Prepare a report about one product or service containing information that could be used for a marketing plan.
You can choose a product/service from your own business or from another business with which you are familiar.
In your report you must include information about:
The current marketing situation with background data on the market segments, product, competition, and distribution. Keep this discussion brief.
Market analysis using a SWOT analysis. Make sure to discuss the SWOT analysis adequately.
Objectives with goals for sales volume, market share and profit. These goals should be realistic but may have to be somewhat hypothetical because of the lack of time and absence of market research to provide better ones.
Marketing strategies with details of the 4Ps (i.e. Product, Place, Price, Promotion):
Make sure you explain why the strategies are relevant and how they relate to the market analysis, objectives and goals above. Clearly justify your argument.
In your discussion of Promotion, you need to identify the communication objectives, discuss and justify the communication channels and the communication mix you would use to address these objectives.
Because this is a short assignment, be careful to use your word limit wisely. There is no need to focus on the details of action plans, projected profit and loss figures and controls (although these are important in the real world, of course).
It is important to demonstrate your knowledge about marketing and to clearly reference your sources. Read journal articles (using AIB Online Library), books (including the textbook), and business literature, etc. Note the sources and use them throughout your report.
Note: in a real world marketing plan it is unlikely that you would use referencing. While you might not use referencing in an actual marketing plan, you would definitely source your information from various company/industry reports and from journal articles. In this assignment you are required to make the use of such sources explicit through referencing.
This assessment is an individual assessment (ie this is not a group assessment). Please ensure you avoid collusion and other practices which compromise individual assessment work. (Refer to the Academic Integrity Policy available on AIB website)
Assignment FAQs Sheet
To assist you in completing your assignment a FAQs sheet has been created. This sheet is designed to help answer some of your questions around how to complete the assignment. Please refer to this sheet when completing the assignment.
With online submission of your assignment, this means that you no longer need to include a cover sheet. However, all assignments (including Final Projects) must still include a title page, as outlined with the Style and Assignment guides including:
your name
student ID number
subject title
AQF level
Word count
Important Assignment Instructions
The required word length for this assignment is 2500 words.
In terms of structure, presentation and style you are normally required to use:
- AIB standard report format; and
- AIB preferred Microsoft Word settings; and
- author-date style referencing (which includes in-text citations plus a reference list).
These requirements are detailed in the AIB Style Guide.
Reference lists for AIB assignments / projects normally contain the following number of relevant references from different sources: 6-12 (for MBA assignments).
All references must be from credible sources such as books, industry related journals, magazines, company documents and recent academic articles.
Your grade will be adversely affected if your assignment contains no/poor citations and/or reference list and also if your assignment word length is beyond the allowed tolerance level (see Assessment Policy available on AIB website).
Useful resources when working on your assignments include:
- AIB Online Library
- AIB Assignment Guide
- AIB Style Guide
Select the link for the assignment assessment criteria - Please note that the new assessment criteria applies to all subjects starting on or after the 23 October 2015.