introduction to Customer Relationship

Customer-Driven Marketing

A customer is a person or organization that transacts with businessperson or business

organization to buy goods or services for monetary or other valuable consideration.
Acquiring and keeping customers is the end goal of businesses because customers
create demand. Through customers' purchases, organizations are able to cover
manufacturing costs, operating expenses, and generate profits. Because businesses
have to be sustainable, products or services are not expected to be purchased only
once. They need to be purchased over and over again in order to maintain profitable
and sustainable operations.
Consumables such as soft drinks and candy are bought frequently. Other products like
shopping goods are purchased less frequently. A mobile phone may be bought once
every year, and a car, perhaps every five years. Real estate and properties may be
purchased every 10-15 years, or even longer.
Because customers have varying needs and preferences over time, organizations must
be able to offer products and services at the time when customers need them.
Marketers cannot force the customers to buy any products or services that the company
offers. Instead, consumer needs and wants must be understood and anticipated, as well
as be satisfied adequately and exceedingly. Companies must predict customer needs.
Since there are other businesses that offer the same product or service to the same
customers, companies outdo each other in terms of value offering. Once an individual
becomes a customer, everything must be done to ensure that the customer is kept and
retained.
Customers wield tremendous influence over other people. A satisfied customer shares
his experience with relatives and friends, which can result in additional sales. On the
other hand, when a customer is not satisfied, the experience he shares will dissuade
other people from purchasing the product. This is particularly important as the popularity
of social media magnifies these positive and negative experiences.
When choosing from several vendors, what does the customer consider in his purchase
decision? This is when customer service is essential.
Call center representatives is one of the most in demand jobs in the Philippines where
they assist customers with online transactions and/or reservations, product information,
and many others as via telecommunication.

Customer Service

Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or

service. Customer service can take on many forms—salesperson assistance, product
delivery, technical advice, help desks, or other means. It involves activities designed to
enhance customer satisfaction, or the perception that a product has met or exceeded
expectations. This perception can be shaped and influenced by the level and type of
service that customers receive before, during, and after the actual purchase. Good
customer service can cause customers to perceive the value offered superior over its
competitors. This is because a customer not only buys a product and service, but also
the entire purchase or shopping experience.
The value of customer service is evident in the local setting. As Philippine organizations
become involved with ASEAN and global business, the importance of service quality
increases. Due to exposure to western practices, Filipino consumers are becoming
more sophisticated and discriminating. They are also more demanding in level of
service that they receive. Filipinos believe that their service demands are reasonable.
This is because the cost of labor in the Philippines is comparatively lower than other
countries. As a result, businesses have, over the years, launched programs to satisfy
increasing customer service needs.
Customer service may be quite easy for small businesses and start-up operations.
However, as business expands, resources are strained and are spread thinly. It
becomes easier to ignore services to customers. Customer service is crucial at this
stage to ensure the sustainability of the business.

Customer Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process of managing an organization's

interactions with current and future customers. The rationale for CRM is the recognition
that companies can sustain long-term profitability by attracting and maintaining their
most valuable customers. These are customers that can directly or indirectly generate
the greatest revenues and financial returns. But how can these customers be identified?
This can be done through the use of consumer databases.
Initially, marketing companies create and maintain customer databases that record and
keep the following information: customer names, birthdates, contact numbers, and
physical and email addresses. The information progresses to include customers' buying
history and behavior, i.e., what they buy, when and where they buy, in what quantities
and prices, and their responses to sales promotion efforts.
While most consumers may not be willing to share personal information, product
retailers utilize different strategies to coax customers into sharing. A common practice is
through a shopper's club. Benefits of joining the club include earning points on
purchases or participation in in-store contests. The customer swipes his membership
card, at check-out counter every time he/she shops. This updates his/her purchasing
history. The information can yield customer purchased value, preferences, and buying
habits, among others.
Among some coffee shops and specialty stores, customers are encouraged to drop
business card into a glass bowl strategically located beside the counter. To encourage
participation, some stores give incentives by way of weekly or monthly raffles. Others
depend on customer responses on service feedback forms that stores request
customers to fill after a shopping or dining experience.

Customer database information is also used in customer segmentation and profiling.

Through databases, businesses can have a precise identification of their customer
base. These information could include the geographical area of their residence or work,
the distance they are willing to travel to shop, their age profiles, and occupations.
Knowing the customer's date of birth can reinforce relationship with the customer. It is
common for loyal customers to receive greetings from stores. Email addresses can be
used to update customers on new merchandise, promotional offers, and other store
activities.
Customer shopping history can be used to accurately identify the type of merchandise
frequently purchased, the amount spent, the preferred days for shopping, etc.
Promotions can be personalized as customers will only receive those that truly interest
them and are most likely to purchase.

Customer Lifetime Value

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the forecasted sales or profits that a company can
derive from the entire span of the future relationship with a particular customer.
A customer's lifetime value can be based upon the potential value and profitability of
their relationship with the company.
The CLV perspective has several distinct implications:
• It considers a longer-term perspective of a company's relationship with customers in
contrast to a short-term view of "take the customer's money and run."
• It calculates and compares costs of acquiring new customers and keeping old ones.
This can be used to determine the revenues that are lost when an existing customer
switches to another product. Costs for getting new customers are called acquisition
costs, whereas, costs for maintaining existing customers are called retention costs.
These are normally in the form of customer support and promotional incentives.
• It highlights the importance of market segmentation, with the recognition that some
customer groups are more profitable than others.
Successful Customer Relationship
Management Strategies

Successful Customer Relationship Management Strategies The following are effective

guidelines in the implementation of customer relationship management:
1. Adopt the right mindset towards customer service If product improvement is not anymore
effective, businesses turn to customer service. Investments in customer service will not strain,
but will instead improve a company's finances over time. Customer service is the provision of
service to the customer before, during, and after a purchase. It may be in a form of innovation,
pricing scheme, extra services, customer feedback mechanism, or staff trainings that aims to
promote customer satisfaction. An excellent customer satisfaction rating enhances a service or a
product's features.
2. Purchase or develop CRM software Through CRM, a company manages a
company's interaction with current and future customers with ease. CRM often involves
the use of technology to organize, automate, and synchronize sales and marketing with
customer service and technical support. A CRM software should have service-oriented
features based on customer needs. It should provide solutions to easy and complicated
problems, address customer requirements, and facilitate communication between the
company and its present and future clients.
Creating and maintaining customer databases is necessary and essential in Customer
Relation Management. Although customer information can be maintained manually, the
volume of work involved is tedious and cumbersome. Available software can create and
maintain customer database in real time. Moreover, companies may engage services of
software engineers to create custom-made applications to fit the company's
requirements.
3. Quantify customer acquisition and retention costs Using CLV, the total cost for acquiring or
retaining a customer can be calculated and determined. CLV can also be a guide in selective
product discounting.
4. Develop and implement a customer service training program The customers are the life-blood
of any business. This makes customer service critically important. Customers expect to get what
they pay for. Satisfaction is key. Keeping the customer satisfied should be the goal of the
company because this makes customers purchase over and over again. To develop, maintain, and
expand business, a Customer Service Skills program can be developed to instill a customer-
driven behavior among all employees.
Implement a training program that commits the entire organization to customer
relationship management. Make every functional department understand their vital role
in CRM. Skills such as listening skills, conflict resolution, customer needs anticipation,
and empathy should be acquired. A customer who has a concern would prefer talking to
a person who has already gained his trust.
5. Empower salespersons to make decisions The salesperson is the person most
responsible for sealing the deal with a customer. A salesperson should be empowered
to make instantaneous decision while with a customer or potential customer. Set
parameters for salespersons. Empower them to address customer's problems.
6. Establish communication lines between your customer and customer contact
staff. Communication is essential for CRM strategies. Personalize and humanize the
business and its atmosphere. Make sure to require the sales contact personnel to
introduce themselves to the customers. Customers prefer living and breathing sales
people over cold and themselves to customers. Oftentimes, a customer who has a
concern or inquiry would prefer talking to a salesperson who has already gained his
trust.
7. Shop your competition Keep track of what competitors are doing in the area of
customer service. Adopt their good practices to stay ahead of the game.
8. Keep innovating customer service Never be satisfied with the level of your service. Try to
discover how the organization can make experience of customers better. Keep customer service
costs in check by occasionally doing cost-benefit analysis.
9.Promote genuine customer service with a passion Customers can easily discern if
customer service is insincere. Customer contact personnel must internalize that the
customer is the actual source of their livelihood.
Introduction to Product
Development

Product development typically refers to all of the stages involved in bringing a product
from concept or idea through market release and beyond. In other words, product
development incorporates a product’s entire journey.
There are many steps to this process, and it’s not the same path for every organization,
but these are the most common stages through which products typically progress:

 Identifying a market need—Products solve problems. Identifying a problem that

needs solving (or a better way of being solved) is where this journey should begin.
Conversations with potential customers, surveys, and other user research activities
can inform this step.
 Quantifying the opportunity—Not every problem is problematic enough to warrant
a product-based solution. The pain it causes and the number of people or
organizations it impacts can determine whether it’s a worthy problem to solve and if
people are willing to pay for a solution (be it with money or their data).
 Conceptualizing the product—Some solutions may be obvious, while others may
be less intuitive. Here’s where the team puts in the effort and applies their creativity
to devising how a product might serve its needs.
 Validating the solution—Before too much time is spent prototyping and design,
whether the proposed solution is viable should be tested. This can still happen at the
conceptual level. Still, it is an early test to see whether the particular product idea is
worth pursuing further or if it will be rejected or only lightly adopted by the target
user.
 Building the product roadmap—With a legitimate product concept in
hand, product management can build out the product roadmap, identifying which
themes and goals are central to develop first to solve the most significant pain points
and spark adoption.
 Developing a minimum viable product (MVP)—This initial version of the product
needs just enough functionality to be used by customers.
 Releasing the MVP to users—Experiments can be conducted to gauge interest,
prioritize marketing channels and message, and begin testing the waters around
price sensitivity and packaging. It also kicks off the feedback loop to bring ideas,
complaints, and suggestions into the prioritization process and populate the product
backlog.
 Ongoing iteration based on user feedback and strategic goals—With a product
in the market, enhancements, expansions, and changes will be driven by the user
feedback being collected via various channels. Over time the product roadmap will
evolve based on this learning and the objectives the company sets for this product.
This work never ends until it’s finally time to sunset a product at the end of its
lifecycle.

Product Development Does Not

Mean Product Management
When you understand product development this way, you can see that it is not
synonymous with product management, although many people mistakenly use the
terms interchangeably. Indeed, product development does not refer to a single role at
all.
In some organizations, “product development” may be shorthand for the implementation
team, comprised primarily of developers, engineers, and possibly quality assurance.
But, when it comes to the house’s personnel side, it should instead view it as more of an
overall process or method for bringing products to market, which involves many teams
across a company, including:

 Product management
 Product marketing
 Project management
 Agile management (Scrum masters, product owners, etc.)
 Architecture
 Design
 UI/UX
 Development/Engineering
 Manufacturing
 Testing or QA
 Shipping/Distribution
Essentially, it encompasses everyone involved from idea generation through to
customer delivery. Each of these groups plays an essential role in the process, defining,
designing, building, testing, or delivering the product.

How to Create a Product

Development Plan
How to Create a Product Development Plan
Not to be confused with a project plan, a product development plan encompasses the
overarching journey from idea to market. It should include and engage as many
stakeholders as possible to ensure all of their specific needs, requirements, and
concerns are being considered (if not addressed).
It begins with a product vision, which aligns everyone around the shared objective for
this product. This is followed by a product mission—the ultimate purpose of the product,
who it is for, and what it does for them. It establishes some guiding principles for the
work to come.
With product vision and mission statements in hand, primary goals for the product can
be established. These may be a little fuzzier in the early stages, such as finding
product-market fit, but they can rapidly evolve into measurable KPIs or OKRs. These
measurable targets help shape which features, enhancements, and capabilities the
product needs to achieve them.
Assuming customer research and validation has already occurred, the product team can
then craft a product roadmap, prioritizing the significant themes to be addressed (we’ll
dive further into product roadmaps next). Date-based milestones and targets can be
established, but there should be a minimal focus on dates and maximum attention paid
to creating value and adapting to the product goals and performance against key
metrics.
Once the product roadmap is agreed upon, it’s time to make things happen.
Implementation teams can create schedules, break down significant themes into sprints,
and begin generating iterations of the product. This creates a feedback loop from
customers, the sales team, and support, identifying new opportunities, pointing out
shortcomings, and shining a light on areas to hone, improve, and expand.
From here, it’s a cycle of reviewing data, synthesizing feedback, and continually
updating the product roadmap while grooming the product backlog to ensure every
development cycle is utilized for maximum impact.
How the Product Roadmap Fits
into Product Development
As you begin your product development process—whether you start at the
conceptualization stage or by first trying to identify and validate a market need—you will
want to have a system in place for prioritizing, summarizing, and capturing your
product’s key objectives and significant themes.
The ideal tool for this early-stage planning is a product roadmap that is preferably
designed to strategically and visually convey your high-level product. Why is it essential
to build your roadmap visually? There are several reasons to do so, but here are the
two primary benefits:
1. With a visual product roadmap, you and your team can more easily refer back to the
product strategy you agreed on and quickly reacquaint yourself with those high-level
objectives to make sure you’re still on track.

Contrast this visual, easy-to-review roadmap with a typical spreadsheet-based

roadmap loaded with features and to-do items arranged in no particular order, and you
can understand why dedicated road mapping software makes all the difference.
2. A visually appealing roadmap can also help a product manager present its strategic
goals and plans in a more compelling way to the company’s executives and other key
stakeholders.
Earning this buy-in is often necessary to secure organizational approval to move ahead
with new product development, so it makes sense to give your product roadmap every
advantage you can before presenting it to your stakeholders.

Agile Product Development

Agile product development is another term you might hear often. This simply refers to
the familiar product development concept we described in the introduction—all steps
involved in delivering a product to the market—but including agile software development
principles, such as rapid iteration based on user feedback.
(Links to an external site.)
(Links to an external site.)
The benefit of the agile framework is that it allows an organization to shorten the cycle
from brainstorming through actually launching a product—because the product team
intentionally pushes out versions of the product (starting with its early-stage MVP) much
more quickly and with much fewer updates and improvements in each release. This
allows for the team to enlist the feedback of actual users to make the product better
incrementally.

A Second (and More Literal)

Definition of Product Development
Finally, you might also encounter a far more narrow definition of product development,
describing the product’s actual development: This would be the coding stage in software
or manufacturing in a physical product).
When it comes to software, development teams can create and maintain their product
development roadmaps to prioritize, summarize, and communicate their plans to build
and ultimately release the product. For example, below is a product development
roadmap template that your team can use to stay on track during the actual
development process.
Product development is the hard part. It’s where bright ideas collide with reality. It’s
where utopian visions of the future crash into the limitations of technology and
headcount. It’s what separates dreamers from doers.
To avoid a promising product vision from faltering in the face of challenging work and
difficult hurdles, roadmap strategies should be tightly coupled with Agile planning to
optimize the work being done.

What is Strategic Marketing?

What Is the Definition of Strategic Marketing?
A marketing plan establishes the goals and tactics of every marketing campaign. It
keeps everyone in your organization on the same page about the direction and purpose
of your marketing efforts. A marketing plan also provides a way for you to measure your
success. Without a plan, you won’t really know whether you’re succeeding.
While every individual campaign should have a plan, your company also needs a
strategic marketing plan to guide your overall efforts. A strategic plan identifies your
business goals, the marketplace in which you compete, your target audience, the ways
you want to reach them, and how you will evaluate your success. It integrates
everything you say and do to grow your company. A strategic marketing plan is not a
static document that gets tossed in a drawer once it’s written. Instead, a plan is a living
document that guides your work and is regularly updated to reflect changes in your
business, your customers, and your competition.
The process of developing a strategic marketing plan is crucial to your business. You
cannot create strategic marketing without strategic thinking. This planning helps you
clarify your goals and identify where you see your business in the future, which
ultimately strengthens your strategy. A strategic marketing planning process also helps
with:

 Providing a clear map of your company’s goals and how to achieve them.
 Getting all stakeholders to share a common goal and a have a common
understanding of your company’s opportunities and challenges.
 Identifying and meeting customer needs with the right products in the right places.
 Growing your market share and product lines, leading to more revenue.
 Enabling smaller companies to compete with bigger firms.

One caution: A strategic marketing plan focuses on your goals for your products and
customers. The overall business plan, which outlines all of your company’s goals,
should support the marketing plan. If they don’t work together, neither plan will succeed.

What Problems Should You Anticipate in the Strategic Marketing Process

Every manager knows to expect the best but plan for the worst. In the marketing
planning process, here are some challenges you may face:

 Confusing Strategy with Tactics: A strategic marketing plan outlines your larger
goal. Sometimes, this can be confused with a tactical marketing plan. The difference
between the two is that the strategy identifies your goals and objectives and the
tactical marketing plan outlines the details for how you’ll reach those goals. Your
strategy may be a larger goal, such as increasing your market share. Tactics are the
action steps, such as lowering your prices, so more people buy your product. A
successful plan needs both, implemented at the proper stage of the process.
 Lack of Resources: Maybe your goal is to increase sales, but you don’t have the
workforce to meet all the incoming orders. Perhaps you don’t have the resources to
hire experienced people who can adequately staff the marketing pipeline. The
strategic planning process will help you identify the resources you have and the best
way to put them to work for the good of the company.
 Assumptions About Your Customers: Market research can help you identify your
target audience. Sometimes the audience changes, and your planning process
should include steps for adjusting to the evolving tastes of consumers.

Strategic Marketing Process

5 Essential Steps for a Successful Strategic
Marketing Process
The strategic marketing process is a deliberate series of steps to help you identify and
reach your goals. Even more, you’ll discover what your customers want and develop
products that meet those needs. Here are the steps to a successful strategic marketing
process.

1. Mission
2. Situation Analysis
3. Marketing Strategy/Planning
4. Marketing Mix
5. Implementation and Control
Strategic marketing planning involves setting goals and objectives, analyzing internal
and external business factors, product planning, implementation, and tracking your
progress. Consider the example of Apple, winner of the CMO Survey Award for
Marketing Excellence for the past seven years. Here’s an example of the strategic
marketing plan for one of the most successful companies in the world.

Mission: Apple is dedicated to making innovative, high-quality products.

Situation Analysis: Apple’s competitive advantage is driven by its commitment to
understanding customer needs, focusing on the products that are core to its mission,
and fostering a collaborative work culture.
Marketing Strategy: Apple usually is first to the marketplace with new products and the
company relies on brand loyalty from existing customers as a strategy when launching
new products and services.
Marketing Mix: While Apple offers a range of products, it values premium pricing and
relies on strict guidelines for distribution.
Implementation and Control: Each Apple product complements the others and work
within the same ecosystem, so customers tend to stay with the brand, creating loyal
consumers.

The strategic marketing process puts all the pieces together so that everything you do
contributes to the success of your business. Rather than executing haphazard activities
and ideas, developing a solid plan that weaves goals and tactics into a seamless
experience is essential. You can follow these steps to create products and services that
will delight your customers and beat out your competitors.

Step 1: Mission
Step One: Mission
First, identify and understand the company’s mission. Maybe it’s written down and
promoted throughout the organization. If not, talk to stakeholders to find out why your
company exists. A mission statement explains why a company is in business and how it
can benefit consumers. Sometimes, the mission statement is aspirational, motivating
staff and inspiring customers. Or it is simply a straightforward statement about who you
are. Either way, you can’t plan a marketing strategy without knowing clearly what
business you are in and why.

Here are some example mission statements:

Citigroup: Our goal for Citigroup is to be the most respected global financial services
company. Like any other public company, we’re obligated to deliver profits and growth
to our shareholders. Of equal importance is to deliver those profits and generate growth
responsibly.

IKEA: At IKEA, our vision is to create a better everyday life for many people. Our
business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional
home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able
to afford them.

Universal Health Services: To provide superior quality healthcare services that:

PATIENTS recommend to family and friends, PHYSICIANS prefer for their patients,
PURCHASERS select for their clients, EMPLOYEES are proud of, and INVESTORS
seek for long-term returns.

Unlike the other steps in the planning process, senior leaders or the board of directors
typically develop the mission statement and corporate objectives. Your role is to identify
those objectives in the planning process to ensure that your efforts stay aligned with
corporate leadership.

The mission statement is a core message that guides and influences your marketing
strategy. Questions to ask when evaluating the mission:

 Why is your company in business?

 What is the purpose of your business?
 What is the strategic influence for your business?
 What is the desired public perception for your business?
 How does your mission statement clarify your strategy?
 How does your mission statement unify your team?

Step 2: Situation Analysis

Step Two: Situation Analysis
The second step of the strategic marketing process is to evaluate internal and external
factors that affect your business and market. Your analysis will illuminate your strengths
and the challenges you face — either with internal resources or with external
competition in the marketplace. Situation analysis provides a clear, objective view of the
health of your business, your current and prospective customers, industry trends, and
your company’s position in the marketplace.

There are several methods to conduct this analysis. A typical analysis is called a SWOT
analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors, under your company’s control. What do
you do well? What needs to be better? Opportunities and threats are external factors,
such as interest rates or a new competitor in the market. Here are some questions that
can help you identify internal and external factors:

 Strengths: What do you do well? What are the factors that you control? What is
your competitive advantage? How are your products and services superior to others
in the marketplace?
 Weakness: Where are you underperforming? What is limiting your ability to
succeed? Where do limited resources affect your success?
 Opportunities: What are untapped markets? Where is the potential for new
business? Can you take advantage of any market trends?
 Threats: What are the obstacles? Which external factors (political, technological,
economic) can cause a problem?

A 5C analysis (Company, Customers, Competitors, Collaborators, Climate) is another

way to evaluate the market environment. Like SWOT, it includes an internal analysis as
well as an exploration of external factors.
Here are some questions you can ask when working on a 5C analysis:

 Company: How successful are your product lines? What is your image in the
marketplace? How effectively are you achieving your goals? How does your
company’s culture affect your performance?
 Customers: Who is your audience and what is the market size? How much is your
customer base growing? What motivates customers to buy your product or service?
What are overall sales trends and how is the buying process changing?
 Competitors: Who are your direct, indirect, and future competitors? What are their
products and market shares? How are they positioned in the market? What are their
strengths and weaknesses?
 Collaborators: Who are your suppliers, distributors, partners, and agencies? How
can they help you grow your business? How does the stability of their business
affect the success of your business?
 Climate: What are the governmental policies and regulations that affect the market?
What economic factors (inflation, interest rates) are at play? What trends influence
your customers? What is the impact of technology on the demand for your product
or how could technology give you an advantage over your competitors?

You can also conduct a PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological),
which is similar to the climate section of a 5C analysis. This method provides a
comprehensive analysis of external factors that could affect your company.
Here are some questions you can ask when performing a PEST analysis:

 Political: What laws and regulators affect consumers? What’s the impact of trade
regulations, employment laws, and tax guidelines? How stable are the foreign
markets and countries in which you sell products, contract with suppliers, or offer
services?
 Economic: How do interest rates, inflation, taxes, and exchange rates affect your
customers and your bottom line? What is the impact of the stock market on your
business? What are the local business cycles and overall economic growth?
 Social: What lifestyles and attitudes affect the buying habits of your consumers?
What are the demographics of your customers (age, gender, education, etc.)? How
are they changing?
 Technical: What patents, innovations and licenses can influence your company?
Which manufacturing trends can increase your production levels or drive down
costs? How can information technology help or hurt your product placement,
positioning, and promotion?

Your analysis, no matter which method you use, will help you list the most critical
problems and relevant opportunities, as well as show you how well your company can
tackle projects. Once you have a clear picture of your business, you can identify
potential markets and products.

Step 3: Marketing Plan

Step Three: Marketing Plan
Now that you’ve identified opportunities through your analysis, you should prioritize and
map out which ones you are going to pursue. Writing a marketing plan will specify your
target customers and how you will reach them, and should also include a forecast of the
anticipated results. These questions can help:

 How will customers respond to your marketing efforts?

 How much will the plan cost?
 How will your competition respond?

The data from your market research and situation analysis will help you build these
projections into your plan.

Define Your Target Audience

Few companies can meet the needs and wants of the entire market. You want to split
the market into a segment that aligns best with your strengths and opportunities. Your
goal is to identify customers. You can select your target market by choosing all kinds of
characteristics, behaviors, and demographics. The important thing is to make sure the
audience is clearly defined and large enough to support your product or service.
Even though you may have some information about your customers based on your
situation analysis, you may need to conduct more research on their needs and wants.
With research, you can create detailed profiles or personas of your ideal customers.
The more you know about your target audience, the more effectively you can offer them
value through your product or service. Nothing matters more than how you make
customers feel about your company.

Set Measurable Goals

How will you know if your plan succeeds? You need specific, measurable goals with
milestones that measure your progress. Do you want to increase your sales? The goal
you set should specify how much you want to grow the sales number, and the
timeframe for meeting that target. Each goal should be actionable and attainable
through tactics you control. At this stage, avoid contingent goals, which are dependent
on circumstances beyond your control. With each goal, list the tactics or steps you will
take to achieve it. Combine simple, clear, and precise goals (whether it’s gaining
customers, improving brand recognition or something else) with a detailed plan that
defines the tactics to meet your goal.

Identify and Set a Marketing Budget

Now it’s time to allocate the resources that will turn your plan into action. Your budget
will outline all the expected costs for implementing your marketing plan, including
advertising, online content, branding, public relations, staffing costs, and more.
Depending on the size of your budget, you may have to make some tough choices
about which goals and tactics are the top priorities. Or you may have to adjust your
tactics until you reach a budget that’s affordable. By creating the budget, you can
finalize and stick to your plan.
Step 4: Developing Marketing Mix
Decisions
Step Four: Developing Marketing Mix Decisions
At this stage of the strategic marketing process, it’s time to focus on the “how” of
planning. Your marketing mix is based on the 4Ps of marketing, including Product,
Price, Promotion, and Place. In 1960, E. J. McCarthy first expressed the 4Ps, and it is
probably the best-known way to describe the marketing mix. The 4Ps will guide the way
you convey the value of your product to your customers. You are positioning your
product and its competitive advantage. You need to be clear about what you are
marketing: convenience or quality? And you need to know who is likely to buy your
product or service.

By using the market research conducted in step two, you can develop the ideal
marketing mix for your target audience and the type of product or service you sell.
Although there are dozens of marketing channels, you will want to choose the tactics
that will reach your prospects when they’ll be most receptive to your message.
Product: A product is a good or service that meets the needs of your target market.
Even more, products solve problems. Whether you are developing a marketing plan for
Coca-Cola, a luxury hotel, or a cell phone, you have to know what problem it solves and
why your product is a unique solution. Make sure you have a clear understanding of all
the details of your product, including its features, branding, and packaging.

 What is the product or service?

 What does the customer want from it?
 What needs does it satisfy?
 What features does it have to meet these needs?
 How and where will the customer use it?
 How does it compare with similar products?
 Who are the competitors?

Price: The price is the amount of money your target market is willing to pay for your
product. Factors for price include any discounts, payment periods, and list price, as well
as how much it costs your company to produce the product. You also need to consider
overall marketplace conditions and your competition. How healthy is the economy? How
much are your competitors charging for a similar product? Do they have the same
business model?

The marketing message around your price depends on your market and your audience.
Maybe it’s a way to position your product in a crowded marketplace. It might be a
competitive advantage or a way of demonstrating the value of your product.

 What is the value of the product to the customer?

 Are there existing price points for similar products? If so, what are they?
 Will a small decrease give you extra market share? How much will that affect the
product’s perceived value?
 Will discounts to certain market segments be part of your strategy?

Promotion: The way you communicate with your target audience about the value and
benefit of your product is promotion. Think of promotion as an opportunity to educate
your customers about your products and services. You teach them the value of what
you offer and how your product meets their needs or solves their problem. There are
countless ways to educate them through marketing channels including direct marketing,
paid search and social, advertising, public relations, and sales promotions that create
brand awareness. This extends to almost every aspect of how you present the product
to your target market, and is everything that teaches your audience about your product
or brand.

 Where can you get your marketing messages across to your target market? Options
include advertising on TV and billboards, direct marketing, public relations,
sponsored events, and promotions. Consider the details you used when segmenting
your audience.
 What marketing channels does your target market use on a regular basis? Where
and when are they most ready to buy your product?
 When is the best time to promote?
 How do your competitors do their promotions?

Place: Consider place as product distribution or how you plan to get your product to
your customers and make the buying process easy. Place includes distribution
channels, outlets, and transportation to get the product to the target market.

 Where do customers look for your product? In a store? Online? Through a

catalogue?
 Do you need a sales force to reach customers or should you sell directly to your
target market?
 What are the best distribution channels?
 Where are your competitors reaching customers?
Step 5: Implementation and
Control
Step Five: Implementation and Control
Now it’s time to put your plan into action. Identify how and when you will launch your
plan. At this stage of the strategic marketing process, you will reach out to customers to
inform and persuade them about your product or service. Your next steps include
getting the resources (cash and staffing) to market your product, organizing the people
who will do the work, creating calendars to keep the work on track, and managing all the
details for each goal. It will help you stay focused and energized if you create monthly
benchmarks and projects, weekly action steps, and daily marketing appointments.

Remember, the strategic marketing process is dynamic. You need to regularly measure
and evaluate the results of your plan in order to succeed. This will help you see whether
you are accomplishing your goals and where you need to adjust tactics to improve your
results. This can include looking at revenue, sales, customer satisfaction, the number of
views your website receives, or other metrics. If the numbers aren’t meeting your
projections, you can make changes to get back on track.
You also need to monitor the actions of your competitors. How does the success of your
product affect the price of similar items on the market? Are new products being released
that could be perceived of greater value by your audience? Use this information to make
informed decisions about the 4Ps for your product.