Planning Marketing Strategy

Objective: Introducing the significance of not only short-term tactical planning, but also strategic planning required by travel and tourism companies to respond to their changing market conditions.

Marketing Plan

• A marketing plan is a written plan that is used to guide an organization’s marketing activities for a period of one year or less.
• It is quite detailed and specific, and it helps an organization coordinate the activities and people that play a role in marketing.

Differences between Strategic and Marketing Planning

• Marketing plans are what most experts call “tactical” or short term.
• However, it is not enough just to have annual marketing plans. Long-term “strategic” plans are needed.
• These multiyear plans are more general and less detailed than tactical plans. They ensure that long-term marketing objectives are attained.

• There must be a close fit between the strategies and objectives of the firm in the strategic market plan (a long-term marketing plan covering five or more years).
• Strategic planning attempts to answer three important questions;
• Where are we now?
• What opportunities are emerging in a changing world?
• Where do we want to be in 5 or more year’s time?
• How do we get there?
• What decisions do we have to make now to get to where we want to be?

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• Strategic planning involves decisions that are made by the management of an organization as it pursues its mission and objectives.
• These decisions include the types of products to offer and in what markets to sell them, the allocation of resources to that end, the establishment of policies and procedures, and the appropriate distribution of employee responsibilities.
• This decision-making process is influenced by events occurring in the internal and external environments of the firm.

• It is a long-term plan to enhance the firm’s competitive position or a plan that encloses the firm’s primary strategies, especially those related to its product or services and market.
• While marketing plans take an in-depth look at the organization’s marketing mix and contain detailed budgets and timetables, strategic market plans are more concerned with the external environment and the opportunities and challenges in the medium and long term.
• Marketing plans are also concerned with environment but rather in the short run.

Vision and Mission

• Strategic planning should be founded on the mission and the values of the organization.
• Corporate values drive the purpose and strategy of a company.
• Key areas that shapes the mission or values of the firm include;
• Why a company exists
• What the company believes in
• The competitive position and distinctive competence
• The policies and behavior patterns that underpin the distinctive competence and value system

• The vision of a firm is expressed in the “mission statement” which communicates what the company stands for.
• A mission statement is then sets the agenda for the company’s strategy.

Benefits of a Marketing Plan

• A marketing plan is one of the most useful tools for any organization. A written plan has the following five key benefits:
• Activities matched with target markets
• Consistency of objectives and target-market priorities
• Assistance in measuring marketing success
• Continuity in long term planning
• Minimizing the risk through analysis of internal and external environment

Activities matched with target markets

• The marketing plan ensures that activities are focused only on chosen target markets.
• One of the steps involved in writing the marketing plan is detailing the marketing mix on specific markets.
• This way helps to prevent spending a lot of money on unattractive target markets.

Consistency of objectives and target market priorities

• The plan ensures that the level of effort is consistent with the marketing objectives for each target market and the relative size of each market.
• Generally, the higher the objectives, the greater the required effort. For example, it does not make sense for an organization to spend 80 percent of its marketing budget on a target market that contribute only 20 percent to its sales or profits.

Assistance in measuring marketing success

• According to the objectives and achievements, marketing managers measure and evaluate success.
• A marketing plan plays an important role in
• controlling how the activities are going on and,
• evaluating if the objectives have been achieved.

Continuity in long-term planning

• Several marketing plans make up one strategic market plan.
• Marketing plans complement strategic market plans and provide a link between short-and long-term planning.
• They ensure that an organization’s long-term objectives are always kept in focus.

Minimizing the risk through analysis of the internal and external environment

• The marketing plans allow managers to identify the areas of strength and weaknesses.
• So that an advantage can be taken from the strengths and also company can minimize the weaknesses. In addition, threats and opportunities can be assessed.

Contents of a Marketing Plan

• There are two parts in the marketing plan. The rationale and implementation plan.
• The marketing plan rationale explains all of the analysis, assumptions and decisions on which the marketing plan is based. It describes the target markets, and marketing objectives selected for the period.

• The implementation plan details the marketing budget, staff responsibilities, activities, timetable, and methods of controlling, measuring, and evaluating activities.
• In other words, the function of the implementation plan is to specify all the required activities, responsibilities, costs, time schedules, and control and evaluation procedures.

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Stages of A Marketing Plan

Marketing Plan Rationale

• Executive summary
• Current marketing situation
• Business situation analysis
• Creating the objectives

Implementation Plan

• Marketing strategy formulation
• Creating action programs
• Monitoring and evaluating the plan

Executive summary

• The planning document opens with a short summary of the plan’s main goals and recommendations.

Current marketing situation

• It is necessary to gather enough information about the external company environment in order to form a business and market picture of current and future pressure and trends.
• First of all, the information collected should form the basis of a PEST investigation. PEST analysis is an examination of the political, economic, social and technological changes which may affect the company and the market.

• Following information should be collected as part of the external audit;
• Business/Economic Environment
• Economic - inflation, fuel costs, exchange rates, average salaries.
• Political - taxation, duty, regulation, tourism policies.
• Social - demographics, values, lifestyle.
• Technology - Innovations, new systems.
• Companies - level of investment, takeovers, promotion expenditures, profits.
• Market environment
• This section should present data on the total market – size and growth of the target market. In addition, data concerning customer needs, perceptions, and buying-behavior trends.

• Competitive situation
• Here major competitors are identified and described in terms of their size, goals, market share, product quality, marketing strategies etc.
• The above information should be gathered on the basis of how they affect the company.

Business situation analysis

• This is the so-called SWOT analysis. In particular, this is the analysis of the company’s major;
• Strengths,
• Weaknesses,
• Opportunities
• Threats

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• Strengths are expressed as inherent advantages in the organization’s product or operation in relation to competitors. For example, products with increasing shares of growing markets, location, architectural style, professional skills of the working people etc. Once identified, strengths can be promoted to potential customers.
• Weaknesses are opposite the strengths. For example, it may range from old fashioned products in declining markets to impolite customer contact staff. Weaknesses and strengths are often matters of perception rather than “fact” and may be identified with consumer research only.

• Opportunities may arise from elements of the business under direct control such as particular product. In addition, they may arise from shifts in the external environment that a firm may exploit. For example, Club Med seized an opportunity to develop its particular holiday concepts (freedom, activities) with an image in a way no other operator matched in the 70s.
• Threats may also be presented by internal elements within the businesses control or by external events such as exchange rate changes, rising oil prices or acts of international terrorism.

Marketing objectives and targets

• Objectives are a combination of what is expected of the company by its shareholders or directors.
• The selected target markets should be discussed, along with the reasons for choosing them. The objectives for each target market should be spelled out.
• They have to be results oriented, stated in numerical terms, and time specific.
• At this stage, the plan should briefly review the segmentation approach used to divide market.

Marketing strategy formulation (what to do)

• At this section, the broad marketing strategy must be outlined.
• This section should cover what target markets will be attracted, the required positioning strategy to attract these markets and marketing mix variables that will be used to attract the targeted groups.
• This section outlines broad marketing thrusts to achieve the business objectives.

Creating marketing-mix programs (how to do)

• Action programs consist of the program of the activities on four controllable variables -marketing mix- promotion, distribution, product, price that are undertaken to influence and motivate buyers to choose targeted volumes of particular products.
• A marketing-mix program expresses exactly what activities will take place on a week by week basis for each target market.

Monitoring and evaluating the plan

• It is impossible to have efficient evaluation without first establishing precise objectives against which to measure results. Then, it would be possible to monitor results for each market under at least six headings:
• Weekly flow of bookings against planned capacity.
• Sales response related to any advertising activity.
• Customer awareness of advertising messages measured by research surveys.

• Sales response to any price discounts.
• Sales response to any merchandising efforts by travel agents.
• Customer satisfaction with product quality measured by customer satisfaction questionnaires.

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Sources

• Kotler, P.; Bowen, J. and Makens, J. (1999). Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall: NJ.
• Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2006) Principles of Marketing (11th ed.). Prentice Hall: NJ.
• Middleton, V. T. C. (2004) Marketing in Travel and Tourism (3rd ed). Elsevier: Oxford.
• Middleton, V. T. C.; Fyall, A.; Morgan, M. And Ranchhod A. (2009). Marketing in Travel and Tourism (4th ed). Butterworth-Heinemann: Oxford.

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