Explain the marketing process when developing a marketing plan.
Marketing process simply means to determine, analyze and assess the requirements and opportunities within the marketplace. It refers to looking and analysing the market place in depth, tapping upon the right opportunities and getting a first mover advantage. Every organisation places a huge amount of trust and confidence in the strategies made by the marketing manager by using the marketing processes and plans in setting up the entire thing. While developing a marketing plan keeping in mind the brand image, customer loyalty, company profits etc involves a 5 step strategic process, which is:
1. Identification of the mission:- This has to be the first and the foremost step which needs to be taken care of. This forms the string base and foundation of any process. Initially before beginning any process the top management decide a timeline and brainstorm about a target or a mission which needs to be achieved. Then later all the steps are aligned to the initial mission to achieve the goals, this makes it easy to align the entire process systematically.
2. Analysis of the situation:- With market trends changing so often, it is very important to be pro-active and keep analyzing the market on a regular basis to analyse various situations. For instance, it is impossible to be rigid, if an organization wants to survive then it has to be innovative at every stage. There are various analyses which can be used such as SWOT, 5C, PEST to identify the current market happenings.
3. Achieve objectives of marketing: There need to be very detailed marketing objectives which need to be set up and clearly communicated at the very beginning. Also, there has to be a timeline for every step. Fixed time shall be allotted to each step.
4. Related Marketing Strategy:- The most crucial process is first to analyse the market very properly, then analyse and brain storm about all the changes which are possible, what were the previous drawback, comparing the product to the competitors growth, keeping an open amount which is full of suggestion. After all this analyses stuff is done, the next step is to make a detailed full analytical market strategy plan. This is generally created by the top level management as they have the required skill set for the same. Once the strategy is maid it is shared with all the relevant employees and an open forum is discussed where people to discuss which each other about the problems of the strategy and shortcomings, after taking into account everything, then a final plan is made which is shared by the entire company. The plan or the process has to be very detailed and properly communicated to every employee effectively. It is very important for the company to keep checking on the process.