Leading the Marketing Planning Initiative

Registration and Hot Breakfast

We’ll kick off the day with a nice breakfast so you’ll have energy for the day. You’ll also be provided with lunch and breaks throughout the day.

Greg Marshall

Professor, Rollins College

Marketing Planning in 2019

• What are the big challenges?
• What are the best practices?
• What are the common “big mistakes”?
• Culture for marketing planning

What Does Your Organization Want out of Marketing Planning?

• What’s the desired end game?
• Who currently “owns” the process?
• What stakeholders are currently involved versus what stakeholders need to be involved?
• What is your current versus desired state?

Owning up to Your Organization’s Current Situation: Reality Versus Pie-In-The-Sky Assessments

• Work with factors you can’t control
• Make the most of factors you can control (or at least impact)
• Hold up the mirror – an honest assessment of organizational competencies

Step Back and Critically Assess Your Current Offerings

• What are your present offerings?
• What should/could they be?
• What are your competitors doing?
• Crystal ball time: what will your competitors be doing next year and later?

Served Market

• Who are your markets and customers?
• Who should/could they be?

Hot Breakfast

Breakfast will be waiting for you when you arrive for day two. Lunch and breaks will be provided throughout the day.

Where Do You Want to Take Your Offerings?

• The new segmentation
• Prioritize the segments: Target marketing
• What the heck is positioning strategy?

Nuts and Bolts: Let’s Work Through Each of the Critical Strategy Areas (4 P’s and Other Delights)

• Hone the offering
• The core offering (whether product or service, B2B or B2C, for-profit or nonprofit)
• Deliverables surrounding the core offering
• Brands, brands, brands
• Pricing the offering 
• Supply chain/channels/service delivery
• How service trumps product
• The Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Suite
• “Old media” and “new media”
• The sales force – marketing’s friend or nemesis?

Trials and Tribulations in Marketing Plan Implementation

• Connect plan success to necessary internal/external stakeholders to make it happen
• Market the marketing plan internally
• Anticipate and deal with bumps along the way

Gauge the Success of the Plan

• Make adjustments along the way
• Contingency planning, anyone?

Do It All Over Again

• Make marketing planning part of your organizational DNA
• Integrate the process into organizational performance management systems

Your Personal Charge on Leaving Our Session

• Take home a leadership plan of attack
• You will make a difference