Foundations of Marketing Strategy in Practice

Marketers everywhere are seeking to raise the awareness of marketing as a vital strategic discipline within their businesses. For this to happen, it is crucially important for them to understand and implement the series of steps necessary to construct and carry out an effective strategy. This three day course provides the immersion necessary to embed this process in a thorough and practical way.

You will benefit from enhanced strategic marketing skills, and gain a deeper understanding of external and internal business processes. You will discover how marketing models fit together and be able to submit action plans which will have real credibility and substance.

Your organisation will benefit from an increasing awareness of how effective marketing strategies can lead directly to performance and profit improvements. A greater understanding of customers, competitors and organisational structure and communication will lead to sharper strategic focus.

Marketers who are moving into positions where they will be expected to demonstrate increasing strategic awareness and planning skills. Existing marketing managers who need to refresh their knowledge. Managers from other disciplines who need to work with marketing colleagues as members of cross-functional strategic teams.
Sales and other executives who are moving across to marketing.

• Introduction and definition of terms.
• Marketing orientation – meaning and importance
• Vision, mission, values, brand analysis
• Situation analysis
  External environment – PEST and 5 Forces analysis
  Internal environment – classifying strengths and weaknesses
  Coordinating the marketing audit – the SWOT/TOWS analysis
• Strategy
  Setting strategic marketing objectives, including the use of the Ansoff Matrix
  Understanding existing and potential customers – who are they, and why/how do they buy from us?
  STP - segmentation, targeting and positioning
• Tactics
  4 elements of the basic marketing mix
  3 elements of the services mix
• ICE
  Implementation
  Control – use of key performance indicators
  Evaluation
  

The delivery style is fully interactive and participative. There will be a full explanation of the tools and frameworks used, then each component will be practised, sometimes individually, sometimes in groups, with regular feedback. Contributions from delegates, especially experiences from the field, are welcomed. Other media, including film clips, will be used to illustrate various points.