Services Marketing

Chapter 21 : Marketing Planning for Services

Marketing Planning Process

Establishing Strategic Context
Situation Review
Marketing Strategy Formulation
Resource Allocation and Detailed Planning

Chapter Summary

The marketing planning process consists of four phases – strategic context, situation review, marketing strategy formulation, and resource allocation and monitoring, which, in turn, consist of 10 different steps. In the first phase, an organization has to establish the corporate mission and objectives.

In the second phase, it has to conduct a marketing audit wherein the external and internal environments of the organization are studied. SWOT analysis is also conducted to evaluate the internal strengths and weaknesses of the organization and the opportunities and threats from the external environment.

Apart from this, some key assumptions are also made, which form the basis for the marketing plan. In the third phase, the marketing objectives are established in alignment with the corporate objectives. Then the strategies to be adopted to achieve these objectives are designed.

These strategies are evaluated for assessing the possible outcomes. If a particular strategy seems to have some lapses and is not capable of delivering the desired result, the management tries to design new strategies. In the fourth phase, the required resources are allocated for all the marketing teams and the marketing plan is implemented.

As the plan is being implemented, managers continually monitor the situation and in case there is any deviation from the expected performance, they take steps to correct it. This periodical review of the situation ensures the implementation of a successful marketing plan.

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