Marketing Audit Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Marketing Audit - Essay Example Market planning can be defined as â€Å"all rational, incremental and intuitive processes that guide a firm’s marketing to its future.† (RAO. 2007) When we talk about marketing planning it may seem as an easy process, however in reality it’s a complicated multifaceted process that involves every aspect of an organization. Marketing planning can be referred to activities that are undertaken by the managers to achieve marketing objectives. In other words it’s a process to identify range of options that are available to the manager in order to achieve marketing objectives and then evaluate those options and plan accordingly. The outcomes of marketing planning process are the marketing strategies to achieve marketing objectives. Marketing planning involves a systematic process of reviewing the situation, assumption formulation, setting objectives about whom to sell and how to, decisions regarding the achievement of objectives and scheduling and costing out act ivities required for implementation. (MCDONALD & WILSON. 2011) The market planning comprises of four basic components, these include marketing objectives, marketing audit, marketing strategies and resource allocation and monitoring. All these components are interlinked and are extremely important for marketing planning. I shall discuss these components in detail further. I’ve been emphasizing that the aim of the marketing planning is to achieve marketing objective, marketing objectives are something that the marketing function strives to achieve as a part of business strategic plan which usually includes increase in sales, awareness about products, creation of brand, increase in market share etc, then these goals are converted to objectives which are measurable, like increasing sales and market share by 15% within one year, this could be measured by analyzing annual sales data and industry data and other publications. (LEVENS. 2012) Marketing Objectives and Strategies In order to achieve these marketing objectives the company has to make marketing strategies. The marketing objectives identified must be in accordance with company’s overall objectives. Marketing objectives can be easily identified on the basis of marketing mix objectives which simplifies the objectives setting process which later on lays basis for marketing strategies to achieve those objectives. A marketing strategy is a series of action statements which are also known as tactics. Effective marketing strategy is critical to successful marketing plan; therefore these would be given extra importance when a marketing plan is being set up. (LANCASTER & MASSINGHAM. 2010) The Integration of Marketing Planning into Objectives and Strategies Planning itself includes goal setting and development of strategies to achieve those goals. The objective or goals and strategies to achieve these will be the outcome of marketing planning process. The marketing strategies tell what should be done and the strategic and operational plans guide how the strategies s hould