Advertising, Public Relations, SWOT Analysis

Advertising:
Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by
an identified sponsor.
Message
Major advertising decisions decision

Objectives Budget Campaign

setting decision Media evaluation
decision
Advertising objectives
A specific communication or task to be accomplished with a specific target audience
during a specific period of time.

Advertising agency
A marketing services firm that assists companies in planning, preparing, implementing
and evaluating all or portions of their advertising programs.

Public Relations
Public relations involve many functions beyond product publicity, including public
affairs, lobbying and investor relations. For example: most company websites feature special
sections for current and potential investors – like this one for IBM.

Public relations are used to promote products, people, places, ideas, activities,
organizations and even nations.
 Direct and Online Marketing

Direct Marketing
Direct communications with carefully targeted individual consumers to obtain an
immediate response and cultivate lasting customer relationships.

Forms of direct marketing

1. Face to Face selling
2. Telemarketing – using telephone to sell
3. Direct mail marketing – selling through letters, ads and samples etc.
4. Catalog marketing – selling through print, video or electronic catalogs.

Online marketing
Marketing conducted through interactive online computer systems, which link consumers
with sellers electronically.

Electronic Commerce (e-commerce)

The general term for a buying and selling process that is supported by electronic means.
 The Business Strategic-Planning Process

SWOT Analysis
The overall evaluation of a company’s Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats is
called SWOT analysis.

External Environment Analysis (Opportunity and Threat Analysis): In general, a business

unit has to monitor key microenvironment forces (demographic-economic, technological,
political-legal, and social-cultural) and significant microenvironment actors (customers,
competitors, distributors, suppliers) that affects its ability to earn profits. The business unit
should set up a marketing intelligence system to track trends and important developments. For
each trend or development, management needs to identify the associated opportunities and
threats. A marketing opportunity is an area of buyer need or potential interest in which a
company can perform profitably. The company now applies Market Opportunity Analysis
(MOA) to determine the attractiveness and success profitability of any opportunity.

Internal Environment Analysis (Strengths/Weakness Analysis): It is one thing to discern

attractive opportunities and another to be able to take advantage of these opportunities. Each
business needs to evaluate its internal strengths and weaknesses. Clearly, the business does not
have to correct all its weaknesses, nor should it gloat about all its strengths. The big question is
whether the business should limit itself to those opportunities where it possesses the required
strengths or whether it should consider better opportunities where it might have to acquire or
develop certain strengths. Sometimes a business does poorly not because its departments lack the
required strengths, but because they do not work together as a team.

Goal Formulation: Once the company has performed a SWOT analysis, it can proceed to
develop specific goals for the planning period. This stage of the process is called goal
formulation. Managers use team goals to describe objectives that are specific with respect to
magnitude and time.

Strategic Formulation: Goals indicate what a business unit wants to achieve; strategy is a game
plan for getting there. Every business must design a strategy for achieving its goals, consisting of
a marketing strategy, and a compatible technology strategy and sourcing strategy.

Program Formulation and Implementation: Once the business unit has developed its principal
strategies, it must work out detailed supporting programs. If the unit has decided to attain
technological leadership, it must plan programs to strengthen its R&D department, gather
technological intelligence, develop leading-edge products, train the technical sales force, and
develop ads to communicate its technological leadership. Once the marketing programs are
formulated, the marketing people must estimate their costs.
 A great marketing strategy can be sabotaged by poor implementation. According to McKinsey &
Company, strategy is only one of seven elements in successful business practice. McKinsey’s 7S
framework for business success: the first three elements-strategy, structure and systems- are
considered the “hardware” of success. The next four – style, skills, staff and shared values-are
the “software”. The first “soft” element style means that company employees share a common
way of thinking and behaving. The second, skills, means that the employees have the skills
needed to carry out the company’s strategy. The third, staffing means, that the company has
hired able people, trained them well, and assigned them to the right jobs. The fourth, shared
values means, that the employees share the same guiding values. When these elements are
present, companies are usually more successful at strategy implementation.

Business SWOT Goal Strategy Program Feedback

analysis formulation formulation formulation Implementation
Mission and control

Fig: The Business Strategic Planning Process