Importance of Personal Development Plan in Marketing Management

This report discusses the importance of personal development plan in marketing management, including the skills required for the role and the impact of feedback in identifying strengths and achievements. It also explores how personal development plans contribute to the achievement of organizational objectives.

Reflective Journal

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
LO2..................................................................................................................................................3
LO4..................................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Personal development planning is a structured framework which helps the individuals in
identifying the skills they already have, the skills they required to develop in order to achieve
what we want to achieve and how we achieve it. The report will state the skills required, areas of
improvement, importance of feedback in identifying strength and achievements on the career
planning of marketing managers. The report will also cover the impact of the personal
development plans on the individuals, wants to become a marketing manager in the future and
contribute their percentage on the achievement of organization objectives.
MAIN BODY
LO2
Career and Progression Plan
Marketing Manager
I
Social
Media
Other
PR
Website
and Blog
Email
Marketin
g
 Video
 Merchandise
 Strategies
 Design
 Write
 Communicate
 Work closely
with Sales
 Newsletter
 User On-boarding
 Retention
 Content
 Design
 Structure
 Facebook
 Goggle
 Twitter
 Pinterest
 New Releases
 Press and
Blogger contacts

Job description for marketing manager
Job Description
 Job Title: Marketing Manager
 Location: London, UK
 Working Hours: Flexible- 8 hours/ day
 Reporting to: Managing Director
 Responsible for: Marketing Assistance
 Working with: Managing director and all other team members.
 Purpose of the Job:
◦ Manage the day to day work of Marketing assistance.
◦ To create and implement marketing strategy.
◦ To identify and coordinate marketing information.
◦ To provide trainings to Marketing assistance.
◦ To produce appropriate PR collateral.
 Main duties and responsibilities:
◦ To monitor company's sales performance.
◦ To monitor and manage the work performance of team members.
◦ To analyse the reason of strategy failure and correct them.
◦ To follow up sales activities with customers.
Skills matrix review and immediate skill gap analysis
Less important skills- Big skills gap
 Public relation= 10%
 Video production= 15%
 Artificial Intelligence= 20%
 Negotiation/Sales= 15%
More important skills- Big skills gap
 Active learning= 10%
 Persuasion skills= 20%
 Critical thinking= 25%
 Decision-making= 15%
 Complex problem solving= 10%

Less important skills- Smaller skill gap
 Graphic and web designing= 0%
 Copy writing= -5%
 Display advertising= 5%
More important skills- Smaller skill gap
 Speaking skill= 5%
 Reading comprehension= -5%
 Coordination= 5%
Self-appraisal and action planning
Situation:
 Customers poor feedback rate.
 Low sales volume.
 Low market share.
 Less customer base.
Task:
 Company wants to achieve the
sales increment by 10%.
 Company want to achieve the
targeted market share of 30%.
 Company wants to attract new
customers.
Action:
 Selecting the channel which
have high customer traffic and
which is used by the large
number of customers.
Results:
 Increase in customer feedback
rate from 75% to 80%.
 Sales volume of the company
increased.
 Reach targeted market share in
one year.
 Increase in customer base.
Skills development record and work-based feedback
Before giving feedback to any of the staff members of the employees, it is important to
know the purpose behind giving the feedback is to improve their performance not to insult them.
By keeping day to day record of each employee and provide them feedback for their mistakes
and appreciation for their good work increases the productivity of the employees (Sugumar and
et.al., 2021). Feedback may be in term of employees writing skills, communication skills, active

thinking skills, active learning skills etc. Providing regular work-based feedback on time to the
employees is important.
LO4
Analysis of organizational theory against organizational practice
Organizational theory is the study of the structure of the company which mainly form in
the hierarchical structure. It is generally used to form the practices of the organization which
defines the guidelines, code of conduct and ethics which all staffs of the organizations have to
follow. There are generally four main organizational theory i.e. classical theory, human relation
theory, decision theory and modern system theory. The classical theory is implement in the
company to monitor the work of the employees and the management (Prasad, 2020). It is also
useful in providing the training to the workers in order to develop their work. It is useful in
forming the practices such as On-boarding, training and development and organizational
structure etc. The human relation theory is implemented in the business to build the strong
relation between the management and employees. By involving the employees in the decision-
making, the organization increases the social relations and morale of the employees. It is useful
in forming the internal and external practices of the organization such as internal communication
with employees, interaction with the customers, markets, suppliers etc. The decision theory state
the organizations potential to adapt themselves to the environmental changes and make decisions
according to it for example technological change. The last modern system theory reflect the
principles to visualize all the small changes which can cause large impact and large changes
which causes small impact (Van Wingerden, Derks and Bakker, 2017). The practices company
can set in order to follow all the principles of the organizational theory are recruitment and
selection of the new employees, monitor systems and processes for doing work well. It also
includes enhancing internal communication, implementation of hardware and software to
accomplish work, practices of product and services the company serve etc.
Before starting any personal development plan and improving any skills, it is important to
know the field in which we want to make our career (Dearing and Cox, 2018). After doing that
we will further proceed on the same path. To become a marketing manager and make my career
in the same I generally focus on the skills required to become an effective marketing manager.
Along with it I also find out the areas where the improvement is required by obtaining feedback
from the others. Feedback also help me in identifying my strength and achievements.

Skills required to become a marketing managers
In order to become an MM, it is important that I have all the skills which a marketing
manager job profile ask for (Di Gregorio and et.al., 2019). It includes
 Active listening: It is a skill which involve understanding and giving time and attention to
the other individual when they are saying something.
 Reading comprehension: It involves the skill of understanding the sentences and the
paragraphs related to the work file and document.
 Speaking skill: It is a skill which involve the effective communication to the others which
is clearly understandable to them.
 Critical thinking: It is a skill which generally ask for the marketing manager profile
which involve the skill of thinking out of the box.
 Active learning: Beside of having the skill of active listening, it is also important to have
the skill of active learning. It involves understanding new technology and information to
deal with the current and future problems.
 Persuasion skill: It is a skill which define the potential of the marketing manager to
influence the mind and behaviour of the employees. It is important skill for the marketing
manager.
 Monitoring: It is a skill require to monitor the work and performance of yourself and the
other employees and make improvement and take appropriate corrective actions.
 Judgement and decision-making: The skills required to select the most appropriate action
plan and take decisions for the same (Casey, 2021).
 Complex problem solving: Solving the problem is the most common skill but identifying
and solving the complex problems help the managers in achieving the targets of the
company.
 Time management: It is a skill require to complete the tasks on time by managing owns
and also other time is an art.
 Coordination: Completing the tasks by maintaining coordination among the employees.
Areas where improvement is required
In order to make career and reach at the higher level, I also find out the areas which is
need to be improved for personal development as well as the organizational development. In

order to fix my non-productive marketing skills, I started using the analytical tool to determine
my strategy which are not working well. After that I use the surveys process to identify the best
marketing channel which brings the large number of customer traffics. By analysing the different
marketing techniques, I find out that my techniques are outdated over a period-of-time (Hartley,
Routon and Torres, 2019). So in order to fix it, I started experimenting and changing the
marketing techniques and select the technique which perfectly fit with the environmental
changes. Further, in order to improve my areas I started focus on the top customer rather than
focusing on all customers to increase the sales volume. As response from the customers are not
receives quickly does not mean that we are not doing anything. So by understanding this, I
started improving my consistency and persistence skill in order to stuck on the marketing
manager path. It is important to know that it take time to see the actual result.
Importance of feedback in identifying strength and achievements
In general way feedback is the information which is provided by the other individuals
such as customers regarding whether they are satisfied with their skills and work or not. In my
case, feedback help me in improving my skills and help me in measuring the level of the
satisfaction of the customer. It is further help in realizing my potentials and the value of my
opinions in the eyes of the customers. As satisfied customers are always wants to retain with the
high profiled and knowledgable managers. So I try to make the improvement in my skills to
retain the customer and increase their loyalty (Labanauskaitė, Fiore and Stašys, 2020). But in
order to fix the solutions related to the dissatisfied customers, I always used to listen their
problem and fix their issues. It helps in increasing the customer relation with unhappy customers
and also increases their loyalty. In this way, the feedback not only help me in identifying my
strength and weakness but it also helps me in increasing the customer base for the organizations.
It also helps in providing the reliable data and information which help me in decision-making.
Impact of personal development plan on work performance
In today's world companies are changing their strategy and approaches in order to cope
with the changing environment. So it becomes significant for the individuals to engage
themselves into the process of personal development plan in order to learn the new strategy and
approaches. Improving the performance of the managers and employees of the company the
personal development plan is act as a tool. The personal development plan involve the skill
required for a particular field, areas for improvement, set goals and measure the progress of the

managers and employees (De Pelsmacker, Van Tilburg and Holthof, 2018). The impact of the
PDP is that it increases the efficiency and productivity of the managers and employees of the
company. It will further increase the profitability of the company which is the ultimate objective
of the organizations. The benefit of personal development plan on my work performance is that I
am able to make better alignment with my team member. I am able to measure my and my team
progress and identify the results for the same. I become more accountable responsible for my
work. Another positive impact of PDP is that I am able to make a clear roadmap to reach my
goals.
Contribution towards achievement of organizations objectives
By analysing and selecting the best marketing channels, I manage to increase the
customer base of the company and profitability objective of the company. Because of it the
rating services on the feedback regarding the company is also increases from the 70% to 75%
within one year. It also helps in increasing the sales volume of the company by 10% by last year
and company are able to achieve the target market share of 30% that company fix one year later.
Because of my consistent work I am able to take proper decisions which helps the business in
coping with the uncertain environment. Because of organizing training sessions and offering
incentives, I am able to improve the performance of my team (Eckart, McPhee and Bolisetti,
2017). It will help them in achieving the daily targets and which will further help the business in
achieving corporate objectives as well.
CONCLUSION
The report concludes the significance of work performance in the current working
placement environment by their critical evaluation. The report further concludes the skills
required for marketing management along with the importance of performance development
plan. This report also concludes my contribution towards the achievement of goals and
objectives of the organizations.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Prasad, L. M., 2020. Principles and practice of management. Sultan Chand & Sons.
Dearing, J. W. and Cox, J. G., 2018. Diffusion of innovations theory, principles, and
practice. Health Affairs. 37(2). pp.183-190.
Di Gregorio, A. and et.al., 2019. Employability skills for future marketing
professionals. European management journal. 37(3). pp.251-258.
Hartley, P., Routon, P. W. and Torres, L., 2019. The skills marketing majors believe they
acquire: Evidence from a national survey. Journal of Marketing Education. 41(3).
pp.202-214.
Labanauskaitė, D., Fiore, M. and Stašys, R., 2020. Use of E-marketing tools as communication
management in the tourism industry. Tourism Management Perspectives. 34.
p.100652.
De Pelsmacker, P., Van Tilburg, S. and Holthof, C., 2018. Digital marketing strategies, online
reviews and hotel performance. International Journal of Hospitality
Management. 72. pp.47-55.
Casey, R., 2021. Importance of feedback and personal leadership development plans. In
Practice. 43(1). pp.50-52.
Van Wingerden, J., Derks, D. and Bakker, A. B., 2017. The impact of personal resources and
job crafting interventions on work engagement and performance. Human Resource
Management. 56(1). pp.51-67.
Eckart, K., McPhee, Z. and Bolisetti, T., 2017. Performance and implementation of low impact
development–A review. Science of the Total Environment. 607. pp.413-432.
Sugumar, R. and et.al., 2021. Development and validation of a structured feedback
questionnaire from postgraduates on various elements of postgraduate medical
curriculum. Medical Journal Armed Forces India. 77. pp.S57-S64.
Online
What does a Marketing Manager do?. 2021 [Online]. Available through:<
https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/marketing-manager/>
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