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The Marketing Plan Handbook by Alexander Churner outlines a comprehensive, step- by-step approach to crafting a logical and effective marketing plan that will produce results. It outlines the basic principles of writing a marketing plan and puts emphasis on marketing as a value-management process. He states that marketing plans don’t have to be lengthy but needs to contain a need-to-know information and not so much nice-to-know information; he states this is not directly related to the decision at hand. He breaks down the marketing plan in eight parts: Executive Summary,
Situation Analysis, Goal, Strategy, Tactics, Implementation, Control and Exhibits. The Executive Summary is a non-ethical statement at the beginning of a plan that is designed to encapsulate the reason for the plan. It should be short and businesslike-??and needs to state the goals and proposed action. It consists of an introduction, situation overview, goals, action overview, and conclusion. It will present the product or service being marketed and the primary purpose of the plan. In addition, it will identify the opportunities and/or threats in the company’s performance.
It will also outline the strategy, tactics, implementation, and control of the plan. The conclusion will focus on the customers’ needs and identify the collaborators and their strategic goals while providing the competition that provides a similar product or service. The Situation Analysis is a systematic collection and evaluation of past and present economic, political, social, and technological data that will identify the internal and external forces that may influence the organizations performance and choice of strategies.
It will also assess the organizations current ND future strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The Goals are then set by involving two steps which are identifying the focus of the company’s actions and defining the benchmarks to be reached. This may consist of sub goals set by the company which are focuses on customers, collaborators, competitive, and context goals. The Strategy aspect of the plan is a long-term course of actions to optimize allocation of the resources at the disposal of the firm in delivering superior customer experiences and promote the interests of other stakeholders.
It should also be linked with the firm’s mission and values. It is important to have a strategy so you know where you’re going, what you will need to get there, how long it will take, where the dangers are, and your potential mistakes. . The Tactics part of the plan defines the relevant product and service characteristics; this includes the pricing of the product and how the information is communicated to the target market, stakeholders, and company personnel. The implementation section outlines the organizational structure of the business unit and its relationship with the collaborators.
It will define the business process involved in implementing the strategies and tactics of the company while outlining the implementation schedule. The implementation phase outlines the organizational structure of the unit and defines the process involved in the execution of strategies and tactics. The control The Marketing Plan Handbook By goggling The Marketing Plan Handbook By: Alexander Churner portion then identities the criteria tort evaluating the company’s performance and progress towards the goals and the metrics for evaluating the environment in which the company operates.
Furthermore the exhibits in the plan provide additional information that illustrates particular aspects of the marketing plan. This can include market research, financial data, and project management. This can come with a short summary. Criticism by Danville Long Even though Churner states that marketing plans are too lengthy and have too much irrelevant information, even with his outline I find that it is still too long and redundant. For example, in the situation analysis section of the marketing plan, he has us define the target market and the target market’s needs.
Furthermore, he has us write it again under the strategy section, which I feel to be repetitive. I also find that the value proposition is information that is provided again under the tactics section of the offering marketing mix. In the value propositioning, you give the product functional, monetary, and psychological value. This will describe the benefits and attributes of the product. Therefore, focus in the tactics section should just remain the price, incentives, communication, and distribution. I do find that what is the actual written plan is repeated in the exhibits.
Most exhibits will show a breakdown of your target market by race, income, and location. The financial aspect will be shown in graphs and bar charts, showing pricing, expenses, gains, and losses. The demographics will be shown with maps and how much of area a company covers along with its competition. However it is in my criticism that the author does provide a basic structure for the marketing plan, but you will find yourself repeating the same information over and over again. This would only be filler and give a false impression of how much time was spent on researching relevant data.