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The importance of planning

In this step the learner will understand the importance of communications planning and the fundamental practices of campaign planning.

The importance of planning cannot be overemphasized. Whatever your role, sector, or business size, planning will be one of the most valuable things you can do in marketing.

All levels of seniority have responsibilities in marketing planning.

Senior management

Senior management will decide how much budget should be invested in marketing. They will make these decisions as part of the business planning, based upon the current business performance, as well as broader industry trends.

Marketing manager

The marketing manager will explore how the marketing team can contribute to the business goals while nurturing long-term customer relationships. They will plan marketing communications strategies, channel strategies and determine marketing tactics and will also be responsible for making sure you adhere to industry regulations.

The next level of planning that we will focus on is planning how marketing communications are created and delivered on time and on budget.

When an organisation is creating marketing communications, there are generally three ways they approach it.

  1. You create the communication in the marketing team: This would usually be things which require fewer specialist skills, like creating a tweet or an email.
  2. The communication is produced by a dedicated team: If you are working in a medium to large size organisation you may have a brand team, programmers, or product owners, who are responsible for providing certain elements of the marketing assets.
  3. The communication is outsourced to a third party: It’s unlikely that your organisation will have the in-house facilities to print their own brochures or create their own TV adverts. Many organisations also use creative agencies to plan or design their campaigns and communications.

Step 1 of the process is information gathering followed by dependencies and timelines, step 3 is briefing followed by production, sign off and the last step launch and monitor

A pdf version of the image is available for you to download via the link below. Marketers need to go through a process in order to ensure the communication will be effective.

Over the next few steps, we will go through each phase of project planning.

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Introduction to Marketing: Fundamentals of Marketing

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FutureLearn - Learning For Life

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