2. Introduction
A marketing plan is what an organisation will implement to achieve one or more marketing
objectives this will be critically appraised and examples will be shown to which organisations have
implemented marketing plans successful and unsuccessful. Different aspects of the marketing plan
will be shown and evaluated to see to show why a marketing plan may not always be up to date, due
to certain information not being accessible and certain members of staff not possessing the required
to skills to gather such information. Two examples below will show one positive marketing plan and
how a company used it to their advantage whereas another company didn’t undertake enough
research and therefore failed and lost market share due to a lack of research and a poorly written
market plan.
1. Marketing Plan Outline
“Marketing planning is simply a series of activities in a logical sequence leading to the
setting of marketing objectives and the formulation of plans for achieving them” Malcolm
and McDonald (1992, p.6)
This is basically stating that organisations that use a marketing plan would implement a
marketing plan in a sequence that would best achieve their marketing objectives (appendix a),
this shows major sections that is normally incorporated into a marketing plan according to
Kotler (1976) in Greenley, G. E (1983, p.58)
“Marketing planning was seen as the management discipline which could enable the firm to
improve its competitiveness by becoming more responsible and adaptable to changing market
conditions” Brooksbank (1991, p. 17)
This definition of Marketing Planning gives the impression that organisations would use it to
improve their competitiveness within their market in the industry, which is a completely
different definition to the one above. There are many definitions of marketing planning and
these are just two, both which are completely different and give different strategies and ideas
for what an organisation wants to achieve when developing and implementing their
marketing plan.
There are several sections within a marketing plan that organisations may need to consider
when developing a marketing plan and before implementing it, each section within the
marketing plan is important. Different organisations will use different amounts of sections
within their marketing plan. Kotler (1976) states in Greenley, G.E (1983, p.58) (appendix A),
these are the major sections in a marketing plan that organisations would need to consider but
not every organisation would agree with this and use these sections, which will be shown
later within the examples given.
Before the marketing plan is established by the organisation, they must essentially understand
what the organisation will be marketing and to achieve this they must comprehensively
understand:
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3. x “the corporate strategic plan
x the company’s vision for the future
x where the organisation is positioned
x the strategic plan
x the business plan
x service delivery methods
x the cost of running the organisation
x how to measure that cost
x the benchmark position in the market
x the performance indicators and methods of measurement
x the approach to knowledge management
x trends in the profession
x the recruiting and retention methodology used
x how success is attained, measured and maintained
x current marketing and communication programmes and their effectiveness” Griffin
(2002. p.238)
Keegan et.al (1992) quotes in Brooksbank (1999, p.78) “There are three fundamental
principles which underpin the proposed planning framework” this advises organisations
when developing their marketing plan they should consider the following three fundamentals:
x “The first principle is to adopt a marketing orientation, or philosophy, of business”
Keegan et al (1992) in Brooksbank (1999,p. 78)
x “The second principle is to employ a comprehensive planning approach. The four
``classic'' functions of management are analysing, planning, organising and
controlling” Kotler (1991) in Brooksbank (1999, p.78)
x “The third principle is to ``keep on'' marketing planning. The fast-changing nature of
the modern business environment means that marketing planning should be a
continuous, ever-evolving process, which seeks to exploit these changes to the
company's best advantage” Brooksbank (1999, p.78)
Once organisations have implemented these three fundamentals then Brooksbank
(1999) also goes on to say the marketing planning process would be combined of
these three fundamentals with four main phases to conduct the marketing plan, the
four phases that Brooksbank (1999, p.78) states are “analysing, strategising,
implementing and controlling”
Analysing Brooksbank’s theory of the four phases really gives the organisation great
depth has to why they should implement these three into their plan. Analysing would
be the first procedure for the organisation and they would need to analyse their
company’s situation within the market and answer questions such has “where are we
now” and “where could we go in the future.” To answer these questions the
organisation need to undertake market research and gain information such has
distribution channels, suppliers and etc., this sort of research carried out would be
primary research, not secondary research, has the information they would need to
analyse would be fact based and not feedback based. Analysing could also be
undertaken by completing a SWOT analysis, which would give the organisation
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4. information such strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Appendix B shows
the SWOT profile development process that some organisations would use when
completing a SWOT analysis. The second phase strategising is how the organisation
would achieve their marketing objectives, which they have set after conducting a
SWOT analysis, this will basically show the organisation how they set to achieve
these objectives and within what timescale. The next phase of the four phases is
implementing, during this phase this is when the organisation would discuss what
marketing mix they will use to target their customers and gain advantage over their
competitors. However when deciding this marketing mix organisations must
remember that this marketing mix will either work or not and could decide whether
the brand reputation and image grows stronger or gets weaker. During this phase they
must also take into consideration their position within the market and has this could
be affected too. The final phase is controlling which is when the organisation will
sustain their marketing and make sure that it is meeting its marketing objectives and
the advertising and marketing is continuing to be effective.
2. Positives and negatives of a marketing plan with Organisation examples
2.1 Positives of a marketing plan with examples
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A marketing plan will can lots of negative effects which will be evaluated later on,
although marketing planning can have positive effects which some organisations
have had success.
A new product called Lemonhead owned by Carlsberg/Tetley wanted to enter the lemon
alcoholic drinks market, they developed a marketing plan to see if they could compete with
the number 2 brand, Two Dogs. Their market plan was a high standard written one has
below will show. Market research is a big factor in a marketing plan has poor research could
leave gaps of information and not having the required information to achieve marketing
objectives. Coomasaru, C, Day and Lee (1996) stated in their research that Lemonhead had
two marketing objectives:
x Where should promote Lemonhead
x Should we sell it a premium price
These objectives were negotiated by Carlsberg Tetley when they were developing their
market plan. The objectives would help them advertise and promote their brand has they are
a new product in the market and deciding the promotional mix within the marketing plan
helps them to plan how to advertise. Lemonhead decided to use the Vignali mixed map
marketing plan method (Appendix C) when they decided which plan to use. This method
shows how many responses they had received from their research into how many consumers
would pay cheap, value or premium prices for beer. Lemonheads marketing plan already
stated that they wanted to be a premium beer, so with 33 consumers responding to premium
this gave them a massive boost because their product would be a premium beer which is what
their plan set out to achieve. The Lemonhead marketing plan looked into the product life
cycle, Boston Matrix and also looked into different strategies in which they could become a
better product than their competitors.
These three sectors helped Lemonheads marketing plan because the product life cycle
showed that Two Dogs was a problem child and Lemonheads marketing plan stated that they
5. want to be a star, therefore this marketing plan was ambitious and high standard by
Lemonhead. Lemonheads proposed advertising strategies in the market plan was decided to
be Cinema, Radio and Magazine advertising and then sampling. Coomasaru, C, Day and Lee
(1996)
This marketing plan was a positive one and worked well for the development and
introduction of Lemonhead. This was because Lemonhead had covered everything and
gathered primary and secondary research before launching the brand. They researched
competitors and where they were in the market, looked their brand position and how they
were reaching their consumers. After gathering all this information and research and
studying the information Lemonhead had created a positive and effective marketing plan.
The following marketing plan shows where organisations can go wrong when developing a
marketing plan and why organisations should consider every aspect. When developing a
marketing plan you need to ensure that the questions you decide in the plan are the correct
ones, has Kodak found out below. These questions and objectives in the plan need to be fully
researched before writing a marketing plan, due to the fact that objectives you write could be
in date at the time of writing but once research begins could be out of date and this sort of
error could cost the brand its image and position and also waste the organisations money and
time.
Kodak invented and released the first ever camera in 1975 which launched the way for
cameras but Kodak was always the big player within the market and had the most market
share and the brand image and positioning was strong. Seeing has Kodak invented the first
digital camera they didn’t miss the digital age, their error was they never marketing this new
technology, they was feared of damaging their lucrative film business, even though digital
products were reshaping the model (Dan, 2012). The problem with Kodak’s marketing plan
was they had stated in their plan they was in the film business and not the story telling
business and digital industry. Therefore the big players and competitors such as Sony and
Canon launched their products and took the market share and Kodak’s share of the market
declined due to a lack of research and bad marketing planning. Dan (2012) states “When
Kodak decided to get in the game it was too late. The company saw its market share decline,
as digital imaging became dominant.” This error could have been made due to a lack of
research by Kodak or the people who did the research was not trained enough in market
research, so when Kodak developed their marketing plan this massive error cost them their
brand image and positioning within the market. Dan also stated “This blind faith in
marketing’s ability to overcome the threat from the new technology proved fatal. Kodak
failed to adapt to a new marketplace and new consumer attitudes.”
Both of these marketing plans show new organisations the value of how developing a
marketing plan can be affect your organisation within the market or really gain advantage by
undertaking critical research. Before a marketing plan is implemented, organisations should
consider every aspect of the plan and should really undertake primary and secondary research
to cover every aspect of the market. A marketing plan should always conduct a SWOT
analysis has this gives you the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within the
market, Without out this information organisations could fail like Kodak did, has not enough
research was undertaken and they developed and implemented the wrong marketing plan.
Whereas organisations such Lemonhead show that with a good team, undertaking primary
and secondary research and conducting a full marketing plan with a SWOT analysis and
PESTLE analysis then organisations will really become stronger and develop their brand
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6. image within the market. Marketing plan will not only affect the image and positioning but
by developing a lack lustre plan it will affect sales and finances within the business and could
cost employees their job. Some organisations wouldn’t take this into account when
developing a market plan but this should be considered.
The positives of developing a marketing plan is it helps the organisation to look at where they
are and where they want to go and gives them information about competitors. This is the
information organisations need to improve and become stronger within the market as without
this information organisations such has Cola, Nike and Apple would not have become has big
and strong within their respective markets has they have done.
The negatives about a marketing plan is it takes a lot of time and money, some organisations
don’t have the amounts of money to create a well-developed marketing plan, or even the staff
who are trained and skilled enough to develop a marketing plan.
Conclusion
Marketing plans are a valuable tool to an organisation without this they wouldn’t know who
their competitors was within the market, how to reach their consumers and how to achieve
the marketing objectives. A marketing plan covers lots of sectors ranging from SWOT to
PESTLE to market research and market size. The two examples above show the how a
marketing plan could affect the organisation. Lemonhead developed a positive marketing
plan whereas Kodak developed a negative one and it cost them their market share. A
marketing plan should always be thoroughly checked and researched before being fully
developed has it could cost employees their jobs and cost business money and a waste of
time.
References
BROOKSBANK, R. 1991. 'Essentials Characteristics for an Effective Marketing Plan'. Marketing
Intelligence and Planning. 9(7), p.17.
BROOKSBANK, R. 1999. 'The theory and practice of marketing planning in the smaller business'.
Marketing Intelligence and Planning. 17(2), p.78.
COOMASARU, C., J Day and S.Lee. 1996. 'Developing a marketing plan for Lemonhead'. Managment
Decision. 34(8), p.19.
DAN, A. 2012. Kodak Failed By Asking The Wrong Marketing Plan. [online]. [Accessed 19 November
2013]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.forbes.com>
GREENLEY, G.E. 1983. An Overview of Marketing Planning in UK Services. 'Marketing Intelligence and
Planning'. 1(3), p.58.
GRIFFIN, C.P. 2002. 'Strategic Planning for the internal marketing and communication of facilities
management'. Journal of Facilities Management. 1(3), p.238.
MALCOLM, H and B. McDonald. 1992. 'Ten Barriers to Market Planning'. Journal of Business and
Industrial Marketing. 7(1), p.6.
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