Manage the marketing process Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task 2 - Staffing support plan

Performance objective:

In this task you are required to develop a plan for the coaching and mentoring of staff involved in the marketing activities. Included in your plan will need to be descriptions of how you intend to provide feedback and instigate corrective actions to staff who are working with you to fulfil marketing objectives.

Assessment description:

As part of this task, you will need to ensure that you understand the mission and strategic objectives of your organisation, in particular any guidance given by these or other policy and procedure documents on staff interactions and staff training. Your plan will need to establish strategies for coaching and mentoring staff, providing feedback and when necessary, instigating corrective actions to ensure that marketing objectives are being met. Legislation requirements will also need to be addressed. Such legislation requirements would cover areas such as: copyright laws, privacy laws, Trades Practices Act, Direct Marketing Code of Practice and defamation laws

Procedure:

Develop a staffing support plan for supporting through individuals and work teams with delegated roles and responsibilities within your organisation. This should include information under the following headings:

1. Strategies: specific strategies for mentoring and coaching of staff throughout the period of the proposed marketing activities

2. Resources: models for assessing use of resources provided to attain required marketing outcomes

3. Feedback: a model and mechanism for providing feedback to staff throughout the process

4. Performance: a process to be used for identifying weaknesses in individual and team performance (in meeting the requirements of the marketing objectives for the delegated marketing activities) and instigate corrective actions when required.

Using this information, review the two scenarios provided:

Scenario 1: Describe how you would provide one-on-one coaching to the individual identified in the scenario to assist them in achieving the required marketing outcomes

Scenario 2: Describe the performance to-date of the individual, and describe the corrective actions you could take to ensure that marketing outcomes continue to be achieved.

Case study -

You know from experience that the marketing and promotional activities you have planned for Houzit are going to put pressure on your team. However, you accept this as the nature of the business, and you have developed strategies to help the team achieve the marketing objectives in the most efficient and effective way. Both your key personnel in this plan, Marie (Advertising/PR) and Tony (Website) have expressed ambitions to pursue a career in company management. You agree to help them by providing coaching and mentoring when you see attitudes, skills or knowledge levels that could help them achieve their ambitions.

You have also set up a formal weekly meeting to discuss the KPI results generated from the accounting information system and their individual reports. You also use this meeting to emphasise the concept of team achievement and that financial resources should be allocated to the greatest need.  You also address where they can achieve the greatest return that is in line with the marketing objectives.

You make a habit of taking them on store visits so their role does not isolate them from personnel and products on the front line of the business. Another strategy you employ is to cc them on all emails that affect the whole marketing group, apart from the private and confidential correspondence.

Scenario 1: Coaching and mentoring

Marie achieved outstanding results in her university degree. However, her lack of 'real world' experience makes her uncertain and she lacks confidence to make decisions. You have agreed to be her coach and mentor. She has come to you recently for help and discussed with you a significant range of issues she wanted help with.

She has often commented that having you as a coach has given her a safe place to off load some issues that bothered her and a place where she can get unbiased, confidential support. She is also appreciative of you when you provide her with opportunities to further develop skills she already has particularly in areas of advertising.  She is a keen learner and wants to learn new skills as they relate to marketing. She has especially asked for more knowledge in web design and web marketing but every approach to Tony has been rejected flatly, sometimes with what seems like distain.

One of the most important aspects of the coaching and mentoring for Marie is the opportunity to get a fresh perspective on ideas and to seek out advice, suggestions and options from an experienced person like you. This is particularly important for her in how she gets PR happening in the most effectively way.

She often comments that another thing she gets out of your coaching and mentoring is that she gets to know her boss better which promotes a more team based approach to problems.

Scenario 2: Tony

Tony's approach to the job is quite different to Marie. He is not a keen learner of other forms of marketing apart from internet marketing which he often calls 'the future of marketing". He sees his knowledge as his own intellectual capital and is never keen to share it with anyone. His teaching method is full of jargon and he shares knowledge at a speed that makes learning even more difficult.

He often presents ideas for internet market that would certainly boost traffic to the site but which you believe are unethical under the company's ethical standards. So, you don't approve them.

This rejection of some of his ideas sees him less keen to participate on more general marketing activities like store visits. In your mind, Tony needs to correct his attitude if he is to perform his job effectively.

It has recently come to your attention via a Lambert Consultant consultation, that the company's website has links to a home business that Tony's friend operates in providing installation services for company purchased products. You have not given Tony approval to make this link, and decide to take corrective action on this and other issues related to Tony.

Assessment Task 3 - Marketing performance report

Performance objective:

In this task you are required to review the implementation and progress of a marketing plan, based on the established plan and metrics.

Assessment description:

Read the case study and understand the marketing objectives for the organisation. You will need to analyse and measure progress of the plan against established KPIS, and review targets for the next phase of the marketing plan. Data evaluation techniques to measure marketing performance should be demonstrated be the learner.

Learners will need to have read case study material contained within the previous two assessments to assist development of Assessment Task 3 answers.

Procedure:

Using the case study provided, detail the outcomes of ongoing marketing activities to develop a marketing performance report. The report should follow the three headings below:

1. Analysis: analyse the marketing outcomes, changes in marketing and calculated marketing metrics (ROMI and market share).Describe the changes required to meet strategic objectives.

2. KPIs: Explain any success or performance gaps in the case study as measured against the KPIs mentioned earlier. Identify what you believe are the causes and effects of any successes or gaps. Describe marketing outcomes and how you could improve strategic performance.

3. Targets: for any identified over-performances (against targets), describe the trends and reasons for these, and set new targets for the next 12-18 months.

Case study -

Lamberts Consulting provides you with a report on the home-wares market in Brisbane six months later. Their latest estimate is that the market for home-wares in the Brisbane market is $199 million per annum up from $175 million per annum last year. The predicted growth was 10% for this year. Lamberts said that the large increase in interstate migration was increasing the building activity and consequently the home-wares sector. Lamberts expects this trend to continue for at least the next five years.

You print a copy of the latest store averages and note that the average weekly sale for the 15 Brisbane stores has grown to $28,200 per week per store. Expectation was 8.5% growth on $24,680 per week per store. Market share was targeted at 12%.

You also check the latest market expenditure report to see the amount of money invested in marketing activities to get the stores to this new level. You note the following expenditure over the past six months

Advertising $250,000, PR $30,000, in-store promotions $60,000, internet marketing $100,000.

You believed that the extra expenditure in web marketing was justified in preparation for the on-line merchandise sales that will be included in the next marketing period. You also believe that there is a need for the company to shift more of its marketing budget into web marketing activities in line with the industry trends.

With a growing market you believe that by maintaining market share the company will get solid and controllable growth. Pushing for increased market share in a growing market could cause customer service and management issues.