Marketing Planning
Over the last decade changes in the global economy has resulted in the chemical industry experiencing lower margins, reduced profitability and an increased focus on cost reduction —.
Of course there will always be circumstances beyond anyone's control, but this general under performance exposes the inadequacy of planning based solely upon forecasts and budgets prevalent in many companies involved with chemical supply and distribution.
No man is an island...
Nor does any business operate in isolation. You, your competitors and customers are all affected by external influences.
Companies need to be continuously improving ways of serving existing customers and seek out new opportunities to drive the business forward not only to survive, but prosper.
And you can be sure that if you don't keep up with the pace of change, your competitors will. No business can afford to stand still.
Be one step ahead of the competition...
Writing and implementing a marketing plan will help keep you ahead of the competition. It provides the opportunity to set objectives and create plans to build a better future for your company.
A strategic marketing plan should be a clear and simple summary of key market trends, target segments, how to create superior value (to competitors), a clear prioritisation of marketing objectives and strategies, together with the financial implications.
How did we get here?...
Before you can plan though you need to have a clear idea of where you are and why.
In particular, chemical companies must recognise their end use markets, and not just their customers may ultimately be the key to identifying significant trends impacting their business. To do this requires a deep understanding not only of your customer's business, but also your customer's customers, and the markets they serve.
For Principals this also means using distributors who will act as there eyes and ears in the marketplace and are willing to provide valuable customer feedback.
Providing marketing intelligence could become a key distributor function in the 21st century.
Marketing planning should address fundamental issues such as:
- What is our purpose and what business are we in?
- What are we capable of doing? What are our distinctive competencies?
- What is our market, who are our customers and do we satisfy their needs?
- Who are our competitors and how much of a threat do they pose?
- What are realistic objectives and how will we reach them?
- How shall we measure results? What do we do if the situation changes?
Why don't more chemical companies do it?
The problem is that strategic marketing planning is difficult to do well because there are often barriers in organisations that prevent it happening properly. These include:
- Lack of marketing skills and an inability to think creatively at a strategic level.
- Organisational culture can be overtly, or covertly hostile to 'market orientation.' Internal power issues or overly bureaucratic systems can stifle the new ideas and openness needed
- Failure to provide adequate investment of time, money, staffing or other resources.
- Unclear roles. As well as senior management support, everyone needs to be clear about their contribution to the marketing process. Marketing isn't just something for the marketing department.
- Lack of relevant information can render planning meaningless.
How Chemagility can help you develop a practical, strategic marketing plan?
- Assess your current market situation. Chemagility can help you conduct a complete a review (audit) of your current market situation in relation to your markets, customers, competitors and the wider business environment.
- Gain greater customer insight. Most businesses experience a loss of upto 25% of their customers annually, and yet spend six times as much on generating new customers as retaining existing ones1. What is your customer retention rate? Who are your most profitable customers and why? Using data mining and other techniques, we will analyse your customer base to gain a greater understanding of your customer's behaviour.
- Effective segmentation and target marketing. We will review the effectiveness of current segmentation practices and investigate alternative approaches. Are you targeting your efforts on the most promising opportunities for your company?
- Development of competitive marketing strategies. We can help you develop marketing strategies that will differentiate you from the competition and add-value to your target market segments.
- Writing marketing plans. Chemagility has the marketing skills and expertise to help you produce an effective marketing plan for your business. One of the keys to this will be helping you overcome organisational barriers, implementing planning systems and education/training. Marketing planning is not a one off exercise and so needs to be continuously reviewed and updated by the business.
1 The One to One Future, Don Peppers & Martha Rogers
