Assignment: To write a marketing plan for a ficticious company. This company cannot be an established organization but can mirror like organizations for reference. The paper must be no less than 6 pages and can be more than 8 pages. The paper must be plagiarism free and written to APA guidelines utilizing only third person (Do not use "I", "we", "our", "you", "your").
The following indicate what this marketing plan should entail.
• Executive Summary: The executive summary essentially tells the reader why he or she is reading this marketing plan - what changes require consideration, what new products need discussion, and so forth - and suggests possible actions to take in response to the information the plan contains.
• Company Overview: In this section, the plan provides a brief description of the company, including perhaps its mission statement, background, and competitive advantages.
• Objectives/Goals: This section offers more specifics about why readers are reading the marketing plan. What does the company want to achieve, both overall and with this particular plan? Objectives should lead to sales. They should:
o Be clear
o Be measureable
o Have a state time frame for achievement
• Situation Analysis: Generally relies on SWOT considerations; therefore, this section describes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing the company.
• STP Analysis: The analysis proceeds by assessing the market in which the company functions the products it currently offers or plans to offer in the future, and the characteristics of current or potential customers. Break the STP analysis section into these easy-to-find topics:
o Segmentation: Identify segmentation criteria used to define your target market
o Targeting: Describe the target market
o Positioning: You want to be the red crayon in the box of white crayons. You must know how you are different from your competitors and you must be able to convey that in all your messages in a way that your prospects pick it up simply. If you think you don't have any competitors, you do. If you know you are different and don't convey it, you lose. You must leverage your differences. Therefore explain them. Examples are: Dr. Pepper with a different taste; Federal Express with superior service; Caterpillar with high spare parts availability; Wal-Mart with value and more for your money; Rolex as a prestige brand; and 3M Corporation with its emphasis on technology leadership and innovation.
• Marketing Strategy: The marketing strategy may be very specific, especially if the plan pertains to, for example, a stable product in a familiar market, or it may be somewhat open to varied possibilities, such as when the firm plans to enter a new market with an innovative product. You are required to break the strategy section into four easy-to-find marketing mix elements:
o Product (or Service)
o Place (or Distribution)
o Price
o Promotion (aka Marketing Communications)
• Financial Projections: On the basis of the knowledge already obtained, the marketing plan should provide possible developments and returns on the marketing investments outlined in the marketing strategy.
• Implementation Plan: This portion of the marketing plan includes the timing of promotional activities, when monitoring will take place, and how expansions likely will proceed.
• Evaluation Metrics and Control: The firm must have a means of assessing the marketing plan's recommendations; the marketing plan therefore must indicate the methods for undertaking this assessment, whether quantitatively or qualitatively.