Importance Of Marketing Plan And Market Audit In Professional Services

Key Considerations of Market Practitioner

Any organization that wishes to succeed in its business should have a business plan. Without a business plan, there is no approach that is systematic. The systematic approach helps in the promotion of organization towards its potential clients. Lack of marketing plan leads to inefficient effort which wastes a lot of time plus resources and inefficient professional services. However, the process of marketing plan which works well towards the consumer products and industrial goods, is not good for professional services.

This has been learnt from many years of operational functions within these fields. With that in mind, some things should be considered in making a successful market plan. Among the things is market strategy. This deals with strategic components. The second thing is rebranding. This deals with repositioning of the organization. A successful marketing plan has a lot of advantages. One of the advantages is that of encouraging one towards revisiting the old habits and the assumptions. The other advantage is that of reducing risk through the addition of new facts (Sandu, Ryzhenkova, Veselovsky, Solovyov, 2014). Therefore, an exploration will be done showing an understanding towards business marketing development process.  

Key Considerations of Market Practitioner

Auditing helps the organization to know how best its businesses are being executed on the digital marketing, the sales process and development of people. This helps in making the vision and dream of the organization become a reality (DeFond, Zhang, 2014). Therefore, this is what makes the organization look unique. As a marketing practitioner some things should be considered when undertaking the marketing audit. The practitioner should consider the marketing conditions. He or she should do research on the willingness of the customer towards spending. This helps greatly towards influencing the customer plus the organization.

The influence may affect sales either positively or negatively. The market conditions which the practitioner should consider are; prosperity, recession, depression and recovery (Donovan, Frankel, Lee, Martin, Seo, 2014). During prosperity, the chances of employment are very high, the customers are always willing to spend and the confidence of the consumer is very high. The practitioner should be able to understand that, during the period of recession, the confidence of the consumer goes down and also the employment opportunities usually go down. During depression, the business is down hence leading to unemployment.

The prices also become very sensitive during this period. Therefore, understanding the market conditions helps the marketing practitioners in many different ways. One of the ways is that it helps to evaluate the next course of action (Huotari, Hamari, 2012).  For instance if the prices of commodities are varying, the organization need to monitor this closely so as to avoid losses for their products. The other importance of understanding the marketing conditions is that of helping the market practitioner monitor the marketing performance. Knowing how the market is performing in terms of buying and selling helps the organization greatly. It enables the organization to know the right time for selling its products or acquiring new products.

Objectives of Market Audit

The other importance is that of understanding the type of client the organization is dealing with. If the organization knows his or her clients well, the production of quality services will be achieved (Christopher, Peck, 2012). Clients play a great role towards the improvement of products and services within the organization. By knowing the market conditions, the organization benefits greatly when it comes to its operations and service delivery (Robinson, Irmak, Jayachandran, 2012).

The marketing practitioner should also consider the environment of the industry when doing his or her audit. This is because each industry has its own unique characteristics and requirements. In the world of today, the industries are changing depending on macro-environment (Zhang, Zhu, Boutaba, (2011). The industries are also changing due to global competition. The audit done by the practitioner towards the industry environment will help to give a deeper understanding towards the factors that play a greater roles towards the organization plus if there is any potential growing of the organization. Industry environment can be analyzed through many ways.

This can be done by looking at the industry regulations, the industry earnings and the impact of technology and innovation. Another consideration is that of micro-environment (Welter, Smallbone, 2011). The practitioner should consider greatly this type of environment because it tends to be closer to the organization plus the interactions. The tools used for analyzing such kind of environment are; rate of market growth, the market share, the market size, the market segmentation, the analysis of supply chain and the distribution channels (Chakrabarti, Vidal, Mitchell, 2011).

The other consideration is that of customers. The practitioner should analyze the customers and know their interests. This should be done through customer profiling, looking at the customer behaviour and conducting a benefit analysis (Agnihotri, Dingus, Krush, 2016). Benefit analysis deals with major products plus different benefits of the products that the customers buy. The other consideration is that of competition. The practitioner should consider greatly the other competitors who offer the same services as the ones the organization offers (Lemon, Verhoef, 2016). 

Competition can be analyzed through many ways. One of the ways is through doing a market research on the companies and organizations that procure the same services and products. The analysis also entails looking at the marketing expenses and the pricing of the products. The practitioner should also look at the market share of the competitor. This helps to know where the organization will sell and distribute its products and services. Therefore, analysis of external environment helps to define the direction within strategic planning. It also helps in carrying out of SWOT analysis for the organization (Ulmer, Mattfeld, Hennig, Goodson, 2016).

The other consideration is that of auditing task environment. This involves auditing of the factors that are associated with markets, consumers, competitors, facilitators, marketing firms and the public. These factors affect the efficiency of marketing programs. The practitioner also should consider auditing of marketing organization. This entails evaluation of the performance of the staff on different levels within the hierarchy. Auditing of market systems should be considered. This will entail maintaining of the marketing systems. An example of the marketing system is that of marketing planning system and the new product development system (Wheelen, Hunger, Hoffman, Bamford, 2017)

The practitioner should also put into consideration the auditing of market function. This entails checking on the core competencies of the firm. An example of the competencies is product, sales force, price, marketing communication and distribution. Marketing audit aids in determining how best is the department of marketing within the organization. It also helps to check how marketing activities are run within the organization. Marketing audit also aids in checking the overall performance of the organization. The other consideration for the practitioner is that of marketing productivity. This will serve the purpose of evaluating marketing undertakings in terms of productivity and cost effectiveness (Jensen, 2017).

Objectives of Market Audit

Marketing audit has many objectives which should be considered by the market practitioners. The objectives guide in planning and management of resources within the organization.  The objectives of market auditing are divided into;

• Financial objectives
• Strategic objectives  
• Communication objectives.

The objectives plays different roles when marketing practitioner conducts an audit.

1. Financial Objectives

The financial objectives play a great role towards regulating the expenditure within the organization. They are further subdivided into;

1. Increasing sales objectives
2. Reducing costs objectives
3. Building value of business objectives

The objectives serves different roles within the organization as discussed below. These objective helps and guides on how the funds can be raised and utilized within the organization (Lamberti, Noci, 2010). The objective also guides in doing the purchases and the sales of the organization. If the purchases and sales cannot be planned and budgeted for, the organization can incur a lot of losses. Financial objectives also play a greater role towards increasing the sales revenue of the organization. The objectives specify and state out clearly on how the revenue of the organization should be generated and used at the same time.

The objectives also guide on how the reduction of costs for buying products of the organization should be done. They state clearly on how to minimize funds and get discounts for the services and products they buy for running of day to day activities within the organization. The financial objectives also play a role of building the value of business within the organization. When the value of business is built, more income is generated to the organization. This is because the higher the value of the business, the higher the prices of the products and services the organization produces. This in turn leads to getting more profits for the organization.

1. Strategic Objectives

These objectives are divided into;

1. Product leadership Objectives
2. Customer Intimacy Objectives
3. Operational Excellency Objectives

 These objectives deal with the issues which are strategic to the organization. One of the objective which is in that line is that of product leadership (Wilson, 2010). This entails being the best in terms of product supply. For any organization to maintain its product supply leadership, the quality of the products should be of high. The quality should not only be of high quality but it should also be constant and remain at the top always. Product leadership helps to retain the customers. This is because being the leader in terms of product means the quality of the product is high. Therefore, customers prefer quality products.

This means that if the organization remains constant in producing quality products, it will retain its customers. This therefore creates customer loyalty. Strategic objectives also helps to create customer intimacy. This is whereby the organization will be able to get closer to the consumer and get to listen to their needs and proposals concerning the products and services they offer to them. By doing so this will help the organization in the area of product generation. This is therefore one of the steps that will help to bring the customer closer to firm hence motivating the customer to purchase more and more products from the organization.

Strategic objectives also play a role towards operational excellence. This plays role towards execution of business more consistently rather than competition. Excellence in operations will help the organization in many ways.  One of the ways is that of helping lower the operational risk. The other benefit is that of lowering operational costs. Operational excellence also helps to bring in more revenue for the organization. The other advantage is that of helping in the creation of customer and stakeholder value. Therefore, operational excellence can be widely termed as execution excellence.

1. Communication Objectives

These objectives are divided into;

1. Customer Attraction Objectives
2. Customer Retention Objectives
3. Customer Relationship Objectives

Communication plays almost all the roles within the organization. Without communication activities within the organization cannot be run effectively. Through communication, more and more customers will be attracted to the organization. This can be done through advertisements and campaigns of products and services of the organization. Communication also helps to retain the customers. The manner in which the staff communicate to the customers plays a greater role towards customer retention. If communication is very poor, customers will run away.

This is because customers need to be appreciated because through them, the organization gets revenue for running day to day activities. Communication objective also plays a greater role towards maintaining good relationships between the customers and the organization. If conveying any important issue to the customers is done in a clear and humble way, the customers will always feel appreciated. They will feel that their presence is felt within the organization. Therefore, if the communication from the organization towards the customers is very poor, the services within the organization will not be effective also (Pickett, 2010). 

Conclusion

Lastly, the topic of market auditing plays a great role towards the success of the organization. Market auditing comprises of all the activities that are conducted within the organization. Marketing audit has many sub-branches which play a great role towards effecting most of the activities within the organization. Without marketing audit, some programs within the organization cannot be accounted for. This is because marketing audit provides for all the explanations of the activities which are run in all the departments within the organization.

Therefore, marketing audit helps to spell out and lay down the procedural activities within the organization. If any organization cannot put marketing audit into consideration, the success of the organization cannot be effective anymore. This is the backbone of all the activities that happen within the organization. Lack of marketing audit can interfere with the smooth running of the activities within the organization. Marketing audit can be measured through the success an organization achieves and the output it generates.

References

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