Exam 1: MAR4824
How is the situation overview different from the marketing plan?
The situation overview aims to "set the stage" for the marketing plan by providing the relevant background necessary for understanding the rationale for the proposed course of action. Its purpose is to identify the key aspects of the market in which a company operates in currently or in the future. The marketing plan is a document that defines a company's goals, delineates a course of action aimed at achieving the goals and provides guidelines for evaluating the progress of these goals.
Please list and briefly describe the two main aspects of the situation overview.
1. Company overview: The section outlines the company's goals, current performance, strategic assets, core competencies, opportunities, and threats. It is there to analyze the company's long-term vision and strategic goals. While also analyzing the progress towards those goals. It also analyzes a company's competitive advantages and disadvantages (SWOT analysis). 2. Market overview: Outlines the key aspects of the market: customers, collaborators, competitors, and context (the 5 C's without company because it isn't living in the market.) Customers being who the buyers and current users of the company's and competitors' products. Collaborators are entities that work with the company or with their competitors to deliver to customers. Competitors that cater to the same needs and same customers. And context that defines the environment in which the company and its competitors operate. (made up of PESTEL)
Determining and setting goals for their marketing plan companies must focus on two critical decisions, Goal focus and performance benchmarks. Please list and briefly describe these criterion.
1. Goal Focus: Identifies the key criterion for a company's success. Monetary Goals: Focus on monetary outcomes and typically focused around maximizing net income, earning per share, and return on investment. (for-profit companies) Strategic Goals: Involve non monetary outcomes that are of strategic importance to the company. Could Involve increasing the unit of volume of an offering that, although not profitable by itself, benefits the company by facilitating the sales of other, profit-generating offerings. Could also involve enhancing the corporate culture. (for/non-profit companies) 2. Performance Benchmarks: Define the ultimate criteria for success. Quantitative benchmarks: Define the specific milestones to be achieved by the company with respect to its focal goals. (increase market share by 2%) Temporal benchmarks: Identify the time frame for achieving a milestone. These benchmarks are often a key strategic decision because often implementing these goals is contingent on the time horizon. (generate $1B in income by the end of the fiscal year)
Need-based: relate benefit to specific customer need User-based: relate to particular type of buyer Parents with sports car changing to mini-van Category-based: relate to membership in particular product category Cars, scooters, etc. Competitive: defines offering relative to competition "why pay more when you don't have to" Product-line: relative to other offerings in company's product line
5 Different frames of reference for a customer-focused positioning statement can be distinguished. Please list and describe.
Please list and briefly describe the three key principles of a marketing plan.
Actionable: The marketing plan should include a course of action aimed at achieving a specific goal. This typically involves developing or modifying one of the seven key marketing mix variables. Clear: The marketing plan should be very clear in delineating the essence of the purposed action and the goal the company intends to achieve so stakeholders can be convinced. Succinct: Marketing plans should not be unnecessarily long. Proving the right amount of information to get your point across is all that is needed.
How is the positioning statement different from brand slogan or communication tagline?
All three capture certain aspects of the company's strategy. The positioning statement summarizes the offering's overall marketing strategy while the slogan and communication tagline focus on branding and communication of the marketing strategy
Based on their focus, goals vary in their level of generality, some more fundamental than others. Marketing objectives delineate specific changes in the behavior of the relevant market factors -the 5Cs - that will enable the company to achieve its ultimate goal. Please list and briefly describe three of the five types of market objectives.
Customer objectives: Aim to elicit changes in the behavior of target consumers that will enable the company to achieve its ultimate goal. (increasing purchase frequency, switching from a competitive product) This means if the company wants to increase its revenue, than they need to increase the frequency of consumer's purchases. · Collaborator objectives: Aim to elicit changes in behavior of the company's collaborators, such as providing greater promotional support better pricing terms, greater system integration, and extended distribution coverage. · Competitive objectives: Aim to change the behavior of the company's competitors. (creating barriers to entry, price war, securing proprietary access to scarce resources) · Company (internal) objectives: Aim to elicit changes in the company's own actions, such as improving product and service quality, reducing the cost of goods sold, improving the effectiveness of company's marketing actions, and streamlining research-and-development costs. · Context objectives: Are less common and usually implemented by larger companies that have resources to affect PESTEL. (could be a company influencing the government to adopt certain regulations)
The market in which a company competes is defined by five key factors, please list and briefly describe the 5Cs.
Customers: Potential buyers defined by needs (B2B or B2C) Company: organization managing the offerings Collaborators: External to the firm; value co-creators (suppliers) Competitors: businesses that target the same customers and same customer needs Context: environmental factors (PESTEL)
What are the three key questions that the 3-V optimal value proposition implies must be answered in order to evaluate the market potential of an offering?
Does the offering create superior value for target consumers relative to competitive offerings? Does the offering create superior value for the company's collaborators relative to competitive offerings? Does the offering create superior value for the company in regards to the other options the company must forgo in order to make this offering?
According to Chernev, the marketing plan can be thought of as comprising four key components. Please list and briefly describe these components.
Executive Summary: Elevator pitch for the marketing plan. It is a concise overview of the company's goal and the proposed course of action. It is usually about one or two pages long outlining the key problem faced by the company and proposing how to fix them. Situation Overview: Talks about relevant background information on the company's industry. This helps managers understand the logic behind the proposed course of action. It "sets" the stage for the marketing plan. Action Plan (G-STIC): The core of the marketing plan that helps guide the company's actions. The action plan (G-STIC) identifies the company's focus and the performance benchmarks to be achieved. Exhibits: Separates the less important and more technical aspects of the plan into distinct tables, charts, and appendices
What is the G-STIC Framework? List and briefly describe the key components of the G-STIC Framework.
GTIC is the process or series of activities by which a company creates value for the company, collaborators, and target market. Goal: identifying the focus (key criterion for company's success) of the company's actions and defining the benchmarks (specific milestones to be achieved). Strategy: Identifying the target market and development of the offering Value Proposition by creating a strategy that values company, collaborator, and target market needs. Tactics: define the key aspects of the company's offering, often referred to as the Marketing Mix. Specific activities used to execute a given strategy. Implementation- Defines the business infrastructure, the business processes, and scheduling Defines the implementation schedule which is the time frame in which the individual task will be performed to ensure efficiency. Controls- involves evaluating company's goal process through performance evaluation to make sure it is on the right track and environmental evaluation by monitoring the environment the company operates in.
Once development, marketing plans need updating in order to remain relevant. Please list and briefly describe three of the common reasons Chernev argues companies use to consider updating the marketing plan.
Inaccurate information/assumptions: Lack of information causes assumptions to be created that can be incorrect. Logic Laws: The proposed strategy may be inconsistent with the marketing plan. Implementation errors: When actions that are vital to the marketing plan are not acted out by managers correctly.
Please list and briefly describe the five main components that comprise an executive summary:
Introduction: Identifies the key aspects of the marketing plan. It identifies the offering or primary purpose of the marketing plan. Situation overview: Identifies an opportunity, threat, or gap in the company's performance. It is short and to the point focusing on the aspects of the situation that are relevant to the proposed plan of action Goal: Identifies the ultimate goal of the proposed course of action and its quantitative benchmarks. Action overview: Outlines the key aspects of the strategy that will achieve the goal and the value proposition for target customers. Conclusion: Short summary of the key aspects of the marketing plan. It highlights the important parts of the information that was presented and reiterates the proposed course of action.
Please list and briefly describe the multiple entities playing different roles who are involved in writing a marketing plan.
Project leader: The person in charge of managing the offering and the planning process. Management team: individuals working within the project leader to develop and manage the offering. Influencers: entities outside the management team that have an influence on any part of the project by providing recommendations Gatekeepers: entities that must approve the plan before it is put into action and make sure it follows policies Endorsers: entities that must give the final approval of the plan before it is put into action.
The two components are defining the target market and defining the offering's value proposition. 1. The target market is defined by the 5 C's target customers, the company, collaborators, competitors, and context. Target customers involve the buyers who the company will tailor its offering to, to identify your target customers identify the customers value and the customer profile. Finding your target customers helps you define the other aspects of finding your target market. The company is the entity that will manage the offering, it can be the entire company or a strategic business unit. Collaborators are entities that will work with the company to design, communicate, and deliver value to customer, these are usually outside firms that have the resources you don't. The competitor section identifies current & potential entities that target the same customers or aim to fulfill the same customer need as the company's offering. The context section outlines the PESTEL for the identified target market. 2. Value proposition: defined by finding the value that an offering seeks to create for customer, collaborators, and the company. Addresses 3 questions: How does the offering create superior value for target customers relative to the competitive offerings? how does the offering create superior value for the company's collaborators relative to the competitive offerings? how does the offering create superior value for the company relative to the other options the company must forgo in order to pursue this offering
The strategy section of the marketing plan defines the master plan designed to achieve the company's goal. Delineating an offering's strategy involves two key components. Please list and briefly describe each.
The target customers section of the marketing plan defines the buyers for whom the company will tailor its offering. Please list and briefly describe the 2 aspects involved in identifying target customers. Provide an example of each,
The two aspects involved in identifying target customers are identifying customer value and customer profile. 1. Identify customer value (aka: Strategic Targeting) Identify customer needs the company aims to fulfill. Identify the value that customer will create for company 2. Identify customer profile. (aka tactical targeting) Identify observable and actionable characteristics of value-based customer segments. The two types of actionable characteristics are demographics (i.e., age, gender, income, education, location, social status, stage in life cycle), and behavioral (i.e., user status, distribution channel used, purchase volume, repurchase frequency, price sensitivity, loyalty) When working business to business use a profile based segmentation called "firmographics"(i.e., location, company size, industry,purchasing process, growth, profitability)
