Market Strategy Planning and Execution

Good marketing is no accident but a result of careful planning and execution.

Marketing practices are continually being refined and reformed in almost all industries to increase the chances of success over competitors.

Marketing excellence is rare and difficult to achieve alone and when you are under resourced. That’s because marketing is both an art and a science. There is constant tension between the formulates side of marketing and the creative side. Creativity and passion has just as much a place in developing a marketing strategy as formulated strategies.

Core marketing concepts

I work with you as granulated or as high level as you wish, to develop the 9 core concepts of your marketing strategy. Here’s what I cover:

Needs, wants and demands

Your customers’ needs are:

Stated needs – something inexpensive

Real needs – return on investment, operating efficiency, etc

Unstated needs – expects good service

Delight needs – some extras thrown in

Secret needs – wants to be seen to be a savvy consumer

Target markets, Positioning and Segmentation

I start by dividing the market into segments, with each segment having a distinct group of buyers who want a specific form of product of service that you could offer them. You then decide which segment bring the best opportunity for you, which then becomes your target market. For every chosen target market we can plan to develop an offering together. This offering is positioned in the minds of the target buyers as delivering benefit to them.

Offerings and Brands

You can address needs buy putting out a value proposition which is a set of benefits that you offer your customers to satisfy their needs. This proposition is becomes an actual offering and can be a combination of your products, services, information and experiences.

Value and Satisfaction

The offering will be successful if it delivers value and satisfaction to the target buyer. Simple as that, no more to do! Value can be seen as a combination of quality, service and price (QSP). Imagine QSP as a triangle and you will understand the balancing act – value increases with quality and service, and decreases with price.

Satisfaction reflects a customer’s judgements resulting from a product’s perceived performance or outcome in relation to the customer’s expectations.

Marketing Channels

You can reach a target market using three kinds of marketing channels.

Supply Chain

This stretched from raw materials to components to final products to the end user. The supply chain is a value delivery system where each participant along the chain gets only a certain percent of the total value generated by the supply chain. Companies may acquire a competitor, move upstream or downstream to capture a higher percentage of the supply chain value.

Competition

When developing your marketing strategy it is important to consider all the potential and actual rival offerings and substitutes that a buyer may consider.

Marketing Environment

As well as competitors, there are two other important marketing environments that cannot be overlooked.

The task environment includes the immediate players involved in producing, distributing and promoting the offering. The main actors are the company, suppliers, distributors, dealers, and the target customers. Included in the supplier group are material suppliers and service suppliers. Included with distributors and dealers are agents, brokers, manufacturer representatives and others who facilitate finding and selling to customers.

The broad environment consists of 6 components: demographic environment, economic environment, physical environment, technological environment, political-legal environment, and social-cultural environment. These environments contain forces that can have a major impact on the players in the task environment. Market players must pay close attention to the trends and developments in these environments.

4 Ps

I work with you to fine tune your four Ps to be best suited to the marketing strategies you have developed. These are:

Product

Product variety, quality, design, features, brand name, packaging, sizes, services, warranties, returns.

Price

List price, discounts, allowances, payment period, credit terms.

Promotion

Sales promotion, advertising, sales force, public relations, direct marketing.

Place

Channels, coverage, assortments, locations, inventory, transport.

Beyond the Marketing Strategy

When your marketing strategy is well established and implemented you can focus your attention on continuous improvement. These ongoing strategies will take all the attention you can throw at them and in turn you will be well rewarded.

Capturing marketing insights

Gathering information and scanning the environment, and conducting market research and forecasting demand.

Connecting with customers

Crafting customer value, satisfaction and loyalty. Analysing consumer markets, analysing business markets, identifying market segments.

Building strong brands

Creating brand equity, crafting your brand position, competitive dynamics.

I am available to guide, support or entirely develop your Market Strategy based on these principles.