Strategic Marketing Planning: Components, Process, and Benefits

This report provides a comprehensive overview of strategic marketing planning. It defines strategic marketing as a process of developing, planning, and implementing strategies to achieve a competitive advantage. The report emphasizes the three key phases: planning, implementation, and evaluation, highlighting the importance of analyzing internal strengths and weaknesses, market trends, and competition. It details the components of a strategic marketing plan, including company positioning, organizational goals, market opportunities, a defined target market, and a detailed budget. The report explains how strategic marketing planning fosters a shared understanding among stakeholders, guides management decisions, and adapts to changing market demands. It also outlines the benefits of strategic marketing planning, such as assessing the business environment, setting measurable goals, and identifying activities to achieve those goals. In conclusion, the report underscores the essential role of strategic marketing planning for business success and increased market share.

STRATEGIC MARKETING PLANNING 1
Strategic marketing
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STRATEGIC MARKETING PLANNING 2
Strategic marketing can be regarded as a developing, planning and implementing a
process that aims to achieve a competitive advantage in your market. The main aim of every
organization is to satisfy their customers to dominate the available market, to achieve that,
they must perfect the three marketing phases which are the planning phase, implementation
phase, and evaluation phase. The first phase is significant because it analyzes the internal
weaknesses and strengths, modern culture, technological changes, competition and the
perception of the state on the company (Post & Leavell, 2019).
The second phase which is the implementation phas puts into practice what that was
planned in the first phase. It has for components: developing strategic schedules, scheming
marketing organization, acquiring resources and implementing the marketing strategies. The
last stage ensures that the outcome of the plan is under the set objectives. The marketing
manager should identify any possible mistakes and correct them immediately to make sure
the organization is moving in the desired direction (Chernev, 2018)
Any successful business must have a business plan which explains how the
organization proposes to manage its means, manufacturing processes, as well as customers. It
should also have a strategic marketing plan. Coming up with a strategic market-plan is a
process on its own. The management created marketing strategies and implemented them
which helps in stabilizing the business. It involves market segmentation, demographic and
geographical target markets.
The strategic marketing plan must have the following gears:
1. Position of the company.
It must state the position of the organization based on the current financial results, and
this helps the management to identify previous strategies that were implemented and
determine their success of the plan compared to the financial results.

STRATEGIC MARKETING PLANNING 3
2. Goals and plans
Organizational goals must be listed in the strategic marketing plan as well as the
strategies that are to be employed. Goals help in managing resources in marketing,
distribution, and production. On the other hand, procedures explain how to change targets to
realisms. Giving an example, an objective states desires of raising the trademark and
recognition whereas the strategy emphasizes the best and suitable way to achieve positive
results (Ratten, 2016).
3. Market opportunities
The program must assess already existing or upcoming market opportunities, this will
help allocate funds to the best chance.
4. Defined target market
It is of benefit to identify the target customers of your products or services; this step
helps you to research more of your customer's needs, preferences, and demand. You should
similarly describe the geographical and demographic stratification of your target customers.
5. A detailed budget
A strategic-marketing-plan is not complete if it has not included a marketing budget
and a dedication of the period used to implement the strategies. It is at this point that the
delegation of responsibilities is done (West, Ford, and Ibrahim, 2015).
The strategic-marketing-planning process helps in developing a shared understanding
between stakeholders of an organization, and it informs decisions made by the management,
employee's reactions towards organizational goals and the customer's responsibility. The plan
may change after some time to accommodate the change in demands. A good marketing plan
enables an organization to increase its market share and therefore increases its profit margins.

STRATEGIC MARKETING PLANNING 4
As the organization grows, it's the ability to enjoy the economies of scale which results in
reduced cost of operation.
There are reasons why organizations should consider applying strategic marketing-
planning, one of them being: it helps assess the business environment, it is essential to
understand the eloping competitive environment and identifying the resources available. This
will help you to clearly understand the situation your business will operate in and lay
marketing strategies appropriately. It also helps in developing specific, measurable and
achievable marketing goals within a given period to ensure the organization's growth. It also
helps in identifying activities required to achieve the set goals.
In conclusion, strategic-marketing- planning is essential for all businesses, and it
helps them to understand their environment and lay appropriate strategies to increase their
market share and deal with competition. It has three phases namely: planning, implementing
and evaluation phases, a good marketing plan must contain five components namely:
company positioning, marketing budget, market opportunity, determined target market and
goals plus the plans (Pu, Gong, Han, 2019).

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References
Chernev, A., 2015. The marketing plan handbook. Cerebellum Press.
Chernev, A., 2018. Strategic marketing management. Cerebellum Press.
Post, J. and Leavell, J.P., 2019. Diligence-Based Strategy, Strategic Marketing
Ambidexterity, and the Resource-Based View: Informing the Exploitation/Exploration Mode
and Valuing Capabilities.
Pu, X., Gong, L. and Han, G., 2019. A feasible incentive contract between a manufacturer
and his fairness-sensitive retailer engaged in strategic marketing efforts. Journal of
Intelligent Manufacturing, 30(1), pp.193-206.
Ratten, V., 2016. The dynamics of sports marketing: Suggestions for marketing intelligence
and planning. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 34(2), pp.162-168.
West, D.C., Ford, J. and Ibrahim, E., 2015. Strategic marketing: creating a competitive
advantage. Oxford University Press, ..U.S.A.