The 12 frameworks above are considered the backbone in bringing together a pattern of major objectives, purposes or plans that will assist the strategist to formulate policies for the achievement of goals. Markets need to be managed with flexibility. Every time a competitor makes a move, rivalry will undoubtedly alter in the balance of market ownership. And the planner, in monitoring change and assessing opportunities, will seek advantages that can be leveraged in determining greater profitability for their products.

In addition, the strategist will look at the options for unsettling the equilibrium of the marketplace and in re-establishing it in their own favour. By these actions they are able to choose the competitors they wish to challenge, or decidedly avoid, and so seek to match their organisational strengths with market needs. Superior performance is specific and relative to the competitiveness in key success areas that customers will immediately recognise as best suited to their needs. And pricing is a different issue in satisfying need.

The marketing plan introduces emphasis upon how to compete. The development of attainable objectives and goals merges with the management processes vital to create flexibility and creativity in swaying customer groups or assessing market-led decisions.

Policies, resources, past performance, industry trends, and environmental forces make demands upon decisive marketing planning and the strategist relies upon long term objectives to create a vision of the rated positioning your organisation will finally occupy.

Marketing strategies also seek to add value to products, services or relationships that will differentiate the brand’s offerings uniquely from those of competitors.

Marketing Plan Sub Structure Frameworks Elements & Prompt Guides

1. Define the Business

Critically, an organisation should first define its business, in philosophical terms and particularly if it is going to contest differing markets. Unless you define the business you cannot define the market! And only once your markets are clearly defined can target markets be established. Once the target markets are identified, target audiences can then be detailed and only once the target audience is clearly understood, can any segmentation exercises be applied. Once the segment is identified and intimately understood, the hunt is on to discover any illusive niches that may become apparent, and not before.

To illustrate, take company A & company B that both install electronic satellite tracking devices mounted into vehicles for instance. These tracking devices send a signal to a control centre that plots the vehicle’s exact geo-positioning as location co-ordinates on a continuous basis. Company A defines its business as vehicle tracking and provides this information as and when any business requirement or emergency arises. In the case of the vehicle being hijacked, this information can be relayed to police or owner instantly.

However, company B defines its business as vehicle recovery, and provides the exact same equipment that captures the same geo-positioning and location co-ordinates on a continuous basis. But in the case of a vehicle being hijacked for instance, it includes ’recovery teams’ strategically placed that will pursue the client’s vehicle in a recovery response operation to seize & return the vehicle and payload on behalf of the owner.

Clearly these vehicle-monitoring operations are attractive to the requirements of totally differing mindsets. One market simply requires notification of the whereabouts of its vehicles, whilst the other market demands that the payloads be retrieved immediately. And as a result, the marketing plans of company A and B will reflect totally differing defined markets, target markets, target audiences, market segments and specific niches.

To progress deeper into this analysis, let’s remain with company B for a moment. Defined business is providing the service of vehicle recovery. To differentiate themselves further away from company A in the marketplace, they choose to define their market as trucking operations only. They will not consider other vehicles. They are now poised to define their target market and choose to service only refrigerated trucking operations.

From this they define the target audience and decide they will service refrigerated truck companies operating with a minimum of 5 units. They now segment their market to focus only upon those trucking operations specialising in refrigerated ‘seafood’ haulage.

Finally that illusive niche is looming for identification. They are going to locate their response and recovery teams strategically placed along the M1 motorway route. Clearly, rivals not as purposely focused will have difficulty entering this niche. Company A cannot compete against such differentiation, not unless they make substantial enhancements to their standard service operation. Yet to the layman both companies will appear to be contesting the same market arena by installing electronic tracking devices.

From this point onward, control in that identified market niche is established. And provided company B operates with integrity, it will remain preferred supplier since there is probably little room to duplicate a competitive challenge. Profitability and relationship management can now run hand in hand and market positioning is firmly established. The services they provide will appeal specifically and suite the business requirements of any large-scale refrigerated trucking operators hauling seafood payloads along the M1 route.

1.1 Business Definition (Customer Focus)

• Define the business conceptually from the user’s need or viewpoint.
• Detail how customer would identify that their need is being addressed.
• Test this definition via research and that viability exists in the segment.
• Consider the impact of re-defining the business on existing structures.
• Commence to restructure the organisation to accommodate the change.

1.2 Vision

• Determine the long term aims for your organisation.
• Detail the objectives that will guide organisation towards this destiny.

1.3 Mission

• Determine the values required in support of any long term vision aims.
• Implement orientation that your markets will recognise as meaningful.