This revision presentation highlights the role of objectives in marketing planning and illustrates how they can be linked with the other main functional areas. It also summarises the main internal and external influences on marketing objectives.

1. Marketing
Objectives

2. The role of marketing
“The process of
“The process of
identifying, anticipating
identifying, anticipating
(predicting) and
(predicting) and
satisfying customer
satisfying customer
needs profitably”
needs profitably”

3. Hierarchy of marketing objectives
Grow revenues by 15% p.a. in each of the
next five years
Increase UK market share to 17%
Grow average customer spend by 5%
Refocus product range on high margin items
Introduce CRM systems into industrial
division
Improve agreements with key suppliers
Conduct search engine advertising campaign

4. How marketing objectives link with other
functional areas
Example functional change How it supports marketing
Raising finance Investment in new products
Introduce quality assurance Improve product quality and
and lean production profitability
Training programme for Improve quality of customer
staff service
Allocate specific production Expand product distribution
for a new retail customer and increase sales

5. Examples of marketing objectives
Objective area Example objectives
Maintaining or Achieve revenue growth of 15% per year for the next four years
increasing market Increase our market share in the UK by 4% by 2012
share Add 1,000 new customer accounts generating at least £100,000 per account
within three years
Developing new Launch at least 25 new products into the industrial channel in 2010 and 2011
products / Grow average first-year sales of new editions by 25% in the Higher Education
innovation sector
Meeting the needs Achieve at least an 95% excellent customer service rating each month
of customers Increase the proportion of sales bookings from repeat business to 45% for the
summer season
Entering a new Supply a minimum of 50,000 trial downloads per month
market / market Increase the number of customer enquiries from the EU by 10,000 per month
positioning Recruit five distribution agents in the four target countries within 12 months
Gaining an Reduce average distribution costs to less than 5% of gross revenue
advantage over Reduce the order lead time by 15%
competitors Improve brand recognition amongst the 25-34 age group

6. Internal influences on marketing objectives
Influence Explanation
Corporate Corporate objectives are the most important internal influence. A
objectives marketing objective should not conflict with a corporate objective
Finance The financial position of the business (profitability, cash flow, liquidity)
directly affects the scope and scale or marketing activities
Human For a services business in particular, the quality and capacity of the
resources workforce is a key factor in affecting marketing objectives. A motivated and
well-trained workforce can deliver market-leading customer service and
productivity to create a competitive marketing advantage
Operational Operations has a key role to play in enabling the business to compete on
issues cost (efficiency / productivity) and quality. Effective capacity management
also plays a part in determining whether a business can achieve its revenue
objectives
Business culture E.g. a marketing-orientated business is constantly looking for ways to meet
customer needs. A production-orientated culture may result in
management setting unrealistic or irrelevant marketing objectives.

7. External influences on marketing
objectives
Influence Description
Economic The key factor in determining demand. E.g. marketing objectives thwarted or
environment changed as a result of the recession. Factors such as exchange rates would
also impact objectives concerned with international marketing.
Competitor Marketing objectives have to take account of likely / possible competitor
actions response. E.g. an objective of increasing market share by definition means
that competitor response will not be effective
Market The key market dynamics are market size, growth and segmentation. A
dynamics market whose growth slows is less likely to support an objective of
significant revenue growth or new product development
Technological Many markets are affected by rapid technological change, shortening
change product life cycles and creating great opportunities for innovation
Social & political Changes to legislation may create or prevent marketing opportunities.
change Change in the structure and attitudes of society also have major implications
for many markets.

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