Strategic marketing planning for mature product life cycle stage

Marketing Models

Review of marketing and promotional model

Any organization's marketing program must take into perspective its marketing strategy and analysis, the target marketing process, marketing planning program development, and the target market. As a person in charge establishing a marketing campaign for a product in its mature stage of the product life cycle, it is imperative that a marketing strategy is developed. The person establishing the marketing campaign has to determine the product or service area and market in which the product is to compete (Breaugh, 2011). The strategic marketing plan must take into consideration an organization's corporate strategy. The marketing strategic plan should act as a guide to specific marketing programs and policies. The process of development of a strategic marketing plan should be based on situational analysis. There are three steps that have to be followed in the process of developing a marketing strategy. These are opportunity analysis, competitive analysis, and target market selection. Opportunity analysis involves evaluating areas where customer needs are not being satisfied and where the organization can compete effectively (Breaugh, 2011). The process of developing a marketing strategy also involves analyzing the competition your product is likely to face in the market place. Competition can be there in the form of direct brand competition or other products and services consumers use to satisfy their demands. A lot of attention has to be paid on the competitors marketing programs as they adversely affect an organizations marketing strategy. When developing a marketing strategy one has to critically look at the special thing his organization possesses that gives it an edge over its competitors (Breaugh, 2011). Competitive edge can be achieved through product differentiation, provision of superior customer service, lowering the production cost of products, and dominating channels of distribution. An organization can have competitive edge when it also engages in excellent advertising and promotion. The final step in developing a marketing strategy involves selecting a target market of your product. An organization may select one or more target markets where it will develop its marketing program. An organization's marketing efforts are then focused on these target markets.

First forward to target marketing process, there are a lot of issues that have to be taken into consideration. These include identifying markets, market segmentation, market segmentation process, selection of target market, and market positioning. Target marketing has much to do with identifying the needs and wants of specific groups of people (Breaugh, 2011). After this, a group or more is identified as the target market. An organization should then position through marketing strategies. This approach takes into consideration the diversity of consumer needs and increased use of segmentation by competitors. Market segmentation is a process of identifying the person to be targeted. Potential customers are group on basis of whether they have similar needs that can make them respond similarly to marketing actions (Handlin, 2014). The breaking up of the market has five distinct steps namely coming up with ways to group consumers according to their needs and grouping of marketing actions; developing a market-product grid; selecting target segments to direct marketing actions; and executing these actions. Segmentation can be done geographically, demographically, and psychographically. Other way to do segmentation is behavioristic. Segmentation can also be done on the basis of specific benefit offered by the product or service. The process of segmenting a market is done over time. The actual selection of the target market involves determining the number of segments one should enter, which segments offer some potential (Leeflang, 2002). An organization would in this regard engage in undifferentiated, differentiated, and concentrated marketing. Another issue that has to be given credence in strategic marketing is market positioning. There are several approaches to positioning and strategies for developing a position. These are positioning by product attribute, positioning by price/quality, position by use or application, positioning by product class, and positioning by product user to mention but a few approaches and strategies. Market positioning also involves determining the positioning strategy. Five distinct steps are involved here namely: identifying competitors, assessing consumers' perception of competitors, determining competitors' positions, making the positioning decision, and monitoring the decision (Handlin, 2014).

It is imperative that various elements of marketing mix be combined into a cohesive and effective marketing program. The elements of the marketing mix must be consistent with one another. Elements of marketing mix influence and interact with promotion. Organizations offer their customers products, services, or ideas. These products and services serve functional, social, and psychological needs. Product decisions that touch on branding and packaging are very important from the promotional perspective because the name of a brand and how it is packaged communicates a product's attributes. A brand name that communicates a product's attributes and meaning should be chosen to create and maintain brand equity (Handlin, 2014). A product with brand equity is considered to be having an added value. It also enjoys goodwill of the customers. Despite the fact that the role packaging has changed due to the springing up of self-service stores, packaging can still create new opportunities existing products. The pricing decisions must take into consideration factors like costs, demand, competition, and perceived value. Other issues that have to be thoughtfully evaluated are distribution channel decisions and development of promotional strategies.

Centralized or decentralized marketing set-up

I prefer decentralized set up in marketing organizations because it gives marketers the opportunity to be creative and to adapt quickly to changing market needs as opposed to the centralized set up where there is no flexibility because the top level management decides on the marketing programs and budget. A lot of time is then lost in administering rather marketing. In decentralized set ups, front line managers are closer to customers. In this way they get to know the how to personalize while keeping the key messages the same (Foong, 2011).

Another reason why I like decentralized marketing is because the operation of the department is determined by each of the individual constituent divisions within the department itself. This enables different professionals within the marketing firm to make decisions that are independent of other departments like it would be easy to find public relations specialists making decisions independent of the website or e-commerce divisions. This shows the level of autonomy that is practiced in the decentralized marketing firms. This does not imply that one can do as he or she wishes because ones decisions can still be subject to approval from the marketing and operations managers. Decentralization encourages employees to freely think and make use of creative solutions especially in departments which do not practice centralized control. Free thinking and use of creative solutions comes in because managers hardly micromanage. The managers focus on important managerial tasks. Lower level managers subsequently obtain more vital experience. They also get the opportunity to showcase their talents as opposed to being controlled by the upper level management in virtually all decisions (Lewis, 2014).