How to plan for marketing

The first step in planning for marketing is to determine certain market facts. How big is the total market for our kind of products? What share of this market do we now have? What unique or special factors work in our favor, such as unique features of our product, special advantages that the company may have?
This first step, establishing needed market facts, should be broken down in terms of customers, of goods available, of competition, and of the relative importance of these factors to the company. For example, in a customer-oriented firm it is likely that customers carry greater weight than would be the case in a company which still operated under the production philosophy. Raw materials and available supplies would be more important for the latter company.
Similarly, the relative position of the company determines the importance of competition: a company that dominates the field considers competition but not in the same light as a company that stands second or third, or tenth in the industry. In modern market plan¬ning, this step is called "making a market position au¬dit."
Having made this audit, and having established the true position of the firm in the market, we are ready for the second step, that of setting goals. For example, a company may determine that it wishes a 35 per cent in¬crease in sales and a 10 per cent improvement in profits five years hence. It may also determine that it wishes to improve its market share, especially in those areas where the company is doing below the national average.
A company may have 20 per cent of the total industry business nationally, but may do only 8 per cent in one area, and 39 per cent in another. Ideally, of course, each area should yield the same share of market. But this is seldom true in the actual practice. Competition, lack of company resources, lack of adequate manpower, lack of proper promotion, lack of proper channels of distribution, any or all of these may impede getting the company's rightful share in any one territory or region. Goals are set for each area so that we can determine what we have to do in each area to reach the goals.
The third step is to make a managerial inventory. No business runs itself. Without management (supervision and control), performance cannot be orderly or effective. How well is the present group of managers performing? How much more can present managers accomplish? What additional training is needed? What do we have to do to motivate sales and marketing managers to do their best? What additional managerial personnel do we need to reach marketing goals? What is the company policy with regard to promoting from within? Can we go outside for needed managerial personnel?
Having established requirements in terms of the personnel that will supervise the effort, we are ready for the next step: strategies and programs needed to reach the goals. There is always a choice of alternative methods. For example, suppose that a food company decides to introduce a line of gourmet foods. First of all, the officials of the company must consider such questions as the following: Shall they introduce these special foods through regular food stores? Shall they select food specialty stores? Shall they set up a group of stores of their own? How will each of these actions affect their regular business? Policy decisions must be made from among all the possible alternatives. Such decisions will influence the final results.
The executives' next step is to formulate the precise plan in terms of sequence of events. They will have to do several things over a period of time. They must plan what shall be done, when, and by whom. What duties and responsibilities will have to be delegated and to whom? What action will be needed, where, and when? What will be the cost of their actions? They must also plan how they will control and appraise the action in order to assure progress.
The actual program now has to be carried out. In doing this, the company's executives are again forced to make a series of decisions. How much of the proposed program will they install now? How much money and what resources will be allocated to this at present? How much will be marked for future use? What changes do they need in their organizational structure?
Finally, they have to establish some yardstick by which they can measure how close they are coming to attaining their goals. In this last step, they must control, watch, measure and improve. Obviously, this is a job of management. The top marketing executive has this re¬sponsibility, and he cannot delegate it.