Unit1. Creating a marketing proposal

AO1. Objectives

Marketing objective is how the organisation wishes to position itself on the market and what it’s trying to achieve. Businesses set themselves aims and objectives in order to provide long-term targets. Then businesses develop strategies, which will help them to achieve the objectives they set.

However, different businesses have different aims and objectives. For some of them the main aim could be to achieve the biggest share on the market, for those who already have it or trying to get some place in the market, an essential objective can be to attract as many costumers as possible by decreasing the prices on their products.

Corporate aims

There’s even a hierarchy of objectives for different firms. Corporate aims and mission statements take the first place, as they’re long-term ambitions of a business and contain very general information about what the business is trying to achieve. An example of this objective can be: to become the biggest car producer in the market or the getting the biggest share in this market.

Strategic objectives

The second most important objective is a strategic one as it’s a medium-term target and helps the business to achieve its corporate aim. Basically, it’s all about how the business is actually going to achieve set objectives. It includes different tactics and marketing methods being used by the managers Strategic objectives are set by the senior management at the top of the business hierarchy. An example of strategic objective can be: to introduce a new technology and machinery which your rivals don’t have, or to make your product or brand well known. Another example of strategic decision would be to introduce a new unique profitable product which will make the company more competitive comparing to its rivals.

Operational tactical objectives- are the thirds, but also very important objectives which are essential for the businesses to be successful. It includes day-to-day operations in the company, motivation programmes for the staff and targets set by managers within each department. An example of the tactical objective would be getting your product advertised in all press and media.

Individual objectives

Individual objectives are the targets set by managers for each individual employee. Eg. to get a place for an advertisement of the company’s product in all major newspapers. Or find out what kind of things people like or don’t like about the company’s products by doing a marketing research.

Corporate objectives need to be smart. Why do they need to be smart and what it means is explained bellow.

Smart stands for Specific, Measurable, Agreed and Realistic and Time specific.

Specific objectives show exactly what the business wants to do.

Measurable objectives make it easy to monitor progress of the business, and tell if you have reached your objectives or not.

Achievable objectives means, that not only the director and a top manager in the company sets the objectives and decides what the business is going to do. Everyone can take a part in this and everyone has to agree, that the right aims and objectives are set and that they’re the ones which will help a business to achieve what it wants.

Realistic objectives

Objectives also need to be realistic, which means they’re achievable. If the manages set unrealistic objectives, which are hardly possible to achieve, it will be difficult to convince the staff that it’s possible. It can even de-motivate some workers as they won’t see any point at trying hardly to achieve something impossible.

Time specific objectives give a deadline or a final date of finishing the work, which all the other employees need to aim for. This makes it much easier for the managers and other staff to plan their work in order to finish it on time.

An example of a SMART objective would be to increase market share by 12% by the end of 2007, and increase the profit from 100m pounds a year to 225m also by the end of 2007 by introducing a new unique (already developed) product and building a factory within 5 years.

It’s specific as it shows that the business wants to expand. It is also measurable, hopefully it’s been agreed by staff; and it seems realistic as it’s time specific and will help to plan time and achieve the target step by step within five years.

Marketing Objectives

Discovering the particular needs of a consumer to ensure a quality product/service is produced

-Marketing objectives need to help business find out about the consumer’s particular needs through the marketing research, using questionnaires and surveys. This can also help to find out what the consumer doesn’t like about the product and see what he would suggest by putting themselves on consumer’s place, or asking consumers directly what they would like to change about already existing product. This can provide the business with up-to-date information about their products, which is essential for the business as it identifies customer’s particular needs and shows whether the business produces the right demandable and profitable products.

-In addition to this, marketing research can also help to find out whether the customers are satisfied with the quality of the service and existing products and see if they can make the quality of the product better. Not only research helps to find out whether the customers are satisfied with the quality of existing products. E.g. on every pack of Walkers crisps you find the telephone number, address and all the other contact details of the customer service, so if the customer is not satisfied with the quality of their crisps, he can easily call the customer service and complain about it.

-By doing a lot of research, the business can find some new technology and production methods, which can be applied to their particular business. This helps the company to be up-to-date and be a step ahead of its rivals. For example, the company finds out about some new robots or machinery being discovered or developed. Then the company looks at all risks, advantages and disadvantages of introducing this new machinery on the production line and calculates the approximate costs of doing this. Then it invests the money into the further development of this machinery, in order to make it suitable for their particular company, and then introduces this new machinery into the real factory. Keeping the research up-do-date and being aware of any new business ideas can help to keep the company ahead of its competitors.