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Module 3 – Case

DISTRIBUTION & MARKETING PLAN

Case Assignment

An important component of the Marketing Strategy is the Marketing Mix. The Marketing Mix is the set of decisions about communications and promotion, price, channels of distribution, and customer relationship management.

This week you will focus only on communications and promotion, following an integrated marketing communications (IMC) approach. Such an approach delivers a clear and consistent message to your consumers and is connected to your Core Strategy.

IMC Research:

Discuss the aspects of the IMC. (The elements of the communication mix include: advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, publicity/public relations, and personal selling.) Define each and discuss the pros and cons of the individual elements.

You should use the text for basic definitions. The majority of research for this section of the assignment must come from ARTICLES located in the library’s full-text databases (Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, and/or ProQuest Central).

Application

• Provide a brief introduction of the company with which you are working.
• Include a detailed description of your IMC approach. Explain your rationale for choosing or rejecting the specific elements (include applications to the earlier research section). What changes do you expect to make as the product/service matures?
• Describe the message you wish to communicate based on your core strategy. Explain your rationale for the message. Formulate how you will communicate with your target market? Be specific. How will the internet be used in your IMC approach?
• Select and explain the most suitable method for measuring advertising effectiveness. Your decision must include research to back up the selected method. Be sure to explain why this is the most effective method to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaign.

Do not use any quotations. Since you are engaging in research, be sure to cite and reference the sources in APA format. The paper should be written in third person; this means words like “I”, “we”, and “you” are not appropriate. For more information see Differences Between First and Third Person.

Use the attached APA-formatted template (MKT501 Case3) to create your submission.

Assignment Expectations

Your submission will include:

• Trident University International’s cover page
• A 4- to 5-page paper with APA citations (2- to 3-sentence introduction, body, 2- to 3-sentence conclusion)
• The reference list page in APA format

• BACKGROUND
• Chapter 11: Integrated Marketing Communications and the Changing Media Landscape
  https://open.lib.umn.edu/principlesmarketing/part/chapter-11-integrated-marketing-communications-and-the-changing-media-landscape/ Marketing Week: Measuring Marketing Effectiveness
  https://www.marketingweek.com/focus/marketing-effectiveness/

The Marketing Plan: GAP Analysis

Every business should determine its own standards for success when evaluating the attractiveness of a market, since every industry has its unique circumstances. Criteria that influence Segment Attractiveness include:

• Market Growth (Market Size, Growth Rate, Market Potential)
• Competitive Intensity (Number of Companies, Ease of Entry, Substitutes)
• Market Access (Customer Familiarity, Channel Access, Company Fit)

While benchmarking based on criteria is beneficial in capturing the qualitative aspects of a market situation, the profit potential must also be assessed for all segments deemed attractive based on their market attractiveness indexes.

Segmentation Application

• Provide a brief description of your chosen product/service. (This should be used throughout the class.)
• Analyze customer needs for the target product
• Discuss Segmentation Strategies based on two real competitors’ market position
• Devise a niche marketing strategy that would be appropriate for your company’s product.

Gap Analysis, Benchmarking & Competitive Advantage

• Implement a Gap Analysis of Two Competitors. Discuss how the findings would be used.
• Develop Competitor and Competitive Benchmarking.
  • Competitor benchmarking involves identifying a business’s main competitors and then comparing itself against them in key performance areas. Competitive benchmarking involves going outside a business’s market or industry to study a company that excels in an area where the business is deficient.
• Devise Strategies to Achieve Competitive Advantage for the Company

This is the main part of the assignment and requires extensive critical thinking. Do not rely on summarizing information; instead explain based on the definition of each virtue and vice how they apply to your chosen leader. Use your library articles to provide support for the analysis. Use the template and divide your paper into clear sections with headings based on each of the virtues and vices you are discussing.

Using articles primarily from Trident Online Library’s full-text databases (like Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, and/or ProQuest Central), research the chosen topic and create a well-balanced 4- to 5-page submission that demonstrates evidence of critical thinking. Remember that this means your paper should not be just a summary of the articles and book chapters that you read, but rather an in-depth analysis that is supported by quality, professional, and graduate-level research.

Do not use any quotations. Since you are engaging in research, be sure to cite and reference the sources in APA format. The paper should be written in third person; this means words like “I”, “we”, and “you” are not appropriate. For more information see Differences Between First and Third Person.

Use the attached APA-formatted template (MKT501 Case2) to create your submission.

Target Audience and Competition are the next components to be addressed in the process of developing a Marketing Strategy. To choose an appropriate target market, one must understand how consumers make purchase decisions.

Research

• Research and discuss Maslow’s theory of needs and how it is applied to marketing. Resources MUST include articles in the library’s full-text article databases (Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, and/or ProQuest Central).
• Define the stages of the consumer behavior model (or industrial model, if appropriate) and apply how the concepts affect the marketing effort. Resources MUST include articles in the library’s full-text article databases (Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete and/or ProQuest Central).

Application to Product/Service

• Provide a quick overview of the product or service you created.
• Even though you have “created” a product or service, the applications and research in this section will be real.
  • Identify your target market. Provide a specific demographic profile and rationale for this decision. Another source that may help you: The US Census Bureau’s American Fact Finder. Consider the size of the market and its purchasing power. Research is required to back-up your selection and to provide statistics to show that it is a viable market.
  • Analyze your competition. Who are they? Who are the biggest players? How large is the market? What are the trends/forecasts in the industry? How does your product/service fit in? IBISWorld in the Library is a good tool for this section; it may be accessed under “ADDITIONAL LIBRARY RESOURCES” and then scroll down to the database.

The assignment requires the use of ARTICLES from the library’s full-text databases. Articles are found in periodicals. These are not to be confused with eBooks or Reference Books. The most popular databases in marketing are: Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, and/or ProQuest Central.

Effective academic and research writing requires a 3rd person voice. This SLP will be written in 3rd person. Do not use any quotations. For more information see Differences Between First and Third Person. Since you are engaging in research, be sure to cite and reference the sources in APA format. NOTE: the Analysis in the Appendix may be written in 1st person.

Use the attached APA-formatted template (MKT501 SLP1) to create your submission.

SLP Assignment Expectations

Your submission will include:

• Trident University International’s cover page
• A 2- to 3-page paper with APA citations (2-to 3-sentence introduction, body, 2-to 3-sentence conclusion)
• The reference list in APA format

A Customer Focus

After you determine what you are selling, the next critical part of the marketing plan is to understand to whom you are selling. Knowing your customer is essential to ensure that the company is delivering an appropriate message to the target market. Marketing success is about turning sales leads into profits.
Not only should a company focus on servicing its current customer base, it must also seek out new customers.

This module’s case will focus on defining your product’s customer demographic and psychographic profile, along with customer relationship management (CRM) and customer satisfaction metrics. CRM is about managing current and prospective customers for strong and long customer relationships.

Case Assignment

Check out Nielsen Insights to find out more about today’s customer. Visit Experian and Mosaic® to find out more about using marketing research to develop customer profiles.

Using information from the websites and articles from the library’s full-text article databases (Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, and/or ProQuest Central), create a customer profile brief:

Customer Demographics and Psychographics—A review of current customer demographics—explain why this demographic profile is your primary target market.

• Develop a demographic profile of the potential customer segment.
• List at least two demographic tools you can use to help develop the demographic profile.
• Potential customer market demographics. Define the psychographic profile of your customer.

Customer Relationship Management—Find two CRM tools that help companies identify pertinent information about their customer segments.

• How will you use these tools to manage the customer relationship?

Since you are engaging in research, be sure to cite and reference the sources in APA format. The paper should be written in third person; this means words like “I”, “we”, and “you” are not appropriate. For more information see Differences Between First and Third Person.

Use the attached APA-formatted template (MKT501 Case1) to create your submission.

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Assignment Expectations

Your submission will include:

• Trident University International’s cover page
• A 4- to 5-page paper with APA citations (2- to 3-sentence introduction, body, 2- to 3-sentence conclusion)
• The reference list page in APA format