MARKETING MANAGEMENT, POSITIONING & ‎STRATEGIC PLANNING, MARKETING CONCEPT, ‎STRATEGIC PLANNING & STRATEGIC ORIENTATION, ‎MARKET POSITIONING & STRATEGIC PLANNING, ‎ADVANTAGES OF STRATEGIC MARKETING ‎PLANNING & EFFECTS OF LACKING STRATEGIC ‎ORIENTATION, BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION, ‎MANAGEMENT SCIENCE, EDUCATION AND ‎LEARNING,‎

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STRATEGIC PLANNING
AND MARKET POSITIONING
INTRODUCTION
Definitions:
Positioning: “Marketing strategy by which a company plans to carve out for itself its space in a
field of competitors and build a suitable image among its consumers. To achieve and maintain this
positioning in a crowded field, a strategy must include (1) cost leadership, which is achieved
through lower costs of production and distribution and higher productivity per worker; (2)
differentiation, enabling competitors and consumers to see the company’s distinguishing
characteristics; (3) focus, or concentration of strengths and historical expertise, rather than dilution
of efforts into too many areas.”
(Kurian, 2013).
Strategic plan: “Future-oriented statement that presents all the information and data needed to
determine the direction of a company or project. There are several elements that go into a corporate
plan: vision, assumptions, objectives, information, analysis, measurement, evaluation, and
opportunity.” (Kurian, 2013).
Strategic Planning: “A process in which c company’s executives decide what they want to
achieve and the best actions and use of resources for doing this. The
strategic planning process helped the firm decide which businesses to concentrate on. (Cambridge
Dictionary, 2018).
Strategic marketing planning process: “A set of steps a marketer goes through to develop a
strategic marketing plan.” (Grewal, 2008).
Strategic Orientation: “How an organization uses strategy to adapt and/or change aspects of its
environment for a more favourable alignment.” Competitive strategy is synonymous with the term
strategic orientation. (Morgan & Strong, 1998).
Market Orientation: “A business approach or philosophy that focuses on identifying and meeting
the stated or hidden needs or wants of customers.” (Business Dictionary)
Marketing Concept is to find not the right customers for your products, but the right products for
your customers. (Kotler & Kotler, 2012)

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POSITIONING & STRATEGIC PLANNING
THE MARKETING CONCEPT
The marketing concept/orientation is to find not the right customers for your products, but the right
products for your customers as well. For example, Dell doesn’t prepare a perfect computer for its target
market. Rather, it provides product platforms on which each person customizes the features he or she
desires in the computer.
The marketing concept holds that the key to achieving organizational goals is being more effective than
competitors in creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value to your target markets. A
perceptive contrast between the selling and marketing concepts is as below:
Selling focuses on the needs of the seller; marketing on the needs of the buyer. Selling is preoccupied
with the seller’s need to convert his product into cash; marketing with the idea of satisfying the needs of
the customer by means of the product and the whole cluster of things associated with creating, delivering,
and finally consuming it. Several scholars found that companies embracing the marketing concept
achieved superior performance. (Kotler & Kotler, 2012)
POSITIONING
The role Competition plays and how marketers can best manage their brands depend on their market
position and stage of the product life cycle. Competition grows more intense every year—from global
competitors eager to grow sales in new markets, from online competitors seeking cost-efficient ways to
expand distribution, from private-label and store brands providing low-price alternatives, and from brand
extensions by mega-brands moving into new categories. For these reasons and more, product and brand
fortunes change over time, and marketers must respond accordingly.
As the success of Method products demonstrates, a company can reap the benefits of carving out a unique
position in the marketplace. Creating a compelling, well-differentiated brand position requires a keen
understanding of consumer needs and wants, company capabilities, and competitive actions. It also
requires disciplined but creative thinking.
Positioning is the act of designing a company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the
minds of the target market. The goal is to locate the brand in the minds of consumers to maximize the
potential benefit to the firm. A good brand positioning helps guide marketing strategy by clarifying the
brand’s essence, identifying the goals it helps the consumer achieve, and showing how it does so in a
unique way. Everyone in the organization should understand the brand positioning and use it as context
for making decisions.
A good positioning has a “foot in the present” and a “foot in the future.” It needs to be somewhat
aspirational so the brand has room to grow and improve. Positioning on the basis of the current state of
the market is not forward-looking enough, but, at the same time, the positioning cannot be so removed
from reality that it is essentially unobtainable. The real trick in positioning is to strike just the right
balance between what the brand is and what it could be. The result of positioning is the successful

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creation of a customer-focused value proposition, a cogent reason why the target market should buy the
product.
Positioning requires that marketers define and communicate similarities and differences between their
brand and its competitors. Specifically, deciding on a positioning requires:
(1) determining a frame of reference by identifying the target market and relevant competition,
(2) identifying the optimal points of parity and points of difference brand associations given that
frame of reference, and
(3) creating a brand mantra to summarize the positioning and essence of the brand.
(Kotler & Kotler, 2012)
Market positioning activities must be carefully planned and reconciled with other marketing strategies
and business activities.
STRATEGIC PLANNING & STRATEGIC ORIENTATION
Strategic orientation is central to organizational effectiveness in that it represents the competitive strategy
implemented by a firm to create continuing performance improvements.
Every successful business must have a business plan. This plan spells out among others the ways the
company intends to rationalize its resources, engage in production and even handle its clients. Most
importantly, a sound business plan must also include a strategic marketing plan.
Strategic marketing planning is considered as a creative process in its own right. Here, the management
and operations teams strive to come up with and implement practical marketing strategies that can
guarantee a stable flow of business for the company.
Strategic planning for individual businesses includes defining the business mission, analyzing external
opportunities and threats, analyzing internal strengths and weaknesses, formulating goals, formulating
strategy, formulating supporting programs, implementing the programs, and gathering feedback and
exercising control.
The Purpose of Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is designed to provide an organization, its divisions, departments or even individual
players with a game plan or road map to achieve specific goals and objectives. Strategic planning
identifies internal and external effects and opportunities to consider in the creation of strategies and
tactics. From a marketing standpoint, strategic planning might help to identify new market opportunities
as well as new competitive threats. (Richards, n.d.).
Central Role of Strategic Planning
Successful marketing requires capabilities such as understanding, creating, delivering, capturing, and
sustaining customer value. The company’s focus on the customers and are organized to respond

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effectively to changing customer needs. They all have well-staffed marketing departments, and their other
departments accept that the customer is king.
To ensure to select and execute the right activities, marketers must give priority to strategic planning in
three key areas:
(1) managing a company’s businesses as an investment portfolio,
(2) assessing each business’s strength by considering the market’s growth rate and the company’s
position and fit in that market, and
(3) establishing a strategy.
The company must develop a game plan for achieving each business’s long-run objectives. Most large
companies consist of four organizational levels: (1) corporate, (2) division, (3) business unit, and (4)
product.
(1) Corporate headquarters is responsible for designing a corporate strategic plan to guide the whole
enterprise; it makes decisions on the amount of resources to allocate to each division, as well as
on which businesses to start or eliminate.
(2) Each division establishes a plan covering the allocation of funds to each business unit within the
division.
(3) Each business unit develops a strategic plan to carry that business unit into a profitable future.
(4) Finally, each product level (product line, brand) develops a marketing plan for achieving its
objectives.
The marketing plan is the central instrument for directing and coordinating the marketing effort. It
operates at two levels: strategic and tactical.
 The strategic marketing plan lays out the target markets and the firm’s value proposition, based
on an analysis of the best market opportunities.
 The tactical marketing plan specifies the marketing tactics, including product features,
promotion, merchandising, pricing, sales channels, and service.
The complete planning, implementation, and control cycle of strategic planning is shown in Figure 5.1.
Fig. 5.1 The Strategic Planning, Implementation, and Control Processes
(Kotler & Kotler, 2012)

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Strategic planning is a broad process that can address the entire business, or a portion of the business such
as marketing. Marketing strategies derive from strategic plans.
The Important Role of Measurement
It is not enough to plan; a plan must include some form of measurement and a process for monitoring and
reviewing results. An overall strategic plan might outline broad objectives for marketing; the marketing
plan would detail more specific objectives for the marketing department to monitor and report on. The
results achieved -- whether they fall short or exceed expectations -- provide input used to consider
changes or adjustments in the plan. Ongoing measurement and reporting can help to ensure the strategic
plan continues to achieve measurable results. (Richards, n.d.).
Developing a Strategic Marketing Plan
The success of a business depends on marketing plan. This plan establishes the marketing strategy, and
depending on the needs of the company, this plan will change over time. The Plan Should Contain the
Following Five Components
1. Company Positioning - It should outline the current position of the firm regarding financial
results. Such an analysis allows the planning team to identify the strategies that were previously
put in place and assess the success of the overall plan against the financial results. In the end,
a SWOT analysis reveals the current situation of the company.
2. Goals and Strategies - The strategic marketing plan is never complete without listing the
organizational goals and strategies to be implemented. The goals inform the rationalization of
resources in production, distribution, and marketing while the strategies discuss the conversion of
targets into realities. For instance, a goal may state the intention to improve the brand recognition
and image while the corresponding plan defines the most appropriate media or promotion method
to achieve desired results.
3. Market Opportunities - The plan should always assess emerging or existing market
opportunities that may be harnessed in the short and long term. By so doing, the planners can
easily dedicate resources to the most promising opportunity.
4. Target Market Defined - It is important to define the target groups for all your products and
services. This step allows you to conduct more research on their needs, demands, and even
preferences to capitalize on sales. Also, define the demographic and geographic stratification of
these groups.
5. Marketing Budget - Last and most importantly, a strategic marketing plan is considered
complete due to the inclusion of a realistic marketing budget and the dedication of an
implementation period. Tough decisions have to be made at this point. These include the division
of duties and responsibilities. (Lake, n.d.).

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MARKET POSITIONING & STRATEGIC PLANNING
Market positioning efforts, implicitly or explicitly, include managers’ efforts to modify the tangible
characteristics and intangible perceptions associated with a given marketable offering in relation to the
competition. The ability of building a defensible market position underpins a firm’s marketing activity.
A well-implemented market positioning strategy leads to more favourable perceptions of the offering.
Alongside customer perceptions, proactive positioning efforts contribute to financial benefits for a firm.,
examining high and low performing firms, finds firms successful in the long term have well-positioned
offerings. The concept of market positioning recognizes that for firms to achieve economic benefit, their
deliberations in the marketplace must sustain distinct market orientation capabilities as well. As markets
become more crowded and customers more discerning and varied in their demands and expectations,
target market decisions confronting companies become more critical. Competitive positioning decisions
thus embrace identification of a target market or markets – where the firm will compete – and the
selection of certain competitive actions that a firm will pursue in serving those targets. (Blankson, et al.,
2013)
‘Positioning starts with the product, a piece of merchandise, a service, a company, an institution, or even a
person.’ Some experts argue positioning refers to ‘adjusting’ the mind of the customer. They emphasize
communications, and specifically the advertising elements of positioning. ‘Positioning strategies
generally are implemented to communicate a brand image and differentiate the brand from competitors in
order to achieve a position in the marketplace.’ However, the market positioning represents a broader set
of considerations, including competitive advantage.
Arnott (In Blankson, et al., 2013) proposes, ‘Positioning is the deliberate, proactive, iterative process of
defining, modifying and monitoring consumer perceptions of a marketable object.’ As per this definition
market positioning comprises an iterative set of strategically driven and market-focused activities that
require deliberate and proactive managerial involvement. This involvement takes the form of:
a. defining the dimensions of a particular perceptual space that adequately represents the
target audience’s perceptions;
b. placing competing offerings within that space and identifying their relative location;
c. taking into account strategic considerations that modify actual characteristics of the
offering and/or perceptions of the target audience via marketing communications; and
d. monitoring whether the positioning intentions and related marketing practices are
successfully appreciated by the target audience.
So, market positioning unites an entire company’s deliberations.
The competitive positioning a firm chooses to occupy results from a combination of its choice of target
market and the differential advantage it seeks to create in the marketplace. (Blankson, et al., 2013)
An organization’s success in today’s dynamic business environment is more than ever before dependent
on adaptation to changing and evolving customer needs. In a stable marketplace with unchanging
customer needs and preferences, fewer strategic marketing changes will be required. This means that
organizations, will adopt low degree of market orientation. While with changing customer needs and
preferences marketers has to re-constitute their marketing strategies.
(Mbah, Ogbuehi, & Blankson, 2007).

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Marketing oriented Strategic planning and positioning strategies:
 Market orientation paves the way for a strong, inimitable competitive positioning advantage.
 Market orientation, like a positive organisation culture, increases competitiveness and allows the
firm a strategic position towards achieving competitive advantage.
 There is relationship between market orientation and strategy, and these relationships affect
positioning advantage of a firm in terms of firm performance. While differentiation advantage has
a positive effect on organizational performance, a low-cost position has no effect on
organisational performance. These differences may stem from differences in market orientation.
 Market orientation has a significant relationship with competitive positioning strategies for
different business strategies, including prospectors, analysers, defenders, reactors, differentiation
and low cost.
ADVANTAGES OF STRATEGIC MARKETING PLANNING & EFFECTS
OF LACKING STRATEGIC ORIENTATION
Strategic orientation is a trait characteristic of firm competitiveness. Some management teams are simply
more ‘foresightful’ than others. Some are capable of imagining products, services and entire industries
that did not yet exist and then giving them birth.
Strategic planning process facilitates a common understanding among all stakeholders in an organization.
The plan informs management decisions, the behavior of the employees towards the institutional goals
and also the response among current and potential clients. The plan is also subjected to changes over a
period to meet changing demands.
A sound marketing plan allows a corporate entity to grow its market share which results in more revenue
and profits. As the firm expands, it can enjoy large economies of scale and thus less operational costs.
Overall, the strategic marketing planning process connects the production engine to the consumption
transmission. (Lake, n.d.).
An organization’s success in today’s dynamic business environment is more than ever before dependent
on adaptation to changing and evolving customer needs. In a stable marketplace with unchanging
customer needs and preferences, fewer strategic marketing changes will be required. This means that
organizations, will adopt low degree of market orientation. While with changing customer needs and
preferences marketers has to re-constitute their marketing strategies. (Mbah, Ogbuehi, & Blankson,
2007).
Given the extent of environmental diversity and turbulence present in many competitive marketplaces, the
cycle of change necessitates that firms attempting to gear themselves toward serving market needs must
be proactive in their strategic approach. This is because the pace of technological innovation and
obsolescence can be extremely rapid, allowing only a narrow window of opportunity to be identified and
capitalized on by the market oriented firm. If the firm having strong positioning in market does not
develop strategic marketing plan with innovations and customers changing needs, the other marketer can
overtake the positioning in market.

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Market oriented firms are distinguished by their higher-order learning processes and their ability to
respond to change which is achieved through open minded inquiry, synergistic information distribution
and mutually informed interpretations. Organization’s strategic orientation is able to anticipate and
potentially contribute to the evolution of markets. However, rather than imply that futurity is somehow
sourced to management’s abstract vision, it is based more in “deep insights about the trends in
technology, demographics, regulation and lifestyles that can be harnessed to rewrite industry rules and
competitive space”. (Morgan & Strong, 1998).
So, keeping in view the whole scenario of strategic planning for a marketing oriented firms, the
firm will definitely start losing it position in market when other competitors will bring innovation,
technology and customers need-based strategies.
REFERENCES
Blankson, C., Cowan, K., Crawford, J., Kalafatis, S., Singh, J., & Coffie, S. (2013). A review of the relationships and impact of market
orientation and market positioning on organisational performance. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 21(6), 499-512. DOI:
10.1080/0965254X.2013.804857
Business Dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/market-orientation.html
Cambridge Dictionary. (2018). Retrieved from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/strategic-planning.
Grewal, D. (2008). Marketing. Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Kotler, P. & Kotler, K. (2012). Marketing management. 14th
ed. Boston: Prentice Hall.
Kurian, G. T. (2013). The AMA dictionary of business and management. New York: AMACOM.
Lake, L. (n.d.). “Strategic Marketing Plan Components and Benefits”. The Balance Small Business. Retrieved from
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-strategic-marketing-plan-4043393
Mbah, C., Ogbuehi, A., & Blankson, C. (2007). The Challenges of Market Orientation Strategies Implementation in an Emerging
Economy. Journal of Business Case Studies, 3(2), 29-40.
Richards, L. (n.d.). "Relationship Between Strategic Planning & Marketing Strategies." Small Business - Chron.com. Retrieved from
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/
Morgan, R. E., & Strong, C. A. (1998). Market orientation and dimensions of strategic orientation. European journal of marketing, 32(11/12),
1051-1073.