The Assignment Task -

The assignment will have four sections

1. Organisational Overview

2. Environmental Scan

3. Target, Customer, Competitor and Stakeholder Analysis

4. Conclusions and Recommendations

Section 1 - Organisational Overview

A marketing audit should always commence with an overview of the company, its vision, mission and brand value. This information provides the reader with sufficient context to then understand and evaluate your future recommendations and analysis. In this section you should also provide sufficient information about the company and the product/service you are Focusing on so that the marker can appreciate the contextual issues you explore in later sections of the assignment. It is also important that you incorporate here some insights about the value proposition for this product/service.

Section 2 - Environmental Scan

In reviewing the organisation you are studying it is also important to consider and review the organisation in terms of its internal strengths and weaknesses and the external opportunities and threats it faces. SWOT, TOWS and PESTLE analyses are good tools to assist this stage of your analysis as are environmental scans and it is recommended that you use some of these tools in this section to summarise and highlight relevant information. You may also use any other additional analysis tools that you deem appropriate to provide you with the information for your audit. In this section you would use tables, graphs and other ways to summarise the information - don't forget to discuss your analysis and findings don't just present the information and hope that the marker will understand what you think is important here.

Section 3 - Customer, Competitor and Stakeholder analysis

Next you would consider the market in which the firm operates in terms of both competitors and customers and this is done in 4 parts:

1) Target market analysis

2) Customer analysis

3) Competitor analysis

4) Stakeholder analysis

A Target Market Analysis - Who are the target markets for this company and product? It is likely that you will discover more than one possible target markets from the information you source, whilst you need to list them all in this part of your audit and to analyse their priority and relevant merits, when it comes to your second assignment and to the customer analysis (the next step) you are only required to focus on ONE (1) target market. This is important - at this stage of your assignment choose ONE target market, defend that choice (justify with information from the first two sections and other sources) and then only discuss and plan for that ONE target market.

A Customer Analysis - Once you have selected and justified the ONE target market you wish to focus on, outline any demographic and/or behavioural characteristics of this segment. You would need to comment on:

1. Who is this market (demographics), where are they located, how do they spend their time and money (psychographics); what else defines them (interests, attitudes, values and/or lifestyles);

2. the relative size of the segment;

3. potential market share and opportunities for growth and development;

4. any other information including their likely purchase behaviour and motivations purchasing this product as well as what the product offering would be for this segment (what are they buying and why); and

5. refer and reiterate how the value proposition discussed in section 1, relates to this segment with this product/service.

A Competitor Analysis - Given how you have defined the product offering and value proposition for your chosen target audience in terms of its benefits or features, this section would focus on how your product offering compares to alternative purchase choices. Remember this can be broader than just substitute brands - think more broadly here about substitute options for spending their money. So you need to also include an analysis of the products/services/substitutions that are likely to be competition for this product offering in this market segment. You are also requited in this section to include an overview of the current positioning, value-chain structure, marketing channels used and relevant market drivers for this product/service.

A Stakeholder Analysis - You need to consider any other stakeholders who might have an interest in or be able to impact the marketing of this product offering in this segment. For instance, suppliers of raw materials.

Section 4 - Conclusions and recommendations for preliminary marketing strategy

Once you have completed these steps you are then required to summarise the main points and salient elements of this analysis to a concise statement of the overall strategic approach you will be recommending for your marketing and implementation plan - a preliminary marketing strategy.

 You need to defend your final decisions using both theory and practice references and the content and learning activities presented in modules 1-4 will support this assessment task. You should try to have a good list of references showing where you have found your information and it is important to cite all work and websites you have visited. Check with a USQ reference librarian if you are having trouble finding appropriate information.

Maximum word count 3,000 words.