10.2 Understanding the Strategic Marketing Process

Strategic planning is a process that helps an organization allocate its resources to capitalize on opportunities in the marketplace. Typically, it is a long-term process. As seen in Figure 10.2, strategic planning in marketing is a four-step process that includes conducting a situation analysis, setting marketing objectives, developing a marketing strategy, and implementing marketing tactics. This chapter will provide an in-depth analysis of steps 1-3. Marketing tactics will not be discussed for the purposes of this course.