MARKETING PLAN

 

The purpose of this assignment is to connect the concepts learned within the Principles of
Marketing course. It begins with identification of a target market and ends with the student
assuming the role of marketing consultant making suggestions for ways to improve the
effectiveness of the marketing mix.
1. Choose an organization that does marketing. Make it easy on yourself and choose an
organization that you can observe the marketing efforts of and are familiar with. If you
choose a very large organization that markets many different products, focus your paper on
one product or product line. You may choose any organization you wish, as long as it is in
good taste and markets something. If you have trouble choosing an organization, go to the
mall, surf the net, or look in the yellow pages, you are surrounded by marketing
organizations.
2. After choosing an organization, your next step is to identify and describe the target market
for the products(s) about which you are writing. Do not say something like “young, mid-toupper class women who wash their hair,” but

consider the target market identified and
described. Try to pinpoint the thing(s) that makes the target market respond to the firm’s
marketing mix in ways that are different from people who are not members of it. For
example, “young mid-to-upper class women who wash their hair, perceive that they might
have a dandruff problem, are motivated by prestige and glamour, and like to pamper
themselves and are willing to pay a little extra to do it.” A good statement lets you say who is
in the target market and who is not. It is very difficult to do a good job on this paper if you do
a poor job of defining the target market.
3. After discussing the target market, you should then discuss the marketing-mix (the four Ps)
the firm is using to attract the chosen target market. You should describe each of the four Ps,
then discuss and analyze how each one is being used to attract members of the target market.
You should also address the synergy of the four Ps together, especially if you see that one or
more does not fit the others.
4. After discussing the firm’s marketing mix, you should assume the role of marketing
consultant and make specific suggestions for improving the firm’s effectiveness. These
suggestions can be in the form of changes to any part of the current marketing mix to fix
problems you identified. If you did not identify problems, you should make suggestions for
additional marketing activities. It is important that you say why you make the suggestion and
how it will result in better appeal to the target market. These suggestions should be specific
and not generic. Generic suggestions are “advertise more” or “improve the sales force.” A
specific suggestion is “improve effectiveness of the sales force by starting a training program
that emphasizes closing and presentation skills.” Remember that your suggestions should be
addressed at specific problems or opportunities so that you can justify them.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS:
• Ensure that you format the paper in a Word document using an academic writing style of
your choice (APA, MLA, Turabian etc.)
• References (5 sources minimum) and in-text citations are required
• The paper should be approximately 5-8 pages, excluding the title page & reference page

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