Strategic Market Planning

A major challenge for marketing-oriented companies as they respond to the rapidly changing marketplace is to engage continuously in market-oriented strategic planning. They must learn how to develop and maintain a viable fit among their objectives, resources, skills, and opportunities.

Corporate strategic planning involves four planning activities.

1. Develop a clear sense of the company's mission in terms of its industry scope, products and applications scope, competence scope, market segment scope, vertical scope, and geographical scope.

2. Identify the company's strategic business units (SBUs).

3. Allocate resources to the various SBUs based on their market attractiveness and business strength.

4. Expanding present businesses and develop new products to fill the strategic planning gap.

Marketing plans focus on a product/market and consist of the detailed marketing strategies and programs for achieving the product's objectives in a target market.


The marketing planning process consists of five steps:

1. analyzing market opportunities;
2. researching and selecting target markets;
3. designing market strategies;
4. planning marketing programs;
5. and organizing, implementing, and controlling the marketing effort.

The resulting document consists of an:

• executive summary,
• current market situation,
• opportunity and issue analysis,
• objectives,
• marketing strategy,
• action programs,
• projected profit and loss statement,
• and controls.