Strategic Marketing Planning for 2021

Overview

It’s never been more important to re-think our customer-centric marketing strategies.  Moving forward, low consumer confidence and financial difficulties will make it harder to acquire and retain customers. As a result, we need to reinvent our product and service values, restore trust in our brands, redefine our strategic marketing priorities and rationalise our budgets. To help you work through this process, CIM have developed this one-day course, delivered by leading industry practitioners to help you refocus your strategy and planning process:

Innovation
Businesses need to continually offer new bundles of value if they are to keep ahead of customer expectations and deal with the 'new normal'. This is what genuine innovation is about and the good news is that it doesn't always require new products. Smart new delivery, ingenious new uses, and stellar customer support are where most innovation can be found.

Trust
Nothing gets sold without trust. Consumers and firms have to believe that vendors will deliver the value they promised – and this is true more than ever as we confront a new economy. This makes trust an essential part of your brand, marcomms, or sales strategy. We will explain what it means to trust a company, how to earn it, when it can be lost, and why firms should aim at better trust, not more trust.

Marketing Priorities 
Marketers now have to confront the challenges of accelerated disruption and significant economic downturn. We will look at how new contexts impact marketing leaders and the role of marketing in different organisations, how priorities need to be re-defined and aligned to the wider corporate agenda. Marketing effectiveness and spend management will be considered as we look to optimise return on investment, inspired by a range of examples from different sectors.

Strategic Marketing 
Strong decision-making skills are required in a disrupted, 'new normal' environment. We will focus on how marketers should approach strategic planning and implementation and why a strategic approach is now more important. The aim will be to provide practical examples and advice on successful implementation of strategic marketing plans. This will include how Marketing’s eco-system can be leveraged for competitive advantage.

Brand 
In uncertain times, managing your brand effectively may help put your business in the strongest position, as brands need to focus on the right priorities to ensure they remain relevant and connected with customers. We will look at managing the impact on brands when consumer confidence is low and how it is vital to understand changes in consumer behaviour, and how building the right phased plan to recovery offers clear benefits to brands sharpening their commercial and customer focus.

New Marketing Approaches 
From agile, thoughtful innovation and product stretches to new channel initiatives, community initiatives, marketing campaigns and communications, the ability for marketers to act swiftly and execute differently is key to every business facing into this changed commercial environment. We will highlight businesses across various sectors that have shown us new marketing approaches that are working, share great examples we can draw on for inspiration and discuss what marketing’s ‘new good’ is beginning to look like.

Who should attend?

This is a course for marketing managers, marketing directors, brand managers, entrepreneurs, consultants and agency directors who wish to rethink their marketing strategy in these extraordinary times.

Learning outcomes

• Innovation: How to create value for your customers
• Trust: Why trust is an essential part of your marketing strategy
• Marketing Priorities: How to better define and align priorities
• Strategic Marketing: How a strategic approach is critical to success
• Brand: How to ensure your brand remains relevant
• Case Studies: Review marketing approaches that are working