Strategic Marketing Tools and Techniques for Attaining Objectives

Learning Outcomes

3.Identify the elements of marketing planning and critically evaluate its use in the organisation you are examining.

4.Critically evaluate the use of target marketing (segmentation, targeting and positioning) in the organisation of your choice.

5.Critically evaluate the use of components of the marketing mix by the chosen organisation and relate this to the approach to target marketing identified.

Assessment Task

Using an organisation of your choice on which to base your assignment, critically evaluate how strategic marketing tools and techniques are used to attain desired marketing objectives.

Specific Criteria/Guidance

Areas that should be included in your discussion are as follows:

• The aim of the assignment is for you to show your knowledge and evaluation of strategic marketing methods and techniques.
• You may select any organisation, but one in consumer markets may be easier to help illustrate your points. This also depends on your own work experience and access to a business.
• It is essential that you make full use of marketing theory and references.
• You may refer to other organisations or industry cases for comparison, to support your analysis.
• The importance of planning and the use marketing activities should be a theme through your assessment and how these help achieve specific marketing objectives.
• You are not expected to provide detailed information about the organisation’s actual marketing strategies or marketing objectives, but you should be able to make sensible inferences based on your reading, knowledge and context of the organisation. In some cases this information may be available, and you should look to use it in supporting your analysis.
• You should provide a critical evaluation of how your organisation could use marketing techniques to achieve its marketing objectives and fulfil consumer requirements.

Ensure that your work has not even the smallest element of plagiarism. You are advised to refer to the links to the rules and regulations on Academic Integrity on the module space and in the module handbook.

Key Resources

See the module handbook and lecture material for key reading and journals framed around key topics.

Submission Guidance

• Students should submit work before 12 noon on the deadline date via the appropriate ‘Turnitin submission’ link on the Moodle module page. Please check your email confirmation to ensure you have submitted to the correct place.
• Assessments should be submitted in Microsoft Word (.doc and .docx), Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx. .pps and .ppsx), Excel (.xls and .xlsx) or PDF format (generated from the word-processing or presentation software you are using, not a scanned document. Do not upload Open Office documents (.odt, .odp).
• Do not upload documents directly from Google Drive and One Drive.
• The file must be no larger than 40MB.

Please refer to Help with Assignment Submission section on Moodle for further guidance on online submissions

Discuss the importance of segmenting the market and identifying clear target markets. This will link to the benefits of segmenting and targeting.

The best method of segmenting is by customer benefits so that you can provide products that meets those customer needs and therefore they will buy from you. This helps your organisation achieve specific marketing objectives.

You can also look at the use of a portfolio of products that meet the different needs or different target markets.

Do not describe any methods of segmentation. Assume we know all the methods.

You can discuss the importance of providing customer value to customers. Customers buy on value which is linked to the price paid for the range of benefits received from the product.

You can link this to the concept of competitive advantage and that if you have an offering that provides customers value then they will buy from which helps you achieve the specific marketing objective.

Remember value links to the product benefits; pre purchase, purchase and post purchase customer experience; how / where they buy (distribution); price; brand benefits.

There is a lot you can do here. This can include points about the importance of communicating the product benefits and (Key Distinguishing Feature) KDFs to the customer so that they see how the product meets their needs and this encouraging them to make a purchase.

It will be good to refer to the high involvement buying process or the low involvement buying process if that is more appropriate; and emphasise the need to guide the customer through the process to purchase which is largely done with good marketing communications.

Here you can pick up on areas about informing customers of KDFs which will have the most appeal and also the need to build positive attitudes towards purchase intention.

This can link to areas such as:

• Positioning to help differentiate the product from competitors.
• Building of brand personality and strong brand associations
• The self in terms of how the purchase of brands make people feel and their self-image
• Reflection in terms of how others view people who owns specific brands.
• How brands help build brand equity and customer loyalty.