MARKETING STRATEGY FOR SOCIAL ENTERPTISE

REVISE: Marketing Planning and Management Roles

Contents Marketing planning and management roles........................................................................................... 3

Marketing planning and control ......................................................................................................... 3

Marketing Plan ................................................................................................................................ 3

Marketing Planning Process ............................................................................................................ 3

Advice on Writing the Marketing Plan ............................................................................................ 8

Managing roles and functions within SMEs .................................................................................... 9

Functions within a SME ................................................................................................................... 9

Managerial role in SME ................................................................................................................. 11

Direct marketing and the impact of technology for SMEs ................................................................ 12

Direct Marketing ........................................................................................................................... 12

Impact of technology on SME ....................................................................................................... 13

Direct Marketing & Technology for SMEs ..................................................................................... 14

Marketing planning and management roles

Planning is the Futurity of today's decisions – (Peter Drucker). Marketing plan is a comprehensive blueprint which outlines the organizations’ overall marketing efforts. A marketing plan for a small business typically includes Small Business Administration Description of competitors, including the level of demand for the product or service and the strengths and weaknesses of competitors

Marketing planning and control

Marketing planning involves deciding marketing strategies that will help the company attain its overall strategic objectives decided by Strategic Planning. It will help to set targets and limits where company can monitor the performance and take necessary preventive and corrective actions as a control mechanism

Marketing Plan

What is Marketing Planning?

Through strategic planning, the company decides what it wants to do with each business unit.

Marketing planning involves deciding marketing strategies that will help the company attain its overall strategic objectives decided by Strategic Planning.

In other words, Marketing Planning is a Sub-function of Strategic Planning

For better understanding of the Marketing Planning, only the elements relevant to the marketing planning, would be discussed under this unit.

Marketing Planning Process

The Planning Process in simple terms

Stages of the planning process can be simplified into the following basic question:

Where are we ?

In this stage the organisation should get an understanding of its current situation in the marketplace (refer Figure 3). In doing so the organisation conducts two broad analyses (Marketing Audit),i.e., Micro analysis & Macro analysis. Micro analysis looks at the strengths & weaknesses of the company as well as the threats posed and the opportunities that emerge as a results of changes of competitors, suppliers, customers, new entrants to your industry & substitutes available for your industry.

Where do we want to go?

Under this stage the company decides its direction (refer Figure 3). It decides what it wants to achieve in the coming month/ year/ five years or ten years. Under this stage, the company sets its Vision, Mission & Objectives

Vision: concerns a firm’s future business path. Where it is going in the future, markets to be pursued, Future product/market/customer/technology focus & kind of company management is trying to create.

Mission: focuses on its business purpose or in other words company’s purpose of existence (refer Figure 3). About what company is and what it does. The company addresses the following questions, what business are we in? What do consumers value? What are we in business for? What sort of business are we? What makes us special?

Objectives: Convert vision into specific performance targets and create yardsticks to track performance (refer Figure 3). Well-stated objectives are:

Quantifiable

Measurable

Contain a deadline for achievement

They Spell-out how much, of what kind of performance & by when

In other words, objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic & Time-bound)

For an example, Marketing Objectives of XYZ (hypothetical company) could be stated as follows:

‘Our aim is to increase sales turnover from £31.3 million to £35.7 million in the next financial year, and to increase the gross profit margin by 5.2%’

‘To increase the share of sales via our corporate website from 4.3% of sales turnover to 8.5% within the next six months.’

How do we get there?

This deal with the strategies of achieving the stipulated goals (refer Figure 3). A strategy refers to the way of achieving a set target. A company adopts a number of Marketing Strategies depending on the company objectives, as well as the, changes in the business environment. Listed below are some of the marketing strategies used by the companies:

- Segmentation strategies

- Targeting strategies

- Positioning strategies

- Growth strategies

- Competitor strategies

- Marketing mix strategies

The above strategies will be discussed in detail under Lesson 4 (Unit 4).

How do we ensure arrival ?

This section concentrates on evaluation and control (refer Figure 3). What gets measured gets managed. Hence, once the devised strategies have been executed, there should be a methodology to assess its success/ failure, so that, the company could manage their strategies better. Therefore, it is essential for the company to continuously monitor and control its marketing activities. As a result, they could compare the actual results with the budgeted, and take corrective actions if there is a deviation.

Listed below would be some of the types of evaluations conducted by companies:

Financial Performance

Return on investment versus industry or company standard.

Profit and Loss for a product compared from year to year.

How do we ensure arrival ?

Listed below would be some of the types of evaluations conducted by companies:

Sales Performance

Price variance

Volume variance

Advertising Efficiency

Number of inquiries generated by an advertisement

Cost per inquiry

Sales-Promotion Efficiency

Number of inquiries generated by a promotion

Percentage of coupons/vouchers redeemed

What is a Marketing Plan?

A marketing plan is a document that details marketing action of a firm for a specified period.

It is a product of the marketing planning process.

It states what has to be done when, how and with what effect.

The plan gives details of the marketing strategy and how the firm will achieve its marketing objectives.

The plan also allocates responsibilities and resources, schedules major activities and enables senior management to monitor the implementation of the marketing strategy.

How a plan should be structured slightly varies depending on the company.

Even though the structure varies the main components of a marketing plan remain unchanged.

Example

SKT Brothers (Pvt) Ltd which is an emerging SME has developed a marketing plan for year 2015 including

following elements

Summary for senior management

Marketing objectives

Situational analysis or SWOT

Marketing analysis

Marketing strategy

Marketing mix programmes

Forecast results and budgeting

Resourcing and implementation issues

Marketing control and evaluation

Activity

Q What are the criteria need to be considered when a small business creates its marketing plan?

A

•Who Is Doing the Buying? - The first step for any marketing plan is to figure out who is going to be buying the product or service. •What Is the Buy Trigger? - People don't lay out cash for a product or service just because they are running out of room in their wallets. •Who Is Involved? - No one buys alone. To effectively market a product or service, you need to know who is influencing the decisions of your target buyer. •Where Do Customers Get Their Information About Your Product or Service? -Finding out where your target buyers are getting their information from is probably the most practically important step as it identifies areas for reputation building and opportunities for advertising. •What Is the Timeline? - Knowing how long you have to convert a customer will help you cull

inefficient approaches and fit your marketing campaign to their decision making process.

Marketing Planning Process

A marketing plan is a document that details marketing action of a firm for a specified period.

It is a product of the marketing planning process.

It states what has to be done when, how and with what effect.

The plan gives details of the marketing strategy and how the firm will achieve its marketing objectives.

The plan also allocates responsibilities and resources, schedules major activities and enables senior management to monitor the implementation of the marketing strategy.

How a plan should be structured slightly varies depending on the company.

Even though the structure varies the main components of a marketing plan remain unchanged.

As stated by Easey (2009) components of marketing plan is as follows:

Summary for senior management

Marketing objectives

Situational analysis or SWOT

Marketing analysis

Marketing strategy

Marketing mix programmes

Forecast results and budgeting

Resourcing and implementation issues

Marketing control and evaluation

Advice on Writing the Marketing Plan

As stated by Burns (2010), advices on writing a marketing plan are as follows:

Be clear who it is written for-different people need different plans

Keep it as short as possible

Do not exaggerate or over-estimate-be realistic

Be clear, concise and specific-don’t waffle

Check spelling, grammar etc. and arithmetic

Make it functional but attractive

As stated by Burns (2010), advices on presenting a marketing plan are as follows:

Appear confident, but not arrogant

Acknowledge risks, but have answers as to how to mitigate them

Show that you understand the customers and the market

Stress your competitive advantage

Demonstrate the competencies of the management team

Try to turn the presentation into a dialogue – involve the investor

Make eye contact – develop a personal relationship

If you do not know the answer to a question, say so and offer to come back with the answer

Rehearse the presentation

Example:

10 Steps to Creating a Marketing Plan for Your Small Business

1. State your business purpose.

2. Define your market situation, focusing on issues that affect your customers, your

product, and your competition.

3. Set goals and objectives.

4. Define your market and customer profile.

5. Define your position, brand, and creative strategy.

6. Set marketing strategies for your product, pricing, distribution, and promotion.

7. Outline your communication tactics.

8. Establish your budget.

9. Blueprint your action plan.

10. Define opportunities for long-term market development.

Activity:

What are the steps involved in marketing plan?

Managing roles and functions within SMEs

Real management and leadership involve creative problem solving, motivating employees and

making sure the organization achieves objectives and goals. There are five functions of management

and leadership: planning, organizing, staffing, coordinating and controlling. These functions

separate the management process from other business functions such as marketing, accounting and

finance.

Functions within a SME

Mintzberg offered a genuine insight into the daily activities of practicing managers and the functions of management still provides a very useful way of classifying the activities managers engage in as they attempt to achieve organisational goals (Marilyn & Helms, 2006, p. 494) :

PLANNING

ORGANIZING

LEADING

CONTROLLING

PLANNING

Planning is the function of management that involves setting objectives and determining a course of action for achieving these objectives.

It requires that managers be aware of business environmental conditions facing their organisation and forecast future conditions.

It also requires that managers be good decision-makers.

There are three types of planning, Strategic , Tactical & Operational Planning

ORGANIZING

It is the function of management that involves developing an organisational structure and allocating human resources to ensure the accomplishment of objectives.

The structure of the organisation is the framework within which effort is coordinated.

The structure is commonly denoted by an organisation chart, which provides a graphic representation of the chain of command within an organisation.

Organizing also involves the design of individual jobs within the organisation.

Decisions must be made about the duties and responsibilities of individual jobs as well as the manner in which the duties should be carried out.

LEADING

Leading involves influencing others toward the attainment of organisational objectives.

Effective leading requires the manager to motivate subordinates, communicate effectively, and effectively use power.

If managers are effective leaders, their subordinates will be enthusiastic about exerting effort toward the attainment of organisational objectives.

To become effective at leading, managers must first understand their subordinates’ personalities, values, attitudes, and emotions.

CONTROLLING

Controlling involves ensuring that performance does not deviate from standards.

Controlling consists of three steps, which include establishing performance standards, comparing actual performance against standards, and taking corrective action when necessary.

Performance standards are often stated in monetary terms such as revenue, costs, or profits, but may also be stated in other terms, such as units produced, number of defective products, or levels of customer service.

Although controlling is often thought of in terms of financial criteria, managers must also control production/ operations processes, procedures for delivery of services, compliance with company policies, and many other activities within the organisation.

Example

Planning refers to Marketing Manager establishing organizational marketing goals and deciding how to accomplish them. Organizing is the grouping of resources and activities to accomplish an end result in an efficient and effective manner. Leading is the process of influencing marketing and sales people to work toward a common goal, whereas motivating is the process of providing reasons for people to work in the best interests of the organization. Controlling is the process of evaluating and regulating ongoing activities to ensure that goals are achieved.

Activity

Q What are the different types of Planning?

A Strategic Planning, Tactical Planning & Operational Planning.

Managerial role in SME

In addition to the broad categories of management functions, managers in different levels of the hierarchy fill different managerial roles. These roles were categorized by researcher Henry Mintzberg, and they can be grouped into three major types: decisional, interpersonal, and informational. (Marilyn & Helms, 2006, p. 500) :

Decisional Roles

Require managers to plan strategy and utilize resources.

There are four specific roles that are decisional:

The entrepreneur

Disturbance handler

Resource allocator

Negotiator

Interpersonal Roles

Require managers to direct and supervise employees and the organisation.

There are three types of decisional roles:

Figurehead

Leader

Liaison

Informational Roles

Are those in which managers obtain and transmit information.

These roles have changed dramatically as technology has improved.

There are three informational roles:

Monitor

Disseminator

Spokesperson

Example

According to Mintzberg, Informational Role is driven by information; Interpersonal Role is driven through managing people, and decisional Role driven through managing action. In the real world, these roles are interconnected and a manager must learn to balance them in order to manage effectively. While a manager’s work can be analyzed by these individual roles, in practice they are intermixed and interdependent. According to Mintzberg, “The manager who only communicates or only conceives never gets anything done, while the manager who only ‘does’ ends up doing it all alone.”

Activity

Q What are the Decisional Roles in Management?

A

Direct marketing and the impact of technology for SMEs

A company that employs direct marketing is directly trying to impact consumers' or business

customers' buying decisions. They use promotional strategies such as direct mail, telemarketing,

direct response television advertising and online selling.

Direct Marketing

What is Direct Marketing?

Direct marketing refers to focusing & communicating your marketing efforts towards selected individuals.

In other words, marketing directly to the individual customer in a more personal way than impersonal mass marketing.

One-to-one marketing involves direct communication with carefully selected individuals to obtain an immediate response.

As you are communicating to an individual, you can carefully customize your message as well as the offering to suit the needs of that particular individual.

A successful direct marketing program needs a very good and detailed customer database for you to understand the customer better, prior to approaching him to market your product.

Direct Marketing tools could be: Directs selling, telemarketing, direct-mail marketing, direct-response television marketing, Mobile marketing and online marketing.

Example

Direct marketing is a type of marketing that most companies prefer because they can measure the response of their customers through the “response rate”. Companies also can insure that their msg is sent the way they want because there are no intermediaries. Types of direct marketing are e-mail, Online Tools, Mobile, Telemarketing, voicemail, Broadcast Faxing, Couponing, Direct Mail, Insert Media, Out-of-Home, Direct Response Magazines and Newspapers and Direct Selling.

Activity

Q What is a direct marketing channel? Please provide an example.

A

Direct marketing channel is the method of selling directly to the end buyer from the manufacturer with no middle man or intermediary involved. Farmers approach direct marketing in a variety of ways using single or multiple

channels. The goal generally is to develop a strategy to sell the entire product they

produce. This can be through one marketing channel or several. Farms may also add

additional direct market channels as the business grows.

Impact of technology on SME

Impact of technology for SMEs

Technology has revamped the way SMEs could serve customers.

In fact using them, SMEs can use better tools to serve customers more effectively.

Ideally, technology gives SMEs the timely information they need to help their customers .

SME could use technology to keep more closer contacts with the customers.

Through technology, SMEs have the ability to reach unreachable customer while responding to the existing customers at a faster pace.

Direct mail offers some distinct advantages to SMEs such as Flexibility, Reader attention, Rapid feedback and Effectiveness.

Social Media on the other hand has taken SMEs to a whole new level, which creates way to new leads and also a faster pace of spreading details about their superior customer service.

Direct Marketing & Technology for SMEs

As discussed earlier Direct Marketing consists of tools such as, Direct selling, telemarketing, direct-mail marketing, direct-response television marketing, Mobile marketing and online marketing.

Therefore, it would be fair to say that technology facilitates the smooth operation of Direct Marketing.

In other words, without technology, Direct Marketing wouldn’t have been a reality as technology paves way for the much needed one-to-one communication in direct marketing.

Hence, direct marketing coupled with technology could create a substantial impact on SMEs.

Some of the direct marketing tools and its benefits to the SMEs could be discussed in detailed in the coming slides.

Direct mail: Direct mail is an email or a snail mail sent directly to the customer. Unlike the generic leaflets, the direct mail is more focused as it consists of a clear destination and directly addresses the customer. SME could use the direct mail to inform the customers of its new product promotions, launches or business diversifications. The beauty of the direct mail is that SMEs could use their creativity and give the customers a visual and logical experience of what SMEs have to offer. An eye catching and truly different direct mail could get the customer involved an engaged in split seconds.

Direct response television marketing: Also known as DRTV, this method always includes a “call to action.” Once the details of the offer are advertised a telephone number (mostly toll-free) is displayed on screen, which would prompt the customers to place their orders. This method helps SMEs to emphasize the prime benefit of their offering. Also it has the ability to clarify customer doubts, instantaneously, via the telephone. SMEs could reach the specific audience they intend to communicate to by selecting the proper time slots as well the TV channels for their advertisements.

Direct selling: This involves face to face communications with existing or potential target customers and persuading them through a personal presentation or a demonstration to buy the product offering. Direct selling takes place in a location away from the fixed retail location. SMEs could use this method when the product or the service they offer is complex in nature, demands a high investment from the customer or need to be tailor made to the needs of the customer. When cross selling or up selling SME could reap the benefits from this method as they could exploit on the closer relationships that they maintain with their customers. Technology could come in handy as it is all about creating a good impression on the customer at the first instance. Devices such as Smart phones, I-pads and laptops, could add more value, depth as well as more colour to the presentations and demonstrations.

Telemarketing: As the words suggest, it involves directly marketing to selectively targeted customers with the use of a phone line. This is a very potent direct marketing tool for SME, as it facilitates selective targeting. This could also be used to monitor and track the success and impact of SMEs’ campaign. SME owners can experiment different scripts and delivery formats while having a live constructive dialogue with their customers.

Example

Clubs Book clubs are the best-known example of the use of direct mail as a convenient medium of communication and transaction between a club and its members. Tupperware produce a range of products, especially kitchenware and food and drink storage boxes. The company is an example of a party plan selling strategy used successfully as direct selling. DMC Associates & JEM Sales and Marketing have a wealth of experience working on both types of campaign, including examples of telemarketing product campaigns like; industrial packaging, medical equipment and examples of telemarketing service campaigns like; commercial cleaning and management consultancy.

Activity

Q Distinguish between Direct Marketing & Indirect Marketing:

A

Direct marketing is the face-to-face or person to person directly speaking to the

person about a product to sell the product and tell about its feature and also giving

guarantee to the buyer to buy the product whereas, Indirect marketing includes

like online marketing that is not directly sold by the seller.

Example: Television adverts, hoardings, newspapers, etc.