The Definitive Guide to Strategic Marketing Planning

5 Essential Steps for a Successful Strategic Marketing Process

5 Essential Steps for a Successful Strategic Marketing Process
The strategic marketing process is a deliberate series of steps to help you identify and
reach your goals. Even more, you’ll discover what your customers want and develop
products that meet those needs. Here are the steps to a successful strategic marketing
process.
1. Mission
2. Situation Analysis
3. Marketing Strategy/Planning
4. Marketing Mix
5. Implementation and Control
Strategic marketing planning involves setting goals and objectives, analyzing internal
and external business factors, product planning, implementation, and tracking your
progress. Consider the example of Apple, winner of the CMO Survey Award for Marketing
Excellence for the past seven years. Here’s an example of the strategic marketing plan
for one of the most successful companies in the world.

Mission: Apple is dedicated to making innovative, high-quality products.

Situation Analysis: Apple’s competitive advantage is driven by its commitment to
understanding customer needs, focusing on the products that are core to its mission,
and fostering a collaborative work culture.
Marketing Strategy: Apple usually is first to the marketplace with new products and the
company relies on brand loyalty from existing customers as a strategy when launching
new products and services.
Marketing Mix: While Apple offers a range of products, it values premium pricing and
relies on strict guidelines for distribution.
Implementation and Control: Each Apple product complements the others and work
within the same ecosystem, so customers tend to stay with the brand, creating loyal
consumers.

The strategic marketing process puts all the pieces together so that everything you do
contributes to the success of your business. Rather than executing haphazard activities
and ideas, developing a solid plan that weaves goals and tactics into a seamless
experience is essential. You can follow these steps to create products and services that
will delight your customers and beat out your competitors.
Step One: Mission
First, identify and understand the company’s mission. Maybe it’s written down and
promoted throughout the organization. If not, talk to stakeholders to find out why your
company exists. A mission statement explains why a company is in business and how it
can benefit consumers. Sometimes, the mission statement is aspirational, motivating
staff and inspiring customers. Or it is simply a straightforward statement about who you
are. Either way, you can’t plan a marketing strategy without knowing clearly what
business you are in and why.

Here are some example mission statements:

Citigroup: Our goal for Citigroup is to be the most respected global financial services
company. Like any other public company, we’re obligated to deliver profits and growth to
our shareholders. Of equal importance is to deliver those profits and generate growth
responsibly.

IKEA: At IKEA, our vision is to create a better everyday life for many people. Our
business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional
home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able
to afford them.

Universal Health Services: To provide superior quality healthcare services that:

PATIENTS recommend to family and friends, PHYSICIANS prefer for their patients,
PURCHASERS select for their clients, EMPLOYEES are proud of, and INVESTORS seek
for long-term returns.

Unlike the other steps in the planning process, senior leaders or the board of directors
typically develop the mission statement and corporate objectives. Your role is to identify
those objectives in the planning process to ensure that your efforts stay aligned with
corporate leadership.

The mission statement is a core message that guides and influences your marketing
strategy. Questions to ask when evaluating the mission:
 Why is your company in business?
 What is the purpose of your business?
 What is the strategic influence for your business?
 What is the desired public perception for your business?
 How does your mission statement clarify your strategy?
 How does your mission statement unify your team?
Step Two: Situation Analysis
The second step of the strategic marketing process is to evaluate internal and external
factors that affect your business and market. Your analysis will illuminate your strengths
and the challenges you face — either with internal resources or with external competition
in the marketplace. Situation analysis provides a clear, objective view of the health of
your business, your current and prospective customers, industry trends, and your
company’s position in the marketplace.

There are several methods to conduct this analysis. A typical analysis is called a SWOT
analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors, under your company’s control. What do
you do well? What needs to be better? Opportunities and threats are external factors,
such as interest rates or a new competitor in the market. Here are some questions that
can help you identify internal and external factors:
 Strengths: What do you do well? What are the factors that you control? What is
your competitive advantage? How are your products and services superior to
others in the marketplace?
 Weakness: Where are you underperforming? What is limiting your ability to
succeed? Where do limited resources affect your success?
 Opportunities: What are untapped markets? Where is the potential for new
business? Can you take advantage of any market trends?
 Threats: What are the obstacles? Which external factors (political, technological,
economic) can cause a problem?
Download SWOT Analysis Template With Summary
WORD | Smartsheet
A 5C analysis (Company, Customers, Competitors, Collaborators, Climate) is another
way to evaluate the market environment. Like SWOT, it includes an internal analysis as
well as an exploration of external factors.
Here are some questions you can ask when working on a 5C analysis:
 Company: How successful are your product lines? What is your image in the
marketplace? How effectively are you achieving your goals? How does your
company’s culture affect your performance?
 Customers: Who is your audience and what is the market size? How much is your
customer base growing? What motivates customers to buy your product or
service? What are overall sales trends and how is the buying process changing?
  Competitors: Who are your direct, indirect, and future competitors? What are their
products and market shares? How are they positioned in the market? What are
their strengths and weaknesses?
 Collaborators: Who are your suppliers, distributors, partners, and agencies? How
can they help you grow your business? How does the stability of their business
affect the success of your business?
 Climate: What are the governmental policies and regulations that affect the
market? What economic factors (inflation, interest rates) are at play? What trends
influence your customers? What is the impact of technology on the demand for
your product or how could technology give you an advantage over your
competitors?
Download 5C Analysis Template
Excel | PDF
You can also conduct a PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological), which
is similar to the climate section of a 5C analysis. This method provides a comprehensive
analysis of external factors that could affect your company.
Here are some questions you can ask when performing a PEST analysis:
 Political: What laws and regulators affect consumers? What’s the impact of trade
regulations, employment laws, and tax guidelines? How stable are the foreign
markets and countries in which you sell products, contract with suppliers, or offer
services?
  Economic: How do interest rates, inflation, taxes, and exchange rates affect your
customers and your bottom line? What is the impact of the stock market on your
business? What are the local business cycles and overall economic growth?
 Social: What lifestyles and attitudes affect the buying habits of your consumers?
What are the demographics of your customers (age, gender, education, etc.)? How
are they changing?
 Technical: What patents, innovations and licenses can influence your company?
Which manufacturing trends can increase your production levels or drive down
costs? How can information technology help or hurt your product placement,
positioning, and promotion?
Download PEST Analysis Template
Excel | PDF
Your analysis, no matter which method you use, will help you list the most critical
problems and relevant opportunities, as well as show you how well your company can
tackle projects. Once you have a clear picture of your business, you can identify
potential markets and products.
Step Three: Marketing Plan
Now that you’ve identified opportunities through your analysis, you should prioritize and
map out which ones you are going to pursue. Writing a marketing plan will specify your
target customers and how you will reach them, and should also include a forecast of the
anticipated results. These questions can help:
 How will customers respond to your marketing efforts?
 How much will the plan cost?
 How will your competition respond?
The data from your market research and situation analysis will help you build these
projections into your plan.

Define Your Target Audience

Few companies can meet the needs and wants of the entire market. You want to split the
market into a segment that aligns best with your strengths and opportunities. Your goal
is to identify customers. You can select your target market by choosing all kinds of
characteristics, behaviors, and demographics. The important thing is to make sure the
audience is clearly defined and large enough to support your product or service.
Even though you may have some information about your customers based on your
situation analysis, you may need to conduct more research on their needs and wants.
With research, you can create detailed profiles or personas of your ideal customers. The
more you know about your target audience, the more effectively you can offer them value
through your product or service. Nothing matters more than how you make customers
feel about your company.

Set Measurable Goals

How will you know if your plan succeeds? You need specific, measurable goals with
milestones that measure your progress. Do you want to increase your sales? The goal
you set should specify how much you want to grow the sales number, and the timeframe
for meeting that target. Each goal should be actionable and attainable through tactics
you control. At this stage, avoid contingent goals, which are dependent on
circumstances beyond your control. With each goal, list the tactics or steps you will take
to achieve it. Combine simple, clear, and precise goals (whether it’s gaining customers,
improving brand recognition or something else) with a detailed plan that defines the
tactics to meet your goal. For more information on writing SMART (Specific, Measurable,
Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goals, read this article.

Identify and Set a Marketing Budget

Now it’s time to allocate the resources that will turn your plan into action. Your budget
will outline all the expected costs for implementing your marketing plan, including
advertising, online content, branding, public relations, staffing costs, and more.
Depending on the size of your budget, you may have to make some tough choices about
which goals and tactics are the top priorities. Or you may have to adjust your tactics until
you reach a budget that’s affordable. By creating the budget, you can finalize and stick to
your plan. For more help with marketing budgets, read 12 Free Marketing Budget
Templates.
Step Four: Developing Marketing Mix Decisions
At this stage of the strategic marketing process, it’s time to focus on the “how” of
planning. Your marketing mix is based on the 4Ps of marketing, including Product, Price,
Promotion, and Place. In 1960, E. J. McCarthy first expressed the 4Ps, and it is probably
the best-known way to describe the marketing mix. The 4Ps will guide the way you
convey the value of your product to your customers. You are positioning your product
and its competitive advantage. You need to be clear about what you are marketing:
convenience or quality? And you need to know who is likely to buy your product or
service.

By using the market research conducted in step two, you can develop the ideal
marketing mix for your target audience and the type of product or service you sell.
Although there are dozens of marketing channels, you will want to choose the tactics
that will reach your prospects when they’ll be most receptive to your message.
Product: A product is a good or service that meets the needs of your target market. Even
more, products solve problems. Whether you are developing a marketing plan for Coca-
Cola, a luxury hotel, or a cell phone, you have to know what problem it solves and why
your product is a unique solution. Make sure you have a clear understanding of all the
details of your product, including its features, branding, and packaging.
 What is the product or service?
 What does the customer want from it?
  What needs does it satisfy?
 What features does it have to meet these needs?
 How and where will the customer use it?
 How does it compare with similar products?
 Who are the competitors?
Price: The price is the amount of money your target market is willing to pay for your
product. Factors for price include any discounts, payment periods, and list price, as well
as how much it costs your company to produce the product. You also need to consider
overall marketplace conditions and your competition. How healthy is the economy? How
much are your competitors charging for a similar product? Do they have the same
business model?

The marketing message around your price depends on your market and your audience.
Maybe it’s a way to position your product in a crowded marketplace. It might be a
competitive advantage or a way of demonstrating the value of your product.
 What is the value of the product to the customer?
 Are there existing price points for similar products? If so, what are they?
 Will a small decrease give you extra market share? How much will that affect the
product’s perceived value?
 Will discounts to certain market segments be part of your strategy?
Promotion: The way you communicate with your target audience about the value and
benefit of your product is promotion. Think of promotion as an opportunity to educate
your customers about your products and services. You teach them the value of what you
offer and how your product meets their needs or solves their problem. There are
countless ways to educate them through marketing channels including direct marketing,
paid search and social, advertising, public relations, and sales promotions that create
brand awareness. This extends to almost every aspect of how you present the product to
your target market, and is everything that teaches your audience about your product or
brand.
 Where can you get your marketing messages across to your target market?
Options include advertising on TV and billboards, direct marketing, public
relations, sponsored events, and promotions. Consider the details you used when
segmenting your audience.
 What marketing channels does your target market use on a regular basis? Where
and when are they most ready to buy your product?
 When is the best time to promote?
 How do your competitors do their promotions?
Place: Consider place as product distribution or how you plan to get your product to
your customers and make the buying process easy. Place includes distribution channels,
outlets, and transportation to get the product to the target market.
 Where do customers look for your product? In a store? Online? Through a
catalogue?
 Do you need a sales force to reach customers or should you sell directly to your
target market?
 What are the best distribution channels?
 Where are your competitors reaching customers?
Step Five: Implementation and Control
Now it’s time to put your plan into action. Identify how and when you will launch your
plan. At this stage of the strategic marketing process, you will reach out to customers to
inform and persuade them about your product or service. Your next steps include getting
the resources (cash and staffing) to market your product, organizing the people who will
do the work, creating calendars to keep the work on track, and managing all the details
for each goal. It will help you stay focused and energized if you create monthly
benchmarks and projects, weekly action steps, and daily marketing appointments.

Remember, the strategic marketing process is dynamic. You need to regularly measure
and evaluate the results of your plan in order to succeed. This will help you see whether
you are accomplishing your goals and where you need to adjust tactics to improve your
results. This can include looking at revenue, sales, customer satisfaction, the number of
views your website receives, or other metrics. If the numbers aren’t meeting your
projections, you can make changes to get back on track.
You also need to monitor the actions of your competitors. How does the success of your
product affect the price of similar items on the market? Are new products being released
that could be perceived of greater value by your audience? Use this information to make
informed decisions about the 4Ps for your product.
What Is the Definition of Strategic Marketing?
A marketing plan establishes the goals and tactics of every marketing campaign. It keeps
everyone in your organization on the same page about the direction and purpose of your
marketing efforts. A marketing plan also provides a way for you to measure your
success. Without a plan, you won’t really know whether you’re succeeding.
While every individual campaign should have a plan, your company also needs a
strategic marketing plan to guide your overall efforts. A strategic plan identifies your
business goals, the marketplace in which you compete, your target audience, the ways
you want to reach them, and how you will evaluate your success. It integrates everything
you say and do to grow your company. A strategic marketing plan is not a static
document that gets tossed in a drawer once it’s written. Instead, a plan is a living
document that guides your work and is regularly updated to reflect changes in your
business, your customers, and your competition.
The process of developing a strategic marketing plan is crucial to your business. You
cannot create strategic marketing without strategic thinking. This planning helps you
clarify your goals and identify where you see your business in the future, which
ultimately strengthens your strategy. A strategic marketing planning process also helps
with:
 Providing a clear map of your company’s goals and how to achieve them.
 Getting all stakeholders to share a common goal and a have a common
understanding of your company’s opportunities and challenges.
 Identifying and meeting customer needs with the right products in the right
places.
 Growing your market share and product lines, leading to more revenue.
 Enabling smaller companies to compete with bigger firms.
One caution: A strategic marketing plan focuses on your goals for your products and
customers. The overall business plan, which outlines all of your company’s goals,
should support the marketing plan. If they don’t work together, neither plan will succeed.

What Problems Should You Anticipate in the Strategic Marketing Process

Every manager knows to expect the best but plan for the worst. In the marketing
planning process, here are some challenges you may face:
 Confusing Strategy with Tactics: A strategic marketing plan outlines your larger
goal. Sometimes, this can be confused with a tactical marketing plan. The
difference between the two is that the strategy identifies your goals and objectives
and the tactical marketing plan outlines the details for how you’ll reach those
goals. Your strategy may be a larger goal, such as increasing your market share.
Tactics are the action steps, such as lowering your prices, so more people buy
your product. A successful plan needs both, implemented at the proper stage of
the process.
 Lack of Resources: Maybe your goal is to increase sales, but you don’t have the
workforce to meet all the incoming orders. Perhaps you don’t have the resources
to hire experienced people who can adequately staff the marketing pipeline. The
strategic planning process will help you identify the resources you have and the
best way to put them to work for the good of the company.
 Assumptions About Your Customers: Market research can help you identify your
target audience. Sometimes the audience changes, and your planning process
should include steps for adjusting to the evolving tastes of consumers.
How Do Specific Marketing Processes Work?
The steps of the strategic marketing process (mission, situation analysis, marketing
plan, marketing mix, and implementation and control) are different than the process for a
specific marketing effort. Specific efforts may support one goal or business line, but the
strategic process supports the entire mission of your organization.
Target Marketing Process

Target marketing identifies the specific market segments that will help your business
grow. The three main activities of target marketing are segmenting, targeting, and
positioning. Organizations use this S-T-P approach to pinpoint the best prospective
customers.
 Segmenting: Segmenting divides the overall market into smaller groups based on
demographics, geography, lifestyle or behavioral approaches.
 Targeting: Choose the segment of potential customers that offers the most
business opportunity for you.
 Positioning: The final step is to position your product in a way that will appeal to
the needs of your target audience and encourage them to buy your product.
Content Marketing Process
Content marketers generate demand for a product by generating a steady flow of content
that focuses on the problems and desires of potential and current customers. Here are
the five steps of the content marketing process:
 Plan: Develop a plan that specifies the details of creating, publishing, distributing,
and measuring a content marketing program.
 Create: Take key ideas and themes, and turn them into raw material.
 Publish: Turn raw material into various kinds of content assets, including articles,
blog posts, whitepapers, online events, videos, printed documents, and podcasts.
 Distribute: Use a range of promotional tactics to distribute content assets.
  Analyze: Track and measure the results so you can publish more effective content
in the future.
Product Marketing Process
The product marketing process is the pipeline from strategy to implementation for a
product marketing campaign. To be successful, this process focuses on making sure the
product continues to meet the needs of customers throughout the product cycle. Here
are the stages of this process:
 Product: Research new ideas for meeting customer needs from a wide variety of
sources, including customer feedback, sales requests, and competitor products.
 Reach: Work with other departments to implement new ideas and develop
marketing plans to deliver new products to consumers.
 Audience: Track response through metrics and direct customer feedback.
 Pricing: Prioritize innovation based on the customer value, the cost of
implementing them, and the revenue they will generate.
Inbound Marketing Process

Inbound marketing draws prospective customers to your product by providing useful

and quality content that entices them to find out more. The inbound approach includes
content marketing, social strategies, and search engine optimization, all tactics that
bring your target audience to you. It’s different than outbound marketing, a traditional
approach in which you advertise your product or service, typically through television and
radio, print ads, and direct mail. Here’s how inbound marketing works:
 Attract and Engage: Create targeted content that answers your customers’
questions and be readily available online. This includes blog content, a social
 media presence, keywords that guide prospective customers to your site when
they are searching for answers, and a well-designed and helpful website.
 Convert: Get more information about your prospective customers so you can
guide them through the sales funnel. Start collecting details about your customers
through sign-up forms and landing pages, email newsletters, ebooks,
whitepapers, and tip sheets. The key is to deliver targeted marketing to the right
audience at the right time.
 Close: Once you’ve collected detailed information about your prospective
customers, you can customize the marketing that leads them to buy your product
or service. This includes email messaging, which is typically done using
marketing automation software that responds to the actions of a prospective
customer.
 Delight: While an immediate goal may be the sale of one product, your strategic
goals focus on brand loyalty and long-term value. In this stage, you should be
staying in touch with your customers, monitoring the conversations on social
media, asking for feedback through surveys, and finding ways to provide rewards
for customer loyalty.
Email Marketing Process
Email marketing is one of the most powerful drivers of sales for many businesses. It has
an advantage over direct mail because you can track and measure your results, and it
tends to be less expensive than other marketing channels. Here’s an overview of the
email marketing process:
 Define: Identify your goals and your audience. Base the content of your email on
who you want to reach and what you want them to do.
 Test: Email marketing has a range of variables that can affect the performance of
your campaign. You need to choose the best design, content, and format for the
message you want to send.
 Send: Email is one of the largest drivers of sales for many products. Each email
you send has to align with your brand, connect with your audience, and offer a
clear call to action.
 Measure and Report: You want to understand how people interact with each
campaign. Track the open rate for your email, the number of clicks through to
your site, and when they read your marketing. This data will help you create a
more effective campaign next time.
How Is Marketing Automation Changing the Strategic Marketing Process?
Marketing automation is about software that streamlines, automates, and measures
marketing processes and tasks. It reduces the amount of manual effort and tracking that
marketing campaigns require. Automation makes your marketing, and your company,
more efficient, effective, and profitable. Whether you have a small company or a large
organization, you can gain a competitive edge by automating your ability to target your
audience and track and measure your results. Here’s how:
 Marketing automation helps you nurture prospects for the long-term. Automation
connects multiple digital channels, including social media, email, and content
marketing. You can create and deliver a comprehensive plan in which every
consumer touch point is optimized for conversion.
 Marketing automation makes your communication stronger. Once you’ve
collected user data, you can add dynamic content that adds personal touches to
your campaign. You’re not blasting customers with broad or irrelevant advertising
messages. Instead, you’re guiding prospects through the sales funnel. With every
action by your prospective customer, you can automate a response.
 Marketing automation can help your company find an effective approach for email
campaigns. You can test different variables like email send times, subject lines,
and ideas for personalization.
 Marketing automation improves your ability to segment your customers. As you
gather data about their behavior, interests, and demographics, you can refine your
messaging.
  Marketing automation helps you listen to your customers. You can map sales
cycles, collect email data (unsubscribe rates, open rates, spam complaints), and
customer service feedback.
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