Stages in a Marketing Plan Essay -- Business Marketing Papers

Stages in a Marketing Plan This essay will present the stages of a marketing plan and critically evaluate the differences suggested by the leading authors. However it is vital to understand what marketing planning is. Although marketing planning would appear to be a simple and step-by-step process, in reality it is not. As marketing plans are very complex, cross functional and it touches every aspect of organizational life. However the stages of marketing planning will explain and explore some of these issues by focusing on the process of marketing planning. Marketing planning can be defined as a sensible way to manage the sales and marketing function is to find the systematic way of identifying a range of options, to choose one of them, then to schedule and cost out what has to be done to achieve the objectives. Marketing planning is the planned application of marketing resources to achieve marketing objectives; it is simply a logical sequence of a series of activities leading to the setting of marketing objectives and the formulation of plans for achieving them. Companies go through some kind of management process in developing marketing plans. Marketing planning is essential when considering the increasingly hostile and complex environment in which companies operate. Many external and internal factors interact in a complex way, which affect the ability to achieve profitable sales. The four typical examples, which companies set, are maximising revenue, maximising profit, maximising return on investment and minimising costs. Revenue is the monetary value received by a company for its goods or services. It is the net pric... ...d along by momentum. Also if the company's culture and management style are not supportive of marketing planning, then no improvements will occur. And also if the business is highly competitive, no improvements will be seen, however the company might fare much worse without a marketing plan. Common implementation problems of a marketing planning could be lack of a plan for planning, weak support from management, lack of resources, lack of information and also it could occur due to too much detail and being too far ahead. In today's increasingly competitive markets, there is a growing realization that success in the future will only come from meticulous planning and market preparation. Therefore having a marketing plan is useful as it is better to weigh up the costs of planning against the costs of not planning.