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Introduction
The phrase " How to make a strategic marketing plan " resonates as an essential question for any organization seeking to thrive in a competitive environment. Pierre Filiatrault, a recognized expert in the field of marketing and professor at UQAM's École des sciences de la gestion, offers an enriched third edition of his reference work. This book is much more than just a manual; it's a practical and theoretical guide to mastering the nuts and bolts of marketing planning. This article, conceived as an in-depth summary of the book, explores in depth the key concepts, essential steps and strategies for developing an effective and efficient marketing plan. At the end of the article, we will illustrate the theoretical concepts covered by studying a practical case study of a company that manufactures pencils for school and professional use.
Marketing: a central corporate function
Marketing is a function that encompasses a multitude of aspects of business. Beyond sales, it includes customer service, customer satisfaction, social responsibility, ethics, product adaptation to market needs, innovation and communications. To manage these elements coherently, a strategic marketing plan is essential. Such a plan makes it possible to :
- Define or clarify the company's vision, mission and values. It's crucial to know where the company wants to go, and how it intends to get there.
- Determine your positioning. It's important to know how your company stands out from the competition.
- Set realistic objectives. Objectives must be achievable and measurable.
- Target markets offering the greatest potential. Focus on the most profitable customer segments.
- Identify sustainable competitive advantages. Identify what the company does better than its competitors.
- Develop innovative, structured and integrated strategies. Strategies must be designed to achieve objectives.
- Effectively coordinate marketing efforts. All marketing actions must be consistent.
In short, the strategic marketing plan is a working tool that helps you understand where you've come from, where you're going, and how to get there.
The marketing planning process: a step-by-step approach
Pierre Filiatrault's book details a rigorous planning process, divided into four parts:
The nature and process of marketing planning: This first part introduces the fundamental concepts of marketing and the need for a planned approach. It discusses the definition of a marketing plan, the reasons for writing one, and how to obtain the necessary information.
Situation analysis: This section is devoted to analyzing the company's internal and external environments. It identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Marketing strategies: This section explores the different marketing strategies a company can adopt, whether in terms of supply, demand or marketing mix.
Preparing the marketing plan: This final part covers the definition of the vision, mission and objectives, as well as the organization, implementation and control of the plan.
Internal environmental analysis is an in-depth examination of the company, its resources and skills. It highlights the strengths the company can build on, and the weaknesses it needs to improve.
The key elements of this analysis are :
Analysis of results: This examines the company's sales, profits and market share. It helps to understand past performance and identify areas for improvement. Sales must be analyzed by segment, product, sales representative, etc.
Marketing mix analysis: This stage evaluates the effectiveness of decisions relating to products, pricing, distribution and communication. Questions need to be asked about the quality of products, their accessibility, the effectiveness of distribution channels, the relevance of advertising messages, and so on.
Strategic orientation analysis: This analysis enables us to understand the company's vision, mission, values, positioning, social responsibility and ethics. It asks whether these elements are clearly defined, coherent and relevant.
Marketing management analysis: This involves assessing the planning, organization, implementation and control of marketing activities within the company. This enables us to identify malfunctions and areas for improvement.
Analyzing the external environment is a crucial step in understanding the forces at work in the market. It includes :
Macro-environmental analysis:
This examination covers the demographic, cultural, social, economic, technological, ecological and political factors that can influence the company's business. It is essential to understand these evolutions in order to anticipate opportunities and threats.
The demographic environment includes the study of population size, structure and mobility.
The cultural environment includes the values, norms and beliefs that shape consumer behavior.
The social environment takes into account the structure of society, major trends and social responsibility.
The economic environment analyzes the economic situation, market globalization and deregulation.
The technological environment refers to innovation and its impact on businesses.
The ecological environment emphasizes corporate responsibility for environmental protection.
The political environment refers to the laws, regulations and political orientations that influence marketing.
Customer analysis:
It involves studying the profile of current customers, their purchasing motivations, their buying behavior and their post-purchase behavior. Knowing your customers is essential to adapting your offer to their needs.
Competitor analysis:
We need to identify direct competitors, their strategies, strengths, weaknesses and reactions. You also need to consider generic competition, i.e. other ways of satisfying the same need.
Market analysis:
It covers the attractiveness of different market segments, market size, growth rate, profitability, intensity of competition, and so on. Understanding the characteristics of each market is crucial to targeting them effectively.
Marketing strategies: tactical and strategic choices
Marketing strategies are the decisions a company makes to achieve its objectives. They fall into two categories:
Fundamental strategies:
Supply-side strategies: These concern the company's product and service portfolio, growth strategies, diversification, etc. You need to decide which products or services to offer, how to develop them, and how to adapt them to market needs.
Demand strategies: These involve segmentation, targeting and positioning. This involves selecting the most interesting customer segments and defining the company's positioning in relation to its competitors. Segmentation divides the market into homogeneous sub-groups. Positioning aims to create a clear and distinct image of the company in the minds of consumers.
Competitive strategies: These define how the company positions itself in relation to its competitors. You have to choose between different strategies, such as cost leadership, differentiation or specialization.
Marketing mix strategies:
The product or service: This involves choosing the characteristics of the offering, its design, quality and functionality. You also need to decide whether to modernize existing products or services or launch new ones. Pruning is also an option, involving the elimination of unprofitable products or services.
Pricing: We need to determine a pricing policy based on costs, demand and competition. You also need to decide whether to offer promotions, discounts, rebates and so on.
Distribution: This involves choosing distribution channels (direct sales, indirect sales, intermediaries) and points of sale. A distinction is made between intensive, selective and exclusive distribution. The channel structure strategy consists in choosing the number of intermediaries.
Communication: includes advertising, public relations, sales promotion, direct marketing, sales, etc. You need to choose the most effective communication tools and determine the budget allocated to communication.
Customer-facing staff: We need to ensure that staff are competent, trained and motivated to serve customers in the best possible way. It's also important to consider internal marketing to ensure employee buy-in to the company's objectives.
Orientation, creation and execution of the marketing plan: the final stages
This last part of the planning process consists of:
Define strategic direction: This involves formulating the company's vision, mission, values and objectives. The vision should inspire all stakeholders. The mission describes why the company exists, what it offers, to whom, where and how. Values are the guiding principles behind the company's actions. Objectives must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound.
Creating the marketing plan: This stage involves choosing the most appropriate marketing strategies and drawing up the budget. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats identified in the situation analysis must be taken into account. The plan must also be structured in a written document.
Executing the marketing plan: This includes organizing, implementing and monitoring the plan. A suitable organizational structure must be put in place, roles and responsibilities defined, and effective management systems put in place. Good internal and external communication is also essential. Control enables results to be monitored and actions to be adjusted where necessary. There are different types of control: strategic, productivity and activity/program.
Implementation and control: key success factors
A marketing plan, no matter how well conceived, is useless if it is not rigorously implemented. Work organization, action coordination, team motivation and internal communication are essential for effective implementation. Similarly, control is essential to ensure that objectives are met, and to make any necessary adjustments. There are different types of control:
Strategic control enables us to assess whether the strategies we have chosen are still relevant.
The marketing manipulation of productivity makes it possible to measure the effectiveness of marketing actions.
Activity and program monitoring enables us to check that the actions implemented are in line with the plan.
Watch: Building your 2025 marketing plan: the step-by-step method
The Marketing Plan in practice: the Graphix case study
The author of the book uses a fictitious company called Graphix, which manufactures, imports and assembles writing instruments, to illustrate the concept of a marketing plan. Here's a summary of the company's case study:
Situation analysis
Analysis of the internal environment :
Results: Graphix sales are holding up well overall, with improved profitability thanks to sales of automatic pencils and pen-and-pencil sets. The professional market is very profitable, while the school market is less so. Customer satisfaction is generally good, but no formal studies have been carried out. Sales of certain traditional products, such as black lead pencils, are declining.
Marketing mix: The marketing mix analysis focuses on the automatic pencil in the professional segment. Packaging is seen as needing improvement from a functional and ecological point of view, and there have been complaints about the quality of the mechanisms on some automatic pencils. There are also customer service problems (accessibility in different time zones). The catalog needs to be redone and the customer list updated. The communications budget is low.
Strategic orientation: Graphix has no written vision, mission or values statements, but management seems to have a clear idea of the company: a small to medium-sized business that supplies quality writing and drawing instruments. There are no written rules on social responsibility or ethics, but management has clear values on social responsibility and only manufactures safe, quality products. The company is well known to intermediaries, but less so to consumers, although the Multicolor brand (colored pencils) is well recognized. Key success factors are reliability and speed of delivery, distribution channels, sales force, customer service and good value for money.
Marketing management: The company has never drawn up a written strategic marketing plan, but sales forecasts are made for the budget. The sales manager is competent, but her job requires all her time, and there is no product manager. Production receives instructions from several people, and there is not always prioritization.
Analysis of the external environment:
Macroenvironment: Globalization creates both opportunities and threats, with the possibility of massive imports of low-cost products. The development of electronic communications is reducing demand for black lead pencils. The use of recycled cardboard for packaging should be studied.
Customers: It's important to understand how, when, why and where customers buy, as well as their post-purchase behavior.
Competitors: Generic competition can come from different means of communication, different types of products, and different brands. Graphix has several competitors, including Penco (which has a good sales force, but no colored pencils), Sterol (which is dynamic with good quality lead pencils, but poorer after-sales service in the commercial market) and Rainbow (with low-priced products).
Markets: Graphix's overall competitive position is best in the school market, very good in the commercial market and average in the professional market.
Opportunities and threats: The main opportunities are the growth of artistic activities and the possibility of expanding into the commercial market, while threats include strong competition and higher-than-competitive prices.
Challenges: The main challenges for Graphix are to correct packaging and potential toxicity problems, to offset declining pencil sales by developing artistic activities, to improve the company's reputation and image, to review communication objectives and strategies, to measure customer satisfaction and to review pricing policy in relation to the competition.
Orientation and strategies
Vision: To become the benchmark supplier of writing and drawing instruments in every home, business and office in Canada.
Mission: To manufacture and distribute writing and drawing instruments that meet the needs of the professional, educational and commercial markets, by being the best Canadian company in this field.
Values: Product quality, customer satisfaction, integrity and social responsibility.
Objectives: Increase sales by 5% per year, ensure survival with a minimum profit of 10% on sales, achieve a 20% market share, improve the quality of customer service and position Graphix as a company offering superior products and service.
Fundamental strategies :
Offer: Maintain the position of colored and black lead pencils for various uses, consolidate the market for drawing instruments and rapidly find new products. The potential of automatic pencils and disposable pens is interesting. We need to consolidate the commercial market and increase sales of colored pencils.
Demand: Improve company reputation and image, reduce delivery times, and develop tools to measure customer satisfaction.
Competition: differentiate through product quality, excellent customer service, on-time delivery and by developing tools to measure customer satisfaction.
Marketing mix strategies:
Product: Consolidate the range of black and colored lead pencils, design new automatic pens and pencils, study the possibility of manufacturing products for private labels, develop products for the leisure market.
Price: Review the costs of low-end products and study the possibility of reducing them.
Distribution: Consolidate the current distribution network, analyze and identify the most efficient distribution network for each customer segment.
Communication: Increase the communication budget, improve brochure content and design, make use of the Internet, target advertising in trade journals and ensure presence at trade fairs and shows.
Contact staff: Improve staff training, motivation, recruitment and evaluation, and create more accessible customer service.
Marketing budget
A detailed budget is proposed, dividing expenditure between the various elements of the marketing mix.
Execution
Execution of the marketing plan includes the organization, implementation and control of marketing activities.
It's essential to establish a customer-oriented organizational culture, to structure the company for better coordination of marketing efforts, and to create an effective marketing system.
Monitoring is essential to ensure that the plan's objectives are achieved, and to identify areas for improvement. Monitoring must take place both internally and externally.
The Graphix case study is a concrete example of how a company can use a strategic marketing plan to analyze its situation, define its objectives and implement strategies to achieve its goals.
Conclusion: the marketing plan, a compass for success
Pierre Filiatrault's "Comment faire un plan de marketing stratégique" is an invaluable tool for any company concerned with its development and sustainability. It offers a methodical, structured approach to drawing up an effective marketing plan, adapted to the company's environment and objectives. The book emphasizes the importance of analysis, planning, execution and control in ensuring the success of marketing actions. By following Pierre Filiatrault's advice and recommendations, companies can successfully navigate the complex world of marketing.
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