CHAPTER 2
Planning, Implementing, and Evaluating
Marketing Strategies
TEACHING RESOURCES QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE
Resource
Location
Purpose and Perspective
IRM, p. 1
Lecture Outline
IRM, p. 2
Discussion Starters
IRM, p. 12
Class Exercise
IRM, p. 14
Semester Project
IRM, p. 16
Chapter Quiz
IRM, p. 17
Answers to Issues for Discussion and Review
IRM, p. 18
Answers to Developing Your Marketing Plan
IRM, p. 21
Comments on Video Case 2
IRM, p. 22
PowerPoint Slides
Instructor’s website
Note: Additional resources may be found on the accompanying student and instructor websites at
www.cengagebrain.com.
PURPOSE AND PERSPECTIVE
This chapter focuses on strategic planning. It begins with an overview of the strategic planning process.
Next, it examines the process of strategic planning and the importance of missions and goals, corporate
and business-unit strategies, and resources and opportunities to an organization’s strategy. It then explores
how to implement the marketing strategy and the creation of the marketing plan. These elements provide
a framework for the development and implementation of marketing strategies, as can be seen throughout
the remainder of this book.
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Chapter 2: Planning, Implementing, and Controlling Marketing Strategies
LECTURE OUTLINE
Introduction
A. Strategic marketing management is the process of planning, implementing, and evaluating the
performance of marketing activities and strategies, both effectively and efficiently.
1. Effectiveness is the degree to which long-term customer relationships help achieve an
organization’s objectives.
2. Efficiency refers to minimizing the resources an organization uses to achieve a specific level
of desired customer relationships.
B. The overall goal of strategic marketing management is to facilitate highly desirable customer
relationships and to minimize the costs of doing so.
I. The Strategic Planning Process
A. Through the process of strategic planning, a company establishes an organizational mission and
formulates goals, a corporate strategy, marketing objectives, and a marketing strategy.
1. Figure 2.1 shows the various components of the strategic planning process, which begins
with the establishment or revision of an organization’s mission and goals.
2. The corporation and individual business units then develop strategies to achieve the goals.
3. The company performs a detailed analysis of its strengths and weaknesses and identifies
opportunities and threats within the external marketing environment.
4. Each functional area of the organization establishes its own objectives and develops
strategies to achieve them, which must support the organization’s overall goals and mission
and should be focused on market orientation.
B. Establishing Organizational Mission Statements and Goals
1. Once an organization has assessed its resources and opportunities, it can begin to establish
goals and strategies to leverage them.
2. The goals of any organization should derive from its mission statement, a long-term view,
or vision, of what the organization wants to become.
C. Developing Corporate and Business-Unit Strategies
1. In most organizations, strategic planning begins at the corporate level and proceeds
downward to the business-unit and marketing levels.
2. However, organizations are increasingly developing and conducting strategic planning
strategy that moves in both directions.
3. When conducting strategic planning, a firm is likely to seek out experts from many levels of
the organization to take advantage of in-house expertise and a variety of opinions.
4. Figure 2.2 shows the relationships between the three planning levels—corporate, business
unit, and marketing.
5. Corporate strategy is the broadest of the levels and should be developed with the
organization’s overall mission in mind.
6. Business-unit strategy should be consistent with the corporate strategy while serving the
unit’s needs.
7. Marketing strategy utilizes the marketing mix to develop a message that is consistent with
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the business-unit and corporate strategies.
D. Corporate Strategies
1. Corporate strategy determines the means for utilizing resources in the functional areas of
marketing, production, finance, research and development, and human resources to reach the
organization’s goals.
2. A corporate strategy outlines the scope of the business and such considerations as resource
deployment, competitive advantages, and overall coordination of functional areas.
3. Corporate strategy planners are concerned with broad issues such as corporate culture,
competition, differentiation, diversification, interrelationships between business units, and
environmental and social issues.
a. They are also concerned with defining the scope and role of the company’s business
units so the units coordinate their efforts to reach the ends desired.
E. Business-Unit Strategy
1. A strategic business unit (SBU) is a division, product line, or other profit center within the
parent company.
2. Each SBU sells a distinct set of products to an identifiable group of customers and each
competes with a well-defined set of competitors.
3. Strategic planners should recognize the performance capabilities of each SBU and carefully
allocate resources among the divisions.
4. A market is a group of individuals and/or organizations that have needs for products in a
product class and have the ability, willingness, and authority to purchase those products.
5. The percentage of a market that actually buys a specific product from a particular company
is referred to as that product’s (or business unit’s) market share.
6. One of the most helpful tools for a marketer is the market growth/market share matrix,
developed by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
a. This approach is based on the philosophy that a product’s market growth rate and its
market share are important considerations in determining its marketing strategy.
b. To develop such a tool, all of the company’s SBUs and products are integrated into a
single matrix and compared and evaluated to determine appropriate strategies for
individual products and overall portfolio strategies.
c. Managers use this model to determine and classify each product’s expected future
cash contributions and future cash requirements.
d. Figure 2.3, which is based on work by the BCG, enables a strategic planner to classify
a company’s products into four basic types:
(1) Stars—products with a dominant share of the market and good prospects for
growth. They use more cash than they generate in order to finance growth, add
capacity, and increase market share. Example: Lenovo’s tablet computers.
(2) Cash cows—have a dominant share of the market but low prospects for growth.
They typically generate more cash than is required to maintain market share.
Example: Procter & Gamble’s Bounty paper towels.
(3) Dogs—have a subordinate share of the market and low prospects for growth.
Dogs are often found in established markets. Example: The cathode ray tube
television would probably be considered a dog by a company like Panasonic, as
most customers prefer flat screens.
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Chapter 2: Planning, Implementing, and Controlling Marketing Strategies
(4) Question marks—sometimes called “problem children,” have a small share of a
growing market and require a large amount of cash to build market share.
Example: Mercedes bicycles are a question mark relative to Mercedes’s
automobile product.
7. The long-term health of an organization depends on having a range of products, some that
generate cash (and generate acceptable profits) and others that use cash to support growth.
8. The major indicators of a firm’s overall health are: the size and vulnerability of the cash
cows, the prospects for the stars, and the number of question marks and dogs.
F. Assessing Organizational Resources and Opportunities
1. The strategic planning process begins with an analysis of the marketing environment,
including the industry in which the company operates or intends to sell its products.
a. The external marketing environment, which includes economic, competitive, political,
legal and regulatory, sociocultural, and technological forces, can threaten an
organization and influence its overall goals.
2. Any strategic planning effort must take into account the organization’s available financial
and human resources and capabilities and how these resources are likely to change over time,
as changes may affect the organization’s ability to achieve its mission and goals.
3. Adequate resources can help a firm generate customer satisfaction and loyalty, goodwill, and
a positive reputation, all of which impact marketing through creating well-known brands and
strong financial performance.
4. Core competencies, things a firm does extremely well, give the company an advantage over
competition.
5. Analysis of the marketing environment also includes identifying opportunities in the
marketplace, which requires a solid understanding of the company’s industry.
6. When the right combination of circumstances and timing permits an organization to take
action to reach a particular target market, a market opportunity exists.
7. Strategic windows are temporary periods of optimal fit between the key requirements of a
market and the particular capabilities of a firm competing in that market.
8. When a company matches a core competency to opportunities it has discovered in the
marketplace, it is said to have a competitive advantage.
G. SWOT Analysis
1. The SWOT analysis is used to assess an organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities,
and threats (Figure 2.4).
a. Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors that can influence an organization’s
ability to satisfy its target markets.
(1) Strengths refer to competitive advantages or core competencies that give the
organization an advantage over other firms in meeting the needs of its target
markets.
(2) Weaknesses are limitations a company faces in developing or implementing a
marketing strategy.
b. Opportunities and threats affect all organizations within an industry, market, or
geographic region because they exist outside of and independently of the company.
(1) Opportunities refer to favorable conditions in the environment that could
produce rewards for the organization if acted upon properly.
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(2) Threats refer to barriers that could prevent the company from reaching its
objectives.
H. First-Mover and Late-Mover Advantage
1. A first-mover advantage is the ability of an innovative company to achieve long-term
competitive advantages by being the first to offer a certain product in the marketplace.
a. Being the first to enter a market helps a company build a reputation as a pioneer and
market leader.
b. For a first mover, the market is, for at least a short period, free of competition as
potential competitors work to develop a rival product.
c. Because consumers have no choice initially, being a first-mover also helps establish
customer brand loyalty in cases when switching to another brand later, when there are
more options, may be costly or difficult for the consumer.
d. The first to develop a new product can also protect secrets and technology through
patents.
e. However, there are usually high outlays associated with creating a new product,
including market research, product development, production, and marketing—or buyer
education—costs.
f. Also, early sales growth may not match predictions if the firm overestimates demand
or fails to target marketing efforts properly.
g. The company runs the risk that the product will fail due to market uncertainty, or that
the product might not completely meet consumers’ expectations or needs.
2. A late-mover advantage is the ability of later market entrants to achieve long-term
competitive advantages by not being the first to offer a certain product in a marketplace.
a. Competitors that enter the market later can benefit from the first mover’s mistakes and
have a chance to improve on the product design and marketing strategy.
b. A late mover is also likely have lower initial investment costs than the first mover
because the first mover has already developed a distribution infrastructure and
educated buyers about the product.
c. By the time a late mover enters the market, there is also more data, and therefore more
certainty, about product success.
d. However, the company that entered the market first may have patents and other
protections on its technology and trade secrets that prevent the late mover from
producing a similar product.
e. If customers who have already purchased the first mover’s product believe that
switching to the late mover’s product will be expensive or time-consuming, it may be
difficult for the late mover to gain market share.
f. The timing of entry to the market is crucial.
I. Developing Marketing Objectives and Marketing Strategies
1. A marketing objective states what is to be accomplished through marketing activities.
2. Objectives can be given in terms of product introduction, product improvement or
innovation, sales volume, profitability, market share, pricing, distribution, advertising, or
employee training activities.
3. Marketing objectives should be based on a careful study of the SWOT analysis, matching
strengths to opportunities, eliminating weaknesses, and minimizing threats.
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Chapter 2: Planning, Implementing, and Controlling Marketing Strategies
4. Marketing objectives should possess certain characteristics:
a. They should be expressed in clear, simple terms so that all marketing and
nonmarketing personnel in the company understand exactly what they are trying to
achieve.
b. They should be measurable, which allows the organization to track progress and
compare outcomes against beginning benchmarks.
c. They should specify a time frame for its accomplishment
d. They should be consistent with both business-unit and corporate strategies
e. They should be achievable, use company resources effectively, and successfully
contribute to overall corporate strategy
5. A marketing strategy is the selection of a target market and the creation of a marketing mix
that will satisfy the needs of target market members.
J. Selecting the Target Market
1. Selecting an appropriate target market may be the most important decision a company makes
in the strategic planning process and is a key to strategic success.
3. Careful and accurate target market selection is crucial to productive marketing efforts.
a. Products, and even whole companies, sometimes fail because marketers misidentify
the best target market for their products.
4. When exploring possible target markets, marketing managers try to evaluate how entry could
affect the company’s sales, costs, and profits.
5. Marketing information should be organized to facilitate a focus on the chosen target
customers.
6. Marketers should assess whether the company has the appropriate resources to develop a
marketing mix that meets the needs of the target market.
7. The size and number of competitors already marketing products in potential target markets
are concerns as well.
K. Creating Marketing Mixes
1. Using all relevant information available to conduct in-depth research allows a firm to select
the most appropriate target market, which is the basis for creating a marketing mix that
satisfies the needs of that market.
2. The organization should analyze demographic information, customer needs, preferences, and
behaviors with respect to product design, pricing, distribution, and promotion.
3. Marketing mix decisions should be consistent and flexible.
a. Consistency allows the organization to achieve its objectives on all three levels of
planning.
b. Flexibility permits the organization to alter the marketing mix in response to changes
in market conditions, competition, and customer needs.
4. Utilizing the marketing mix as a tool set, a company can detail how it will achieve a
sustainable competitive advantage.
5. A sustainable competitive advantage is one that the competition cannot copy in the
foreseeable future.
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II. Managing Marketing Implementation
A. Marketing implementation is the process of putting marketing strategies into action.
B. Through planning, marketing managers provide purpose and direction for an organization’s
marketing efforts.
C. Organizing the Marketing Unit
1. The structure and relationships of a marketing unit, including establishing lines of authority
and communication that connect and coordinate individuals, strongly affect marketing
activities.
2. Companies that truly adopt the marketing concept develop an organizational culture that is
based on a shared set of beliefs that places the customer’s needs at the center of decisions
about strategy and operations.
3. Firms must decide whether operations should be centralized or decentralized, a choice that
directly affects marketing decision making and strategy.
a. In a centralized organization, top-level managers delegate little authority to lower
levels. In centralized organizations, marketing decisions are made at the top levels
b. In a decentralized organization, decision making authority is delegated as far down
the chain of command as possible. Decentralized authority allows the company to
adapt more rapidly to customer needs.
4. How effectively a company’s marketing management can implement marketing strategies
also depends on how the marketing unit is organized.
a. Organizing marketing activities to align with the overall strategic marketing approach
enhances organizational efficiency and performance.
D. Motivating Marketing Personnel
2. A firm can motivate its workers through a variety of methods, including by linking pay with
performance, informing workers how their performance affects department and corporate
results and how it affects their own compensation, providing appropriate and competitive
compensation, implementing a flexible benefits program, and adopting a participative
management approach.
3. Diversity in the workplace can complicate employee motivational strategies, as different
generations and cultures may be motivated by different things.
4. Managers can reward employees, not just with money and fringe benefits, but with
nonfinancial rewards, such as prestige or recognition, job autonomy, skill variety, task
significance, increased feedback, or even a more relaxed dress code.
E. Communicating within the Marketing Unit
1. Marketing managers must be in clear communication with the firm’s upper-level
management to ensure that they are aware of the firm’s goals and achievements and that
marketing activities are consistent with the company’s overall goals.
a. The marketing unit should also take steps to ensure that its activities are in sync with
those of other departments, such as finance or human resources.
2. It is important that communication flow up, from the front lines of the organization to upper
management.
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Chapter 2: Planning, Implementing, and Controlling Marketing Strategies
a. Customer–contact employees are in a unique position to understand customers’ wants
and needs, and pathways should be open for them to communicate this knowledge to
marketing managers.
3. An effective training program provides employees with a forum to learn and ask questions,
and results in employees who are empowered and can be held accountable for their
performance.
4. Information systems expedite communications within and between departments and support
other activities, such as allocating scarce organizational resources, planning, budgeting, sales
analyses, performance evaluations, and report preparation.
F. Coordinating Marketing Activities
1. Marketing managers must coordinate diverse employee actions to achieve marketing
objectives and must work closely with management in many areas, including research and
development, production, finance, accounting, and human resources to ensure that marketing
activities align with other functions of the firm.
a. They must also coordinate the activities of internal marketing staff with the marketing
efforts of external organizations, including advertising agencies, resellers (wholesalers
and retailers), researchers, and shippers.
2. Marketing managers can improve coordination by making each employee aware of how his
or her job relates to others and how his or her actions contribute to the achievement of
marketing objectives.
G. Establishing a Timetable for Implementation
1. Successful marketing implementation requires that employees know the specific activities
for which they are responsible and the timetable for completing them.
2. Establishing an implementation timetable involves several steps:
a. Identifying the activities to be performed
b. Determining the time required to complete each activity
c. Separating the activities to be performed in sequence from those to be performed
simultaneously
d. Organizing the activities in the proper order
e. Assigning responsibility for completing each activity to one or more employees,
teams, or managers
III. Evaluating Marketing Strategies
A. To achieve marketing objectives, marketing managers must evaluate marketing strategies
effectively.
B. Strategic performance evaluation consists of establishing performance standards, measuring
actual performance, comparing actual performance with established standards, and modifying the
marketing strategy, if needed.
C. Establishing Performance Standards
1. A performance standard is an expected level of performance against which actual
performance can be compared.
2. Marketing objectives directly or indirectly set forth performance standards, usually in terms
of sales, costs, or communication dimensions, such as brand awareness or product feature
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recall.
D. Analyzing Actual Performance
1. The principle means by which a marketer can gauge whether a marketing strategy has been
2. One of the means of analyzing actual performance is by conducting customer research and
surveys.
E. Sales analysis
1. Sales analysis uses sales figures to evaluate a firm’s current performance.
2. It is a common method of evaluation because sales data are readily available, at least in
aggregate form, and can reflect the target market’s reactions to a marketing mix.
3. Marketers must compare current sales data with forecasted sales, industry sales, specific
competitor’s sales, and the costs incurred from marketing efforts to achieve the sales volume.
4. Although sales may be measured in several ways, the basic unit of measurement is the sales
transaction.
5. A sales transaction results in an order for a specified quantity of the organization’s product
sold under specified terms by a particular salesperson or sales team on a certain date.
6. Firms frequently use dollar volume in their sales analyses because the dollar is a common
denominator of sales, costs, and profits
a. A marketing manager who uses dollar-value analysis should factor out the effects of
price changes, which can skew the numbers by making it seem that more or fewer
sales have been made than is the case.
7. Market share analysis lets a company compare its marketing strategy with competitors’
strategies.
a. The primary reason for using market share analysis is to estimate whether sales
changes have resulted from the firm’s marketing strategy or from uncontrollable
environmental forces.
b. Even though market share analysis can be helpful in evaluating the performance of a
marketing strategy, the user must exercise caution when interpreting results.
F. Marketing Cost Analysis
1. Marketing cost analysis breaks down and classifies costs to determine which are associated
with specific marketing efforts.
2. By pinpointing exactly where a company incurs costs, marketing cost analysis can help
isolate profitable or unprofitable customers, products, and geographic areas.
3. A company that understands and manages costs appropriately has a competitive advantage.
4. One way to analyze costs is by comparing a company’s costs with industry averages.
a. However, a company should take into account its own unique situation.
5. Costs can be categorized in different ways when performing marketing cost analysis.
a. One way is to identify which costs are affected by sales or production volume.
b. Some costs are fixed costs, meaning they do not change between different units of
time, regardless of a company’s production or sales volume.
c. Some costs are directly attributable to production and sales volume.
(1) These are known as variable costs, and they are stated in terms of a per quantity
(or unit) cost.
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Chapter 2: Planning, Implementing, and Controlling Marketing Strategies
G. Comparing Actual Performance with Performance Standards and Making Changes, If
Needed
1. When comparing actual performance with established performance standards, a firm may
find that it exceeded or failed to meet performance standard benchmarks.
2. When actual performance exceeds performance standards, marketers will likely be satisfied
and a marketing strategy will be deemed effective.
a. It is important that a firm seek to gain an understanding of why the strategy was
effective because this information may allow marketers to adjust the strategy tactically
to be even more effective.
3. When actual performance fails to meet performance standards, marketers should seek to
understand why the marketing strategy was less effective than expected.
a. Environmental changes or aggressive competitive behavior can both cause a
marketing strategy to underperform.
4. When a marketer finds that a strategy is underperforming expectations, a question sometimes
arises as to whether the marketing objective, against which performance is measured, is
realistic.
a. After studying the problem, the firm may find that the marketing objective is indeed
unrealistic.
b. In this case, marketers must alter the marketing objective to bring it in line with more
sensible expectations.
c. It is also possible that the marketing strategy is underfunded.
IV. Creating the Marketing Plan
A. The strategic planning process ultimately yields a marketing strategy that is the framework for a
marketing plan, a written document that specifies the marketing activities to be performed to
implement and evaluate the organization’s marketing strategies.
1. It provides a uniform marketing vision for the firm and is the basis for internal
communications.
2. It delineates marketing responsibilities and tasks and outlines schedules for implementation.
4. It helps managers monitor and evaluate the performance of a marketing strategy.
B. A single marketing plan can be developed and applied to the business as a whole, but it is more
likely that a company will choose to develop multiple marketing plans, with each relating to a
specific brand or product.
1. Multiple marketing plans are part of a larger strategic business plan and are used to
implement specific parts of the overall strategy.
C. Organizations use many different formats when producing a marketing plan.
1. They may be written for strategic business units, product lines, individual products or brands,
or specific markets.
D. Marketing planning and implementation are closely linked in successful companies.
1. The marketing plan provides a framework to stimulate thinking and provide strategic
direction, whereas implementation is an adaptive response to day-to-day issues,
opportunities, and unanticipated situations that cannot be incorporated into marketing plans.
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E. Table 2.1 describes the major elements of a typical marketing plan:
1. The first component is the executive summary, which provides an overview of the entire
plan so that readers can quickly identify the key issues and their roles in the planning and
implementation processes.
2. The next component of the marketing plan is the environmental analysis, which supplies
information about the company’s current situation with respect to the marketing
environment, the target market, and the firm’s current objectives and performance.
3. The next component of the marketing plan is the SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats), which utilizes the information gathered in environmental
analysis.
4. The marketing objectives section of the marketing plan states what the company wants to
accomplish through marketing activities, using the SWOT analysis as a guide of where the
firm stands in the market.
5. The marketing strategies component outlines how the firm plans to achieve its marketing
objectives and discusses the company’s target market selection(s) and marketing mix.
6. The marketing implementation component of the plan outlines how marketing strategies will
be executed.
7. The performance evaluation establishes the standards for how results will be measured and
evaluated, and what actions the company should take to reduce the differences between
planned and actual performance.
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Chapter 2: Planning, Implementing, and Controlling Marketing Strategies
DISCUSSION STARTERS
Discussion Starter 1: Identifying Core Competencies
ASK: What are McDonald’s core competencies?
ASK: How many of you have eaten in McDonald’s in other countries? What was similar to the local
McDonald’s?
Exercise Extender: Visit www.aboutmcdonalds.com/country/map.html and visit a number of
McDonald’s international sites. Discuss with the students the similarities and the differences between
the sites. This will bring the discussion of McDonald’s core competencies to life.
Discussion Starter 2: When do Products Cross the Line?
ISSUE: Should companies be allowed to market potentially harmful products?
Discussion Starter 3: Mission Statements
Present Ben and Jerry’s Social, Product, and Economic mission statements (available at
http://www.benjerry.com/values) as well as New Belgium Brewing’s history and purpose statement
(available at http://www.newbelgium.com/Brewery/company/history.aspx).
Discuss these two companies that are known for their high ethical standards and their mission