A step-by-step approach to organizing the marketing function can help even non-marketing businesspersons to ensure that no critical step is overlooked. At each step, they can seek outside help if they do not have the requisite capabilities.

Identify Your Market

Markets are typically segmented into customer groups with differing requirements. By selecting a group whose requirements you can serve better, you can enhance your competitive strength.

A day-to-day example is the local store in a small suburb. Unlike Wal-Mart and others who seek to sell to the whole world, the local store focuses on a customer segment consisting of local persons. It can differentiate itself through personalized attention and other extra services to its customers.

Another example is selling hobby supplies over the Web to a wide market. In this case, the local market might be too small to generate profitable volumes. And the national market might be too small to attract the attention of the big players, leaving the field open to smaller businesses.

You can identify a niche market by looking out for under-served groups of customers. New such groups might arise owing the ever changing environment. For example, as the numbers of aged population grows owing to better healthcare, a market for home services can emerge in a locality.

Decide on a Competitive Strategy

As you study the market, you would gain insights into the strengths and strategies of competitors. Through purposeful observation, you can become aware of the pricing and promotional tactics that the competitors adopt. Using techniques like value chain analysis, you can find ways to utilize your core competencies and strengths to develop a strategy to compete in the market.

As an example, you might find that your competitors are big organizations who do not provide satisfactory support to their small customers. You might develop a strategy to target these small customers and provide them a degree of support that delights them. You will work with this group of prospects and develop ways to do this in a cost-effective manner.

Incidentally, in the above scenario, you might decide to focus on the niche area of just providing support to the bigger organizations’ smaller customers. That would be identifying a new market to exploit.

Select a Marketing Mix

Marketing is a combination of different elements. For example:

• You can focus on the PRODUCT and differentiate it clearly from competing products. For example, you can develop a product that meets user expectations in a superior manner, or have additional functionalities.
• You might decide to compete on PRICE by finding ways to reduce your costs through, say a Value Engineering exercise.
• You might be able to compete by making the product available at a PLACE more convenient to the customer than competing products. This is usually done by working on the distribution channels. Selling the product over the Web and delivering overnight at buyers’ homes, for example, can not only delight your customer but might also save on distribution costs.
• You can also compete through better PROMOTION by implementing a mix of promotional tactics (out of the innumerable options available) that work together to create greater acceptability for your product compared to competing products, or to position it as a premium product able to command a higher price.

You can also select a mix of these marketing elements that meets the requirements of the competitive environment and is better suited to the resources available to you.

Develop a Marketing Plan

A marketing plan translates all the ideas and tactics into an actionable program that spells out the WHAT, WHO, WHEN, WHERE and HOW in measurable terms. The associated costs are also estimated so that it can be ensured that implementing the plan is feasible with the financial resources available to the business.

The marketing plan should include the following as a minimum, with a focus on specifics rather than general discussions:

• Description of the product, market and competition to provide a perspective.
• Description of the marketing strategy in terms of the marketing mix, outlining the specific actions to be taken to implement the decisions.
• Cost estimates for taking the actions specified as above and estimates of expected results.

Implement the Marketing Plan

The marketing plan is converted into a project schedule with to-do lists and time targets for each. The implementation must be monitored by accumulating data on completed activities and results, and comparing these with the plan benchmarks. By analyzing the deviations between the benchmarks and actual performance, it will be possible to identify immediate steps to be taken to improve results.

Analyzing the deviations between plans and performance will also provide invaluable insights for the next round of planning. It is in this way that the inevitable gap between plans and performance is narrowed.

Conclusion

A step by step approach to organizing the marketing setup can focus the attention of the business on all the key issues, such as selecting a niche market that it can serve best, looking at the competitive scenario, identifying the best promotional tactics and developing a feasible marketing plan and monitoring its implementation.
Identify your market, decide on a competitive strategy, select a marketing mix, develop a marketing plan and implement the plan effectively, and succeed.
Identify your market, decide on a competitive strategy, select a marketing mix, develop a marketing plan and implement the plan effectively, and succeed.
Identify your market, decide on a competitive strategy, select a marketing mix, develop a marketing plan and implement the plan effectively, and succeed.
Identify your market, decide on a competitive strategy, select a marketing mix, develop a marketing plan and implement the plan effectively, and succeed.
Identify your market, decide on a competitive strategy, select a marketing mix, develop a marketing plan and implement the plan effectively, and succeed.