Summary

Strategic Marketing Management

Task 1: Individual Assignment

Learners must produce and submit a 4000 word essay covering learning outcomes A, B, and D and their related criteria. Learning Outcome C will be covered in task 2.

Marketing management seeks to get the business to produce what the customer wants and align all marketing activities to meet customer needs. This unit explores the role of marketing management in setting marketing goals, applying business models to establish a marketing strategy and utilising marketing instruments that contribute towards an organisational approach to marketing.

In order to remain competitive, it is important that organisations focus on establishing, developing and adjusting their strategic marketing plans.

A strategic marketing strategy combines product development, promotion, distribution, pricing, relationship management and other elements of marketing. The strategy identifies an organisation’s strategic marketing goals, and explains how they will be achieved within a designated timeframe.

Learners will investigate how marketing plans are designed to contribute towards an organisation’s mission and strategic objectives. They will consider the management decisions that have to be taken when implementing different elements of the marketing mix (product, price, people and place) and how marketing plans can be monitored and controlled to maximise the benefits to the organisation and its stakeholders.

This unit requires that learners have access to the marketing management function in an organisation, or they must be provided with a detailed case study.

Learning outcome A

To achieve learning outcome A, learners must identify the specific marketing goals of an organisation and how these goals contribute to the organisation’s strategic objectives and overall mission statement. Learners must show how the GOSPA corporate performance management process could be applied to marketing management processes in a specific organisational context and analyse how these processes are coordinated across different functional areas within a business. Learners must provide evidence that shows that they have a good understanding of the processes involved in marketing management, including the feedback loop to corporate decision-makers.

• Marketing goals: strategic goals, e.g. growth, diversification, market share, market development; economic goals, e.g. sales costs, profitability, contribution margin, margins; psychographic goals, e.g. awareness of brand; image; overall customer satisfaction rates; customer loyalty; SMART objective setting based on key principles– content, extent, time and market segment.

• Role of marketing management: marketing as a specialist business function and as a set of organisational processes encompassing all functional areas coordinated by a marketing manager.

• The application of marketing management processes: GOSPA (Goals, Objectives, Strategies, Plans and Tactics) corporate performance management process applied to the marketing management function; determining marketing goals, formulating a marketing strategy, applying marketing tools and establishing control processes to monitor key performance indicators, implementing any required remedial action and providing feedback to key decision-makers in the organisation.

• Corporate strategy: the nature of strategy and marketing links to corporate strategy, e.g. Michael Porter; links to mission statement, organisational structure, corporate responsibility and ethics; dynamic strategy (Carpenter and Sanders); knowledge management systems.

Learning outcome B

To achieve learning outcome B, learners must show a good understanding of the application of strategic marketing models in an organisational context and how marketing activities are coordinated and scheduled to maximise their effectiveness in terms of such aspects as product innovation, pricing decisions and marketing communications. Learners should provide appropriate examples to show that they understand the difference between marketing management and strategic marketing. Learners must analyse how marketing analysis techniques may have influenced an organisation’s marketing strategy. Learners must provide evidence of a market analysis, using appropriate models and marketing analysis techniques, based on an organisation operating in a specific market. The analysis should be accompanied by an overview of the implications of the learner’s own analysis for the organisation’s marketing strategy and how far these match those of the organisation’s marketing strategy

• Strategic marketing: key definitions from the Chartered Institute of Marketing and key authors,

e.g. Hugh Davidson, Peter Doyle, Philip Kotler, Malcolm McDonald; role and importance of strategic marketing in an organisation; concepts; systematic approach; sequencing and scheduling of activities; integration of activities; resource requirements; timescales; monitoring and control elements.

• Processes: strategic marketing planning processes, e.g. Peter Doyle, Malcolm McDonald’s strategic marketing analysis, marketing strategy objective setting, perceptual mapping, factor analysis, option evaluation, choice, formulation, implementation and control.

• Strategic marketing: key definitions from the Chartered Institute of Marketing and key authors,

e.g. Hugh Davidson, Peter Doyle, Philip Kotler, Malcolm McDonald; role and importance of strategic marketing in an organisation; concepts; systematic approach; sequencing and scheduling of activities; integration of activities; resource requirements; timescales; monitoring and control elements.

• Marketing strategy typologies: e.g. Porter’s generic strategies (focus, cost leadership and quality leadership); core competences (G Johnson and K Scholes, G Hamel and C K Prahalad); competitive advantage (H Davidson, M Porter); investment opportunity evaluation (D F Abell and J S Hammond); General Electric model; Shell directional policy matrix; inside- out planning model (Schultz, Tannenbaum and Lauterborn).

• Strategic options: market leadership; market dominance strategies; market leader, market challenger, market follower, market niche; innovation strategies; market pioneer; close followers, late followers; offensive, defensive and value-based marketing strategies.

• Marketing tools and models: organisation, industry and market environment situation analysis; Porter’s Five Forces model; competitor analysis; SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, STEEPLE (social, technological, economic, environmental, political, legal, ethical) analysis), PEST (political, economic, social, technological) analysis, marketing audit, the 5C model.

• Marketing analysis techniques: e.g. BCG matrix, product life cycle model, Ansoff matrix.

• Marketing policies: product policy; price policy; distribution policy; communication policy.

Learning outcome D

To achieve learning outcome D, learners must identify how changing factors within an organisation’s external environment have impacted on its marketing tactics. Learners must evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of an organisation’s response to the changing nature of its external environment. The evaluation should be based on an in-depth analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of its marketing management strategy and its associated marketing tactics. Learners must evaluate the effectiveness of an organisation’s marketing tactics using appropriate performance indicators mapped against an organisation’s corporate objectives and, where possible, its own performance targets.

• Emerging themes in an organisational context: e.g. product portfolio, organisational structure and culture, impact of globalisation, the strength or weakness of competitors, importance of environmental factors, changes in the political environment, the state of the economy, economic indicators, influence of social media.

• Organisational responses to changes in in the external environment: shift from supply to demand environment; fashionisation of markets; micro-markets; rising expectations; technological change; competition; globalisation; importance of customer service; commoditisation; erosion of brands; new constraints.

• Strengths and weaknesses of marketing management in an organisational context: focus of marketing objectives, links to corporate strategy, speed of new product developments, ability to customise, ability to handle information to gain competitive advantage; e-marketing position, core focus, target markets, nature and potential of key market segments, partnerships with customers and other stakeholders, organisational structure, innovation strategies, timescales, resource requirements, budgets, monitoring, review and control mechanisms.

• Impact analysis: economic and psychographic impact, e.g. sales volume and value, costs, profitability, margins, shareholder value, brand recognition, customer loyalty and retention; digital marketing metrics, e.g. page views, bounce rate, exit rate, conversion rate, click through rate, new visitors, and average length of session.

All outcome criteria must be addressed for the learner to pass, all outcomes MUST be addressed adequately in the total submission for the Unit.