You are employed by a specialist marketing consultancy business, 'Total Marketing Solutions' (TMS) that provides support and advice to organisations looking to develop their strategic marketing plans. To recruit additional business, you have been asked to put together information for prospective clients that outlines:

• the principles of strategic marketing
• how organisations can carry out strategic marketing analysis
• how strategic marketing decisions and choices are analysed and assessed
• how a range of marketing strategies can be implemented to contribute to competitive advantage.

Activity 1:

Create an information pack for prospective new clients that outlines the principles of strategic marketing. Your pack must cover the following topics:

• an assessment of the role of strategic marketing in an organisation
• an analysis of the relationship between corporate strategy and marketing strategy
• an analysis of how marketing strategy is developed.

Your pack should demonstrate an understanding of the connection between strategic corporate and strategic marketing decisions and choices. You should:

• analyse decisions and choices that are made at a corporate level
• assess how these decisions influence marketing at business unit and functional level
• analyse approaches to competitive positioning of organisations.

Activity 2:

A range of potential new clients have expressed an interest in working with TMS based on the information pack you provided. They would like some further information to understand how strategic marketing analysis may be carried out.

You have been asked to design a short training session for prospective clients, to develop their understanding of strategic marketing analysis. Your session must cover the following topics:

• an evaluation of approaches to internal environmental analysis
• an evaluation of approaches to external environmental analysis
• an explanation of how internal and external analyses are integrated.

You will need to produce your notes for the training session and have appropriate hand-outs for the clients detailing the topics covered.

Activity 3:

Following your training session, a new client has decided to work with TMS to develop their marketing strategy. They have asked to work with you to explore how marketing strategies can be used to give them greater competitive advantage. Your task is to create a report which:

• identifies a range of strategies that can contribute to their businesses competitive advantage
• provides an analysis of marketing communication strategies for the business
• analyses marketing strategies and how they can be applied and implemented by the organisation, including resource and management implications.