Marketing Planning Principles into Practice

Citation

Simpson, M. (2005), "Marketing Planning Principles into Practice", Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 137-138. https://doi.org/10.1108/14626000510579699

So, you have to produce a marketing plan and it is the first time you have had to do this or you have to teach a module on this topic. Where do you go? This is the book that covers everything in marketing planning that you need to know. This is the successor to the very good book The Marketing Plan: A Handbook also by Marian Burk Wood, Prentice Hall.

The book is carefully organised, clear, concise and up to date. The book comes with Marketing Plan Pro software, which is intended to make life easier and give examples of the various types of marketing plans that can be produced. Each chapter has an overview, an opening case study, boxes with case examples of marketing in practice, good diagrams and tables, chapter summaries, key term definitions, practical marketer checklists, online resources, questions for discussion, exercises to build your own marketing plan, a closing case study with questions which would be ideal for tutorials and endnotes which are essentially the references. Thus the book has considerable merit over other offerings in the subject area while not being cluttered with excessive self‐help tables to complete – which were never that useful in any case in my opinion.

The usual suspects of mission statements, SWOT, PEST, analysis of consumer and business markets, segmentation, targeting and positioning, setting objectives and making marketing strategy, developing product and brand strategies, channel choice and logistics strategy, pricing strategy, integrated marketing communications, measuring performance, control and implementation are all present. There is an appendix with a sample marketing plan, however, without the actual case study or real situation being described in detail a lot of learning is lost. Although, the sources of the material are given at the end of the appendix it would take some effort to realise how this particular example marketing plan could be developed. The entire book gives considerable help in developing marketing plans and has specific exercises devoted to this aspect at the end of each chapter. There is a very good glossary and an excellent index.

The drawbacks are that a good deal of prior marketing knowledge is needed and probably a companion text with a good deal more detail on the specific topics and issues is needed to complement this excellent textbook. However, one would expect students involved in writing strategic marketing plans to have already had modules on marketing principles, consumer behaviour, marketing strategy, integrated marketing communications and the like before tackling a strategic marketing planning module. This may be more problematic for practitioners but the text does provide a very good summary of each topic that might lead one into deeper texts on specific topics.

A point that is worth bearing in mind is that strategic marketing plans are usually developed for reasons other than planning marketing activities such as for external funding bodies, banks and as part of a business plan for starting a new business. Thus, planning marketing activities may actually be somewhere down the list of reasons for producing such a plan. There is also the argument that once written the plan is out of date but then one must start somewhere. However, perhaps the main criticism of any text in this area is the assumption that the strategy for a business can be obtained by top down planning rather than emergent or incremental activities in response to market needs. The postmodernists will always find this approach difficult to reconcile. The facts of the matter are that strategic marketing planning does work, it is a necessary business skill, the plan is often required as a milestone so that further developments can be made on a sound basis and is often required for external reporting and obtaining funding.

The book therefore provides an excellent overview of how to develop a strategic marketing plan. The book is ideal for final year undergraduates or MBA students undertaking a module in strategic marketing planning. The book would also be useful for practitioners learning how to produce their first marketing plan and may be useful preparation for some professional examinations requiring case study analysis and a strategic marketing plan. The book is good value in my opinion and I strongly recommend this text. The author has considerable practical experience and the provision of additional materials including a supporting web site for students and downloadable materials for lecturers is excellent. I am going to use this text in my own modules and I am convinced that my students will welcome it.