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The essentials of strategic marketing planning

AMA Speaker’s Tour - Autumn 2003

Birmingham - Bristol - Glasgow - London

Overview of session

The ‘Thinking BIG!’ SMP framework

Marketing, strategy & strategic marketing -working definitions

Mission as the starting point

Using the two pivotal tools: SWOT & TOWS

Identifying strategy sets using TOWS

The underlying stages of marketing planning

1. Goal setting - Why are we here & where shall we go?

2. Situational analysis - Where are we now, what’s out there, and what are we dealing with?

3. Action planning & targeting - What shall we do & who should we do it with?

4. Implementation - How do we best put our plans into action?

5. Evaluation - How will we know when we’ve got to our goal and if it all worked?

The ‘Thinking BIG!’ strategic marketing planning [SMP] framework

SMP phase 1

STRATEGIC GOAL SETTING

SMP phase 2

STRATEGIC ANALYSIS

SMP phase 3

MAKING & SELECTING STRATEGIES

SMP phase 4

STRATEGIC ACTION

The marketing concept

Thoughts on strategy - 1

It’s important:

‘Every company needs a strategy - either explicit or implicit’

Costas Marikides [1995]

‘The survival, growth and prosperity of any organisation depends on the quality and viability of the strategy the organisation is pursuing’

Andrew Kakabadse, Ron Ludlow & Susan Vinicombe [1988]

Thoughts on strategy - 2

But beware! :

‘The word “strategy” has become one of the most common and badly used words in business writing.’ Paul Fifield [1992]

‘There is no single, universal accepted definition [of strategy]. Different authors and managers use the term differently.’ Mintzberg & Quinn [1998]

‘Strategy is very important. But no one knows what it means. Every professor in the world has a different version of what strategy means.’Jo Owen [2002]

Thoughts on strategy - 3

Helpful thoughts:‘Strategy is concerned with making major decisions affecting the long-term direction of the business’

Drummond & Ensor [1999]

‘[Strategic management] is a systematic approach to a major responsibility of management - to position and relate the firm to its environment in a way that assures its success and makes it secure from surprises’

Ansoff & McDonnell [1990]

Key characteristics of strategy

It’s something that’s very important

No hard & fast definitions - can depend upon perspective

Concerned with addressing big organisationalissues

About aligning the organisation with its environment in order to maintain ‘fit’

So Strategic Marketing …

is the application of a strategic approach

to an organisation’s marketing activities

which thus contributes to the achievement

of the organisation’s overall goals

Tactics vs Strategy

Aspect TACTICS STRATEGYEmphasis

Purpose

Time-frameExtent

Focus

Navigation

The quick fix

Achieving operational goals

The wider game

Reaching underlying ends

Short-term Long-term

Local GlobalImmediate needs& issues

Adapts to create long-term change

Take the 2nd left Get to London

Practical activity 1 So how strategic is your marketing activity?

Is it more tactical or more strategic and why?

Aspect of marketing activity

The ‘Thinking BIG!’ strategic marketing planning [SMP] framework

SMP phase 1

STRATEGIC GOAL SETTING

SMP phase 2

STRATEGIC ANALYSIS

SMP phase 3

MAKING & SELECTING STRATEGIES

SMP phase 4

STRATEGIC ACTION

The importance of mission

Missions tend to combine:

The aspirations that management & stakeholders hold for the organisation

Its overall purpose or reason for being

The things that it considers important - its values

And its overall, very long term goals.

The mission should inform & shape all other activity

The ‘MOST’ hierarchy:

Mission

Objectives

Strategies

So initialmarketing objectivesdetail how marketing willcontribute tothe achievement of the mission

Tactics

HELP!!!

‘We don’t seem to have a mission, or I don’t know what it is’

So:Ask yourself ‘why not?’

Take action of some sort

If needs, be devise a ‘marketing mission’ and set of ‘marketing objectives’ to be agreed with colleagues

Practical activity 2 Developing marketing objectives from the mission

Implied marketing objectivesMission aspect

The ‘Thinking BIG!’ strategic marketing planning [SMP] framework

SMP phase 1

STRATEGIC GOAL SETTING

SMP phase 2

STRATEGIC ANALYSIS

SMP phase 3

MAKING & SELECTING STRATEGIES

SMP phase 4

STRATEGIC ACTION

SMP Phase 2: Strategic Analysis

aka - ‘situational analysis’

“Where are we now, how did we get here & what are we dealing with?”

Internal - Marketing audit & review

External - PEST, competitor & trend analysis

The ‘pivotal’ tools

Used to transform analysis into planned actions

SWOT summarises the analysis

Then TOWS distills proposed strategic actions from the SWOT summary

The ‘Thinking BIG!’ strategic marketing planning [SMP] framework

SMP phase 1

STRATEGIC GOAL SETTING

SMP phase 2

STRATEGIC ANALYSIS

SMP phase 3

MAKING & SELECTING STRATEGIES

SMP phase 4

STRATEGIC ACTION

Making SWOT work

Practical activity - 3

+ve factors -ve factors

WEAKNESSESSTRENGTHSInternal to current reality

OPPORTUNITIES THREATSExternalto current reality

TOWS

Examples of TOWS strategies

1.Strength: Organisation is perceived as being approachable by community

Opportunity: Local Authority is seeking an organisation to run family-friendly events

Resulting strategy: The creation and running of a programme of events customised to be family friendly, to be funded by LA.

Examples of TOWS strategies

2.Weakness: Main programming strand is perceived as being expensive

Threat: Decreasing number of users being drawn from socially excluded areas

Resulting strategy: Introducing a new pricing policy for socially excluded families including a discounted family ticket

‘Strategy set’ spotting

A strategy set:

is an overall group of strategies that have common aspects or are intended to address a similar set of issues.

How to build strategy sets

1. Use the TOWS grid to stimulate & generate ideas

2. When all your initial thinking is done, sort & group the strategies into sets.

3. Now give the resulting sets a pithy ‘headline’ name.

First generate the ideas

Threats

Opportunities

WeaknessesStrengths

Then sort into sets

Threats

Opportunities

WeaknessesStrengths

Then sort into sets

Then sort into sets

Identifying strategy sets entails a mental ‘gear shift’ on the SMP ‘rollercoaster’

General

Specific

Mission

Objectives

Analysis

Detailed strategies

Strategysets

Action plans

Practical Activity 4

Working with a partner, and using the short SWOT analysis developed earlier:

Complete the TOWS grid on the next slide

And identify the implied strategy sets

Practical Activity 4 - worksheet

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

OPPORTUNITIES SO strategies WO strategies

ST strategiesTHREATS WT strategies

Pulling it altogether

With the strategy sets identified, now all you need do to complete the SMP is to develop:

A branding & positioning plan

A marketing mix plan

An implementation plan (including budgets and timetables)

And an evaluation plan.

The ultimate strategic consideration

Relates to approaches based on EFFECTIVENESS rather than efficiency

“Efficiency is about doing things right.

Effectiveness is doing the right thing”Peter Drucker [1947] The Effective Executive

References & resources

Ansoff, I. & McDonnel, E. [1990] Implanting Strategic Management, Prentice Hall.

Drucker, P. [1947] The Effective Executive, Butterworth-Heinemann.

Drummond, G. & Ensor, J. [1999] Strategic Marketing: planning & control, Butterworth-Heinemann.

Fifield, P. [1992] Marketing Strategy, Butterworth-Heinemann / CIM.

Kakabadse, A., Ludlow, R. & Vinicombe [1988] Working in Organisations, Penguin Books.

Marikides, C [1995] ‘Strategic management - an overview’ in Crainer, S. The Financial Times Handbook of Management, Financial Times / Pitman Publishing.

Mintzberg, H. & Quinn, J B [1998] Readings in the Strategy Process (3rd edition), McGraw-Hill.

Owen, J. [2002] Management Stripped Bare: what they don’t teach you at business school, Kogan Page.

The ‘Thinking BIG!’ hand-drawn diagrams were produced by Sugar Free Design 020 7243 2100