Marketing Plan Report

Overview

Marketing Plan Report: Progress Report 1:

Deadline: June 8

**Complete the following sections below which are parts of the final paper.

COMPANY INTRODUCTION (minimum 1 page) The introduction should provide background/history on the company, its owners, the industry sector classification, etc.

PROBLEM AND OBJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION (minimum 1 page)

• A formal problem statement is useful in furnishing your reader with some insight into your marketing plan.
• Be specific. Do not define or state a problem in vague terms or symptoms or alternative courses of action.
• USE FACTS.
• A single problem will give focus to your report. The “typical” problem in this course is a gap between actual and desired sales.
• In this section, you may show a graph of past company revenues and then desired revenue levels for the next year or two.
• Don’t confuse possible solutions with the underlying problem. A problem is NOT “to increase awareness through advertising.” This is a means to achieve a desired end – not an end in itself. Another weak problem statement would be “Market share is going down”. A better version would tell the reader the rate of decline, compare it to previous years and to industry trends. There could be many reasons why market share is going down, and thus many possible solutions. You will discover these reasons when you do your analysis in subsequent sections. Follow this, with the specific and measurable project objective which might cover the next year or two. This usually involve sales dollars and sales volumes to be achieved. Again, be careful that your objectives are not solutions to the problem. An objective “to advertise more” or “to develop a customer loyalty program” are solutions to the problem and should not be stated here.

MARKETING AUDIT (2 to 4 pages)

• Offer full details on the 4P’s, and target market.
• Defining the target market is critical – you must use geographic, demographic, and psychographic segmentation to get a full picture of target
  customers.
• ALL marketing practices are detailed in this section but not critiqued.

Marketing Plan Report: Progress Report 2:

Deadline: June 22

** Complete the following sections which are parts of the final paper.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES (1 page) Why is this product/service/company superior to its competitors? I have seen people list five or six things but many of the so-called advantages are items where the company is just as good as competitors or the advantage is not measurable. Many companies only have one or two competitive advantages. These need to be recognized as they are the cornerstone on which a marketing plan is built. You may find that the company also has some major handicaps over which it has no control. These competitive disadvantages should be identified. Clearly a plan may have to address these disadvantages as well. (*note: Not every company will have competitive disadvantages.)

COMPANY RESOURCES AND EXPERIENCES (1 page) Generally, strengths and weakness come from an analysis of the company. The previous sections have allowed you to identify the unique strengths which form a competitive advantage and the marketing audit has allowed you to identify marketing strengths and weaknesses. This section allows you to complete the analysis of strengths and weaknesses by looking at the other aspects of the business (i.e., technology, production, information management, management, human resources, finance, etc.). You can think of this as a place for “miscellaneous” company strengths and weaknesses – not mentioned elsewhere in the report.

ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS This section is the largest (4-7 pages) You examine the key external environments. Please use secondary (either published or historical) data for this section. Focus on identifying trends and developing forecasts. And be sure to reference your data sources. *Note: there are sources of information other than the Internet. Do not make the mistake of limiting your research to this one source alone. Describe the current climate and situation that the company finds itself in as it attempts to compete. Describe what is occurring in the industry and provide a brief overview of the industry in which the company operates. What environmental and economic factors are affecting the company? Describe competitive pressures, changing demographics and buying preferences, consumer behavior issues, image issues, etc. that affect the company and its business? How has the industry changed as a result of ecommerce and technology? For example, Definition of Overall Market, Market Size and Growth, Economic Business Environment, Political/Regulatory Issues, Social Cultural Environment, Technology Environment, and so on.

Marketing Plan Report: FINAL:

For this course, you are required to submit your marketing plan report. The deadline is the last day of this 6 week course. Please refer to the Guidelines and Table of Contents Download Guidelines and Table of Contents document.

Instructions

• Please use 12-point font in Times New Roman, Calibri, or Arial, set 1-inch margins, and use double spacing.
• Please submit your assignment as a Word document.
• Keep your paper no more than 25 pages in length.
• Before uploading your document, check your work and correct any spelling or grammatical errors.
• When you are ready to submit the assignment in the Blackboard assignment tab, select "Browse My Computer" and locate your file. Then, select "Open". The file name should appear under the "Attached Files" heading. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select "Submit."