Strategic Planning: Has an overall, long-term organizational direction, creates long-term organizational framework, overall orientation is required to fit the
organization to its environment, goals and strategies are assessed from an overall perspective, significance of goals and strategies is only
recognizable over the long term

Marketing Planning: Deals with day-to-day performance and results, represents only one stage in organizational development, functional and professional orientations likely to overweigh, goals are separated to specific targets, significance of goals and strategies is immediately recognizable

Strategic Marketing Planning process starts with corporate mission and objectives developed at the corporate level. Then, marketing department develops its own mission based on the corporate mission. Later, marketing managers analyse marketing environment. Managers need to consider factors in micro and macro external environment and in their internal environment. Accordingly, marketing managers develop a SWOT Analysis to understand their strengths and weaknesses coming from their internal environment, and the opportunities and threats presented from their external environment. After SWOT Analysis, marketing objectives and goals for strategic business units are developed. Based on these objectives and goals, managers formulate marketing strategy by segmenting and targeting the market, and positioning the offerings and formulating marketing mix. After the formulation of marketing strategy, it is implemented through action programs and profit-loss statement. Lastly, the process is controlled. During this process, marketing information systems and marketing research provide information for managers in order to better develop marketing objectives and strategy.

Vision statement specifies a dream, while mission statement provides a purpose.

Any enterprise, that cannot identify where it is, cannot acknowledge its own capabilities and resources; and thus, it would not be possible for it to produce necessary objectives and strategies. Therefore, before defining marketing objectives, a corporation needs to acknowledge its environment and decide where it is located and what its strengths are. A company’s environment involves both internal and external factors. External environment consists of several actors, forces and partners which have an influence on company’s ability of building and sustaining good relationships with target customers. Various companies such as IBM, or Apple constantly analyse the external environment and adapt if necessary. Through this analysis, companies are able to understand changing trends and search for opportunities.

Micro external environment consists of actors or partners (e.g. customers, suppliers, etc.) that are close to the company and thus, has an impact on its ability to serve its customers.

Macro external environment includes larger societal forces, for instance demographic and economic forces, which have an influence on micro external environment.

Demographic environment deals with human populations and its characteristics such as age, gender, income, occupation, etc. It is important to analyse demographic environment as it includes people consisting of consumers and customers who make up markets. For instance, women’s contribution to work force has been increasing in Turkey. This means that these women have less time to cook in households, and this has created a need for frozen foods.

Economic environmental factors are variables or forces related to regulation of goods, money, energy and information exchange12, and these forces include economic growth, industrial production, and developments in national and international trade13. Economic environment is significant because it affects consumers’ and businesses’ purchasing power and thus, spending patterns. From an economical perspective, since the aim of businesses is to make profits, economic environment becomes significant. 

Technological environment includes forces which develop new technologies, creating new products, and also market opportunities19. Perhaps technological environment is the most dramatic force as it changes rapidly, and it transcends national and international borders20. Technological environment has presented us antibiotics, laptops, cell phones, the Internet, etc. which have eased our way of living. From a different perspective, it helped to reduce costs for companies. For instance, barcodes and radio-frequency identification (RFID) enable product tracking improving inventory accuracy and efficiency, and thus reducing costs, and increasing profits for companies. Moreover, with new softwares and computer programs, companies can develop optimal routes for delivery which reduces the fuel used. This has two advantages. First, companies reduce their costs, and as they use less fuel, the environment is protected.

Social and cultural environment includes social and cultural values, judgements, lifestyles, traditions and beliefs of society26. While social environment includes variables related to social structure and consists of religion, family, social groups, class or caste structure, education, occupation, level of well-being, health conditions, factors in cultural environment are less apparent as culture is a type of learned behavior which is passed on from generation to generation.

Marketing intermediaries consist of resellers (e.g. wholesalers, and retailers) physical distribution companies (e.g. third-party logistic companies such as Ekol Logistics, and Kuehne-Nagel), marketing services agencies (e.g. advertising agencies), and financial intermediaries (e.g. banks, insurance companies). 

Objectives should be SMART, meaning Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound/Time-based/Time sensitive. Sometimes “goals” are terminologically used interchangeably with “objectives”.

Market segmentation divides a market into distinct groups of customers sharing diverse needs, wants and purchase behaviours, behaviours; thus, it requires different products and services.

Market Segment consists a group of consumers sharing similar needs, wants and purchase behaviour; thus, it requests similar products.

Demographic segmentation divides the market age, according to variables, such as income, gender, occupation, education, religion, race, nationality, family size.

After segmenting markets, a company needs to select target market(s). A target a market consists of a group of customers sharing similar needs, wants and purchase behaviour, thus requesting similar products, and companies may target markets at different levels. At one extreme, companies choose to target very broadly (undifferentiated marketing). Undifferentiated marketing is also called mass marketing. 

After deciding on the segments of the market to enter, a company should decide what position it aims to fulfil in those segments according to the selected marketing strategies.

A good strategic marketing planning is a proprietary asset for companies as it sets the path by analysing the environment and allocating resources to create competitive advantage.

However, marketing strategies and planning may fail. There are several reasons for these to fail. For instance, marketing managers may fail to generate useful information, to acknowledge environmental changes, or competitors, to integrate their strategic plans into corporate level planning.

The consequences of a failed planning may be catastrophic for a company. It means that you failed to create value for customers; therefore you lose customers as well as their money. Apart from money, you lose time, and effort.

Behavioural segmentation divides the market according to consumers’ knowledge, attitudes, uses, or responses to a product.

Psychographic segmentation divides the market according to buyer groups’ social class, lifestyle, or personality characteristics.

Since the aim is to create value and satisfaction for customers, they are the most important actors in the micro external environment. They are the ones who decide whether your product offering is good or bad, and they create the public image of your company by developing perceptions. 

As the aim of marketing is to create value and satisfaction for customers, marketing managers try to anticipate the needs of target market and act according to those needs. However, similarly the companies that are selling similar goods and services are trying to do the same.