Download Marketing Plans by Malcolm McDonald 4th Edition

This is the Fourth Edition of a book which, since its launch in 1984, has helped and encouraged hundreds of thousands of practicing managers with the difficult task of marketing planning. Many of them have been kind enough to write to me and thank me for the book’s practical, nonsense style and approach to the subject. This has encouraged me to update the book to incorporate the findings of my latest research and experience in this difficult domain of marketing. This support also encouraged me to strengthen the book considerably by the addition of a chapter which incorporates a step-by-step, ‘this is how you do it’ approach to the preparation of marketing plans. The result is a book which takes the reader painstakingly through the process of marketing planning, while also providing a detailed means of implementing all the concepts and methodologies outlined. 

The purpose of this book is quite simply to explain and demonstrate how to prepare and use a marketing plan. It is equally relevant for consumer, service and industrial goods companies, since the process is universal, although I have now included in the CIM series specialist books on marketing planning for retailers and marketing planning for service businesses.

The truth is, of course, that the actual process of marketing planning is simple in outline. Any book will tell us that it consists of: a situation review; assumptions; objectives; strategies; programmes; and measurement and review. What other books do not tell us is that there are a number of contextual issues that have to be considered that make marketing planning one of the most baffling of all management

problems. Here are some of those issues:

• When should it be done, how often, by whom, and how?
• Is it different in a large and a small company?
• Is it different in a diversified and an undiversified company?
• Is it different in an international and a domestic company?
• What is the role of the chief executive?
• What is the role of the planning department?
• Should marketing planning be top-down or bottom-up?
• What is the relationship between operational (one year) and strategic
• (longer term) planning?

Contents

1 Understanding the marketing process

2 The marketing planning process: The main steps

3 The marketing planning process: Removing the myths

4 Completing the marketing audit: The customer and market audit

5 Completing the marketing audit: The product audit

6 Setting marketing objectives and strategies

7 The communication plan: The advertising and sales promotion plans

8 The communication plan:  The sales plan

9 The pricing plan

10 The distribution plan and customer service plan

11 Marketing information, forecasting and organizing for marketing planning 409

12 Implementation issues in marketing planning

13 A step-by-step marketing planning system

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