Stages of consumer decision making

In my hypothetical scenario, I am the owner of a small to mid-sized business. I am currently developing a marketing plan for the upcoming year. The marketing plan will include both the tactical and strategic plan elements. I also need to discuss the implementation and evaluation of the strategic marketing plan.

- Outline my scenario and details about the firm and/or product line.

- Discuss which of Michael Porter's basic strategies I will use to market this product and why.

- Consumers have different product needs and use products differently. Segmentation seeks to group different demands and needs into clusters with similar demand patterns. Using the dimensions of market segmentation, I need to determine which markets I will target with my marketing plan and I need to outline my target market in detail.

- I need to outline the stages in the consumer decision making process for my selected product or service. I need to also discuss how consumers evaluate alternatives and what mediums they use in the information search stage.

- Research to determine where improvements should be made to my product or service line. Discuss these improvements and the estimated cost in developing and launching these enhancements. This could be a product line extension, a service improvement, new packaging, Web site enhancements, etc. The purpose of this element of the marketing plan is continuous improvement. I should justify the need of these enhancements based on my research, such as a review of the competition, feedback from customers, or a review of the marketing environment.