This is your opportunity to play the role of marketing
manager and gain valuable, first-hand experience in writing, organizing, and
polishing a marketing plan. Throughout this course, you’ll apply what you’re
learning about marketing and make decisions about an existing product. Since
you’re making decisions about an existing product, choose one that’s well known
so you can research the product’s competition, features and benefits,
customers, distribution, promotion, and pricing. The point of this project is
to create a single marketing document for use in communicating a clear
marketing vision to guide decisions, clarifying objectives and priorities,
delineating marketing activities, and monitoring and evaluating marketing
performance. A. Title Page – Name of Company and Product – Course Number and Title
– College Name – Group Name – Professor Name – Group Members Names – Date B.
Table of Contents – List of all major headings in your plan, with page numbers
C. Executive Summary – One- to two-page synopsis of the entire marketing plan
D. Situation Analysis (SWOT Analysis) – Strengths are internal core
competencies (such as having award-winning product designers on staff) that
give it a competitive advantage. – Weaknesses are limitations inside the
company (such as lacking production capacity for higher output) that might
hamper its ability to achieve objectives. – Opportunities are situations
outside the company (such as unexpectedly high demand for a product the company
can produce) that can be favorable for the product’s marketing. – Threats are
possible barriers outside the company (such as new competitors) that might
prevent it from achieving its goals. E. Marketing Objectives – Review the SWOT
analysis. Think about resources (raw materials, expertise, etc.) the company
can access, and the approximate size of the marketing budget. Also think about
the potential market for your product and what that means for higher market
share, revenue, brand awareness, and other frequently used measures of
marketing success. Draft a series of objectives, stating each clearly, making
it measurable, and specifying a time frame. Be sure your objectives make sense
in the context of the company’s situation, and the strengths and weaknesses
you’ve identified. Write at least 2 (and as many as 4) specific objectives you
will seek to achieve by implementing this marketing plan. o Ex. Our company
will sell 200 units per week during the first six months after product
introduction – Look again at the objectives you’ve just set. What standard(s)
will you use to measure actual performance against expected performance? o Ex.
If you set a goal of selling 200 units per week, your standard would be how
many units the company really sells each week during the period covered by your
marketing plan. F. Marketing Strategies – Target Market o Based on your
organization’s strengths and resources in mind, and your preliminary ideas
about the market, what strategy you’d like to use for targeting. ▪ An
undifferentiated strategy, designing one marketing mix for the entire market? ▪
A concentrated strategy, with a marketing mix for one particular segment of
your market (such as price-conscious consumers)? ▪ A differentiated strategy,
developing a separate marketing mix for two or more targeted segments (such as
one marketing mix for price-conscious consumers and a second marketing mix for
status-conscious consumers)? o What are the variables that would help you
divide the market into segments you can reach and influence through marketing.
The segmentation variables you choose should relate to customers’ need for,
uses of, or behavior toward your product. Based on these variables what are the
various market segment profiles? ▪ Ex. If you’re marketing a sturdy baby
stroller, you would use demographic variables such as family life cycle (new
parents might need strollers) and behavioristic variables such as benefit
expectations (expecting a stroller to be of high quality and sturdy enough to
last). o Evaluate the segments and narrow your focus to the most promising
segment. What is the level of sales potential for your product during a year?
What competitors are already active in that segment, and how strong is each?
How expensive do you estimate it would be to develop the product, promotion,
distribution, and pricing to meet this segment’s needs? – Marketing Mix o
Product ▪ What are the major products of the firm? Would you classify your
product as, a convenience product, shopping product, specialty product, or an
unsought product? What does this classification mean in terms of how you market
to your customers? ● Ex. If yours is a convenience product, you should make it
widely available, because customers won’t spend a lot of time researching it
and trying to find it. ▪ Where in the product life cycle is it? How long do you
expect your product to remain in its current stage? What does this mean for
your sales and profitability? Also consider the product adoption process,
meaning how long consumers in your target market might need to try and
ultimately adopt your product. What marketing steps can you take to encourage
product adoption and to boost sales and profitability during the product’s life
cycle, in the context of your resources and competition? o Price ▪ Looking at
the market in which your product will compete, is price or nonprice competition
most common? What is the range of prices for products that directly compete
with yours? What do you know about the effect of pricing on demand for products
like yours? Which factors are most likely to impact pricing for your product? o
Place/Distribution ▪ Should the firm try to deliver its offerings directly to
customers, or can it better deliver selected offerings by involving other
organizations? What channel(s) should be used in distributing product
offerings? ▪ Review your product, the competitive situation, and other
environmental factors. Will you use intensive, selective, or exclusive
coverage? ▪ When will the product made available to users (season of year, day
of week, time of day)? Are these times most appropriate? o Promotion ▪ The
first step in planning for promotion is to decide on your objectives, which
will lay the foundation for your communications activities. What are the
objectives for the promotion of your product? What is the budget for the
planned promotions? ▪ Advertising ● Next, give some thought to how you might
use advertising to achieve your promotion objectives and your marketing
objectives. Which type of advertising is most appropriate for your product? ●
Would print media such as newspapers or magazines fit your audience, your
probable implementation schedule, and your likely budget? What about direct
mail, radio, TV, Yellow Pages, or outdoor ads such as billboards? How can you
use Internet advertising to communicate with the target audience and, if
possible, encourage viral sharing of your message? ● As you make your
selections, bear in mind the creativity and content of your ad message(s), the
geographic areas you want to cover, and your ad objectives. ▪ Public Relations ●
Public relations can help you forge or strengthen stakeholder relations and
influence public perception of the brand and product, which in turn support
achievement of advertising and marketing objectives. How can you use tools like
publicity, news conferences, event sponsorship, and awards to call positive,
credible attention to your product? ▪ Sales Promotion ● Look at the
possibilities for using coupons and cents-off offers, refunds or rebates,
frequent-user incentives, point-of-purchase materials, free samples, premiums,
and contests, games, or sweepstakes. How do one or more of these sales
promotion techniques fit with what you know about your target audience and
their buying patterns? ▪ Personal Selling ● Is personal selling appropriate for
your product, target market, and marketing environment? Take time to consider
whether you need your own sales force or whether you can train intermediaries’
salespeople to explain the product, complete transactions, and provide customer
support. G. Marketing Implementation a. What is the implementation timetable
for the marketing strategies? i. Activities to be performed ii. Time required
to perform each activity iii. Order of the activities to be performed H.
Performance Evaluation a. What are the performance standards? b. What
monitoring procedures (audits) will take place and when?
