Marketing Plan

Marketing Plan Directions

In Week 1 you will select a group to participate in the group project.  Or I will auto enroll you in one if you have not made a selection.  I do this so you can select your group members if you already have individuals in the class you know and/or want to work with

To enroll in a group please send me an email request with BMKT 325 Group Request in the subject line.

Criteria:  Marketing Plan Assignment

1) Select a business or a new product or service idea.  Do not select a national company that already has a brand value developed as that will be a key part of your assignment.

2) One person will post the selected business your team chose to analyze for the Marketing

3) Begin working on your Marketing Plan.

NOTE: Section submissions for 1, 2, and 3 and build upon it from the beginning the form of a power point so that I can review it from the beginning. 

You should note the submissions include an activity table.  Members marked as not participating will earn a 0 for that submission.  This additional measure is added in the hopes that someone not participating will see the result of attempting to coast on the work of others and begin participating.  The final submission includes a peer review.  The Peer Review document will provide more information about this process.

Marketing Plan Business Selection

One group member will post the selection of a business for the project (1-2 sentences).  The drop box associated with this is a group folder, so all members should be able to see this has been completed.  Please also submit your Activity Table submission showing everyone in the group who has participated.    I will need to approve the business or product you have chosen.

Marketing Plan Section 1

You should have selected the business you will work with for this semester.  Begin to set up your Marketing Plan for the company.  Use the outline provided to begin your plan.  This requires research on the industry.  Do not get behind, begin the research ASAP.  

Your marketing plan will be divided into sections to make this more manageable over the next few weeks.  Learning Goal 2 (LG2) Critical Thinking concepts will be applied to this section of the plan. The concepts involved for this section of the Marketing Plan include the following: Knowledge; Comprehension; Analysis.  Refer to the Creative Thinking rubric under the Contents Tab for additional information.  Furthermore, Learning Goal 4 (LG4) will apply to the entire Marketing Plan.  Refer to the Ethics rubric located on the Home Page under the Contents –> Course Home Tab.

Section 1 –Assignment SWOT and quantitative Customer Objectives

Format: Start a power point using clear and complete bullets for business communication.  You will build upon the same power point with each section.

You must prove your business model in this section and before moving forward.  Your business model is basically having something of value that is demanded by a quantity of customers so that you make money.  Or simply, Price times Quantity equals Revenues.  Price represents that there is value in what you have to offer.  Quantity represents that there is a market for what you are offering.  Here is where you prove QUANTITY

Strengths and Weaknesses are your internal analysis that ultimately describes the value off your product.

Opportunity is not tactics.  It is your market analysis based on real research with real numbers of your industry and market.

Start with the population of your geographic area?

Then narrow it to your target market within your population.

What segmentation strategy did you use to select your targets?  Product Type, Customer Type, Demographics….only use one.

Did you chose your target based on its size, its growth or your strengths versus the competition?

In order to size your targets, use national figures that are available and apply them to your area if you need to.  But you must somehow get to the potential target opportunity for your business or product.

Then figure out your potential fair share of the market by taking into account your threats, mainly the number of your competitors.

Consider all external factors in your Opportunity and Threat analysis as long as they can be quantified. What is the current condition of the economy and its effect on the business?

Also Consider:

Technology Environment

Political Environment

Legal Environment

Cultural and Social Environments

Finally, you must show the math for your quantified objectives for your customer forecast.  You cannot just guess what your fair share of the market will be.  You can give a range but it must be based on real numbers about your industry, your market size, your competition and the macro analysis that you have complete.

I am providing examples of student work from previous courses.

References – You will be required to have a References at the end of your power point for all of your sources of your data.

Please also submit your Activity Table submission showing everyone in the group who has participated.  (Build on the previous submission to show past and current member participation. 

Marketing Plan Section 2

Format: Continue to build upon your power point using bullets for clear business communication.

Understanding Your Customer or your Target Market – This is a very important section.  You will need to define in detail the company’s target market.

From your segmentation strategy in section one, decide if you are doing a multi target, single target or combined strategy (Chapter Four).  If you have multiple targets you will need to do these steps for each target.

First profile the customers in your target using sources that describe attitudes, trends, behaviors, wants and needs.  Do not guess.  There is usually a lot of research already done on your customer.  Find it and use it to profile the wants and needs and habits of your customer.

There is especially a good amount of research on millennials and baby boomers etc.  How they shop, or how to communicate to them.  This section is where you get to know your customer even more than you did in the first section.

Then use Chapter Five to develop a Decision Making Process (from week 6) for your target.  Remember this is about your customer, not about you.  What is your Customer’s problem, where do they go for information…not how do you inform them.

References You will be required to have a Reference page for every section of the plan you turn in this semester.  For assistance in formatting your Reference page there is a website listed under the Contents Tab in addition refer to you Writing Research Papers text.  (Set up according to APA format criteria)

Please also submit your Activity Table submission showing everyone in the group who has participated.  (Build on the previous submission to show past and current member participation.