Marketing planning

What is marketing?

• A thinking and planning process which makes sure you spend your time and money on the right tasks to achieve your objectives
• The management process responsible for identifying and satisfying customer requirements profitably (CIM - Chartered Institute of Marketers)

Do a swap?

The core concern of marketing is finding and using the links between organisation and customer to bring about a swap.

Marketing mediates between provider and user and therefore needs to understand the needs and motivations of each and balance them.

Why plan?

Benefits for communications:

• to form relationships with existing and potential audiences
• gain and retain more customers
• find the best ways to communicate with them
• to convey clear and consistent messages

Benefits for organisation

• to stay focused on your objectives
• to make the best use of resources
• stand out in a competitive marketplace
• adapt to change
• to evaluate your success

Relationship marketing

Relationship marketing focuses on customer retention and satisfaction rather than the 'quick win' of securing an individual transaction.

Relationship marketing differs from other forms of marketing in that it recognises the long-term value of keeping customers, and aims to minimise churn by devising marketing strategies to retain existing clients as well as to attract new ones.

A key concept in relationship marketing is the 'lifetime value' of an individual customer.

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