How does Market Research Relate to a Marketing Plan? Staying competitive involves doing market research to incorporate into the marketing plan.  The marketing plan is a “written statement of a marketing strategy and the time related details for carrying out the strategy.” (Perreault, W. Cannon, J., & McCarthy, J., 2008, Glossary G-7) Marketing managers often ask themselves what product or service they will offer to the public and how to carry out the best strategy for marketing research. Market research may include pricing a company’s product or service, finding a place or location,  and learning how to manage promotions in a competitive market.

How does Segmentation Relate to a Marketing Plan? Turning a profit in a competitive marketplace will be a firm’s number one goal when introducing segmentation into a marketing plan.  Geographic segmentation “calls for dividing the market into different geographical units such as nations, states, regions, countries, cities or neighborhoods.” (Kotler, P., & Keller, K., 2009, p. 213) Companies may also narrow your segmentation by geographic region, family size, education, social class, race, income, and occupation just to name a few.  Marketing managers are responsible for implementing and ensuring this information goes into the marketing plan.  Profitable companies know their customers best by using information to determine how profitable a consumer market will be.

How does Targeting & Positioning Relate to the Marketing Plan? Meeting the needs of customers is a challenge to find the most profitable positioning to target markets.  Targeting and positioning specific groups of buyers for products or services requires marketers to enter the market when there’s the greatest opportunity for success.  Marketing managers implement their marketing plan according to how they want to position their brand to meet the needs, wants, and demands of their target marketing mix.  Moreover, offering value to satisfy customers is just one way marketers position themselves over their competition.  Some marketers believe in the phrase “paying less is more” this is not true, adding value is always better.

Reasons Companies Benefit from Target Marketing The benefit of using a high powered fiber-optic hunting bow, is two hit your target as many times as possible without wasting arrows.  Companies benefit from Target Marketing by saving time, money, and energy. The benefits of target marketing is meeting the needs or wants of specific target customers, turning a profit and staying competitive. Market research, segmentation, and targeting and positioning are the three reasons why competitive companies stay in business while their competitors fail to hit their target market.