Marketing Strategy and Planning
This domain tests strategic planning and the marketing plan: environmental scanning, SWOT, objectives, segmentation, targeting, positioning, research, and metrics.
Core rules
- A strategic plan sets long-range direction; a marketing plan details tactics, budgets, and controls for a target market.
- SWOT separates internal strengths and weaknesses from external opportunities and threats.
- Objectives should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
- Segmentation bases include demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral. Useful segments are measurable, accessible, substantial, differentiable, and actionable.
- Targeting strategies: undifferentiated, differentiated, concentrated, and micromarketing.
- Positioning is the place a brand occupies in the customer's mind, supported by a value proposition and the marketing mix.
- Market share = firm sales / total market sales.
Worked example
A fitness studio has $180,000 in annual sales; the local market totals $3.6 million. Market share = 180,000 / 3,600,000 = 5%. The studio segments by behavior (workout frequency) and psychographics (wellness values), uses a concentrated strategy aimed at busy professionals, and positions itself as "30-minute coached workouts." The mix aligns: small-group classes, a premium monthly fee, app booking, and targeted digital ads.
Traps that cost marks
- Putting a competitor's move in weaknesses instead of threats.
- Writing an objective such as "increase sales" without a measure or deadline.
- Confusing strategy (where to compete) with tactics (specific actions).
- Treating segmentation as targeting; segmentation divides the market, targeting selects segments.
- Writing a positioning statement as a slogan rather than a value claim.
- Ignoring sample bias in marketing research.