups.
How do you mass market
For a mass market, however, we need to use “mass marketing”. How can we market any brand of crisps? . Since this is not “specific” for customers we can use TV adds, Billboards, flyers etc.
