Marketing Fundamentals: Roadmap For How To Develop, Implement, And Measure A Successful Marketing Plan

Disclaimer

This ebook has been written for information purposes only. Every effort has been made to make this ebook as complete and accurate as possible. However, there may be mistakes in typography or content. Also, this ebook provides information only up to the publishing date. Therefore, this ebook should be used as a guide - not as the ultimate source.

The purpose of this ebook is to educate. The author and the publisher do not warrant that the information contained in this ebook is fully complete and shall not be responsible for any errors or omissions. The author and publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this ebook.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

Introduction

1: Understanding Marketing’s Role

2: Analyzing your Business

3: Developing Your Strategy

4: Developing the Tactical Phase

5: Aligning the Organization

6. Launching and Measuring your Plan

7.Conclusion

Introduction

Whether you're marketing a new product, a new service, or even marketing yourself, you'll be more successful if you follow a structured process. After all, there's a lot at stake when you're trying to market something, In this course, I'll share with you a framework for analyzing a market, developing effective strategies, and creating tactical marketing programs that link to your strategy.

I'll also share how to run the marketing planning process and how to organize a cross-functional team to help you create a marketing plan. If you work in the marketing function now, this course can help you sharpen your skills and add more depth to your current programs. If you're thinking about moving into marketing as a career, understanding the marketing planning process is an essential first step. Marketing is an exciting field, but it has to be practiced responsibly and ethically.

Through the concepts I'll share with you in this course, you'll begin to develop the skills that'll help you do just that.

1: Understanding Marketing’s Role

Marketing in an organization

So what is marketing? The American Marketing Association, or AMA, defines it as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings. That have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Well, that's quite a mouthful. For me, marketing is simply this. It's all about changing beliefs in the minds of customers.

Every organization has customers, regardless of whether you're a commercial for-profit firm, or a non-profit. All companies must be seen as relevant to those customers if they want to survive. Marketing then, is getting customers to believe that your products and services are important, and that they deliver a better value than the competition's. Smart companies see marketing as an investment. That's because the marketing function may be the most critical in any organization.

Marketing is how companies wage competitive battle in the marketplace. If a company doesn't fight the good fight, it won't be around long. Companies that excel at marketing not only survive, but they grow in value. But marketing is hard work. It's a world of ambiguity, and constant challenge. Think about the things that change for a company. For example, consumer trends. New generations of consumers, millennials for example, have different needs than previous generations.

A good marketer has to adapt to that. Competition changes, new competitors enter the market, and the old competitors try new things to take your customers away. Marketers are also affected by changes in technology. Innovations in new products, as well as new ways to connect to customers, especially social media, have a dramatic impact on the marketing function. But companies are also affected by external factors, like political climate, economic conditions, as well as the regulatory environment.

A sudden downturn in the economy, stiffer regulations in your industry, or a surprise election result, might impact consumer behavior. You can't predict these changes, but you can adapt to them if you have two things. A well thought out marketing strategy, and a written marketing plan. A marketing strategy defines which customers you're going after. And how you'll change their beliefs about your products and services. Your marketing plan outlines the specific steps you'll take to implement your strategy.

Having both helps you prepare for the unexpected, so you can adapt and refine your marketing programs as needed. Within an organization, think of the marketing function as the hub of a wheel. Connected to that hub are all the other activities within that company. Operations, sales, finance, and so on. The marketing function coordinates all these other activities to create value for customers. It takes talented, well trained people, led by experienced marketing leaders.

Look at the most successful companies today, and you'll find that they invest in training to keep their marketing skills strong, and that's what this course is all about.

Understanding the planning process

President Dwight Eisenhower once said, plans are nothing, planning is everything. There's a lot of truth to that. Although you'll come out of this process with a written document, it's the planning process itself that allows you to learn about your competitive situation, to make tough choices, and to align your team. You can start the process any time, but an important consideration is how and when your company does its annual business planning process.

That's where the company develops financial forecasts, investments, budgets and so on. Now, generally speaking, there are two ways to connect the marketing planning with the business planning. Some companies start the marketing planning process first. Right around the middle of the fiscal year. Each marketing team develops their own sales revenue forecast, for their assigned products. They also develop a budget to spend on marketing programs that they think are needed to achieve those revenue forecasts.

Those forecasts and budgets are combined into a company-level revenue forecast and budget. And that's fed directly into the annual business planning process. Now some companies do just the opposite. They start with