Product innovation and marketing are the only enduring competitive advantage companies can use to survive and thrive in the marketplace. In the next seven weeks, you are going to participate in designing and writing a marketing plan for a product or service of your choosing. Your active participation in this project is essential to building your understanding of marketing and secondly, you can use a well written marketing plan to show prospective employers a sample of your work.

A marketing plan is a travel guide for the marketing activities of an organization for a specified future period of time. The plan can be used internally to guide the marketing activities or it can be used to communicate with external audiences to raise capital. Important questions to keep in mind as you design your plan are:

1.Is the marketing idea valid?
2.What is unique or distinctive about the product or service that separates it from substitutes and competitors?
3.Does a viable market exist for the product or service?
4.Are the financial projections sound?
5.Is the management team competent?
6.How will the investors/debtors get their money back with a return on their investment?

In order to help you answer these questions and many others the course provides the following:

• "Building an Effective Marketing Plan"

• "Financial Aspects of Marketing"

• A sample student written marketing plan located in Doc Sharing.

• A marketing plan outline located in Doc Sharing.

• A marketing plan student guide that describes each section of the marketing plan.

• A grading rubric for the marketing plan.

At the end of each chapter in your textbook, you will complete the Building Your Marketing Plan (BYMP) exercise and use this information as input into your plan.