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19.MARKETING AND THE PLANNING PROCESS - STRATEGIC MARKETING.
How can marketing be built into planning in a school or college? An
important concept is that of strategic marketing,
which refers to the development of an institutional strategy
integrating a marketing orientation. Two strategic planning
models can be used to illustrate this idea, and can be
applied to schools or colleges of any size – the thinking
and envisioning processes are the same for all, differences
lying only in the detail and complexity of the process.
First, Gray (1991) sees marketing not as a process servicing a strategic
plan but as an underpinning philosophy that drives the plan
and hence the medium and short-term operational 'tactics' of
promotion. The organizational structure, both for marketing
and for other management functions, derives from this plan,
rather than acting as a limiting factor upon it.
Furthermore, other strands within the strategic plan are
themselves derived from marketing analysis tles, (Gray, (ibid.)
sees strategic planning as comprising three stages:
1)
The development of an
institutional plan, driven by a marketing perspective
and linked tightly to the school or college's mission, which
itself is market focused.
2)
The development of thematic
plans for each broad component of the institutional
plan, e.g. curriculum.
3)
The production of a marketing
plan which integrates the future marketing research
needs of the institution with the short-term and medium-term
marketing processes linked to promotion and external
communications.
Each of these stages is itself operationalised through a rational
planning model of review, analysis, planning,
implementation/monitoring and evaluation, a familiar process
to al involved in institutional planning.Secondly, Hanson
and Henry (1992, p.258) distinguish clearly between 'clearly
marketing' and 'project marketing'. Project marketing deals
with short-term activities that do not necessarily relate to
any long-term strategy. In contrast, strategic marketing
'emerges out of a sequence of well-planned research and
operational steps' linked to long-term vision.
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