How Do a Marketing Plan and a Strategic Marketing Plan Fit Together?
The discipline of marketing is concerned with four main areas of business: product, price, distribution and promotion. Within those four areas of marketing, a strategic plan should be developed to map out strategies for meeting challenges and opportunities in the marketplace.
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Company Needs Dictate Strategy
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The basic product of most companies rarely if ever changes. Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, for example, has gone unchanged for over 100 years. Thus, no strategic plan or course of action would really be needed for Arm & Hammer, the product.
The company might, however, want to raise its price the coming year due to an increase in its cost of goods to make the product. Thus, a strategic plan would need to be developed in the pricing area. The plan would need to ascertain how much to increase price, provide a rationale for the increase, and anticipate marketplace reaction from stores and consumers. New pricing might warrant new advertising messages, so a strategic promotion plan would need to be developed.
Annual Marketing Plan
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Every company should develop an annual marketing plan to map out challenges and opportunities that the business will undertake during the upcoming year. To be complete, the marketing plan should cover the four main areas, even if no substantive changes will be undertaken. Within certain areas and depending on company needs, a detailed strategic plan would need to be developed.
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Sales Objective
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The overarching goal of for-profit enterprises is sales. Thus, a sales goal is established and a marketing plan is developed to accomplish the sales goal. The marketing plan would identify broad objectives and goals--quantified, if possible. To sell 10 percent more widgets might be a company's sales goal. In order to achieve that sales goal, strategic decisions would need to be made that might touch on all areas of marketing.
The detailed plans of action to accomplish the overarching sales goal in each of the marketing areas would constitute the company's strategic plan. The strategic plan would first outline individual objectives for the product, pricing, distribution, and promotion areas of marketing. The strategic plan would also detail the exact tactical programs that would be employed to accomplish those objectives.
Plan Strategies and Tactics
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The product may need to be improved in some way. Improvements made to the product might mitigate new pricing, which would need to be evaluated against competitor's pricing and marketplace demand. The product's distribution may need to be expanded to get more outlets for making those higher sales. The promotional plan may require that new ads be created, new media outlets evaluated and more dollars spent to deliver on planned strategies.
Tactical Implementation
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The strategic plan is then mapped to a calendar, so a manager can see the flow of tactical activities designed to achieve the various marketing objectives, noting any gaps in the plan that should be filled with activity. This calendar guides the work of the manager for the next year.
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