Reference no: EM131296850 , Length: word count:1500

Assessment Task: Project: Implementing and monitoring marketing activities

During your course, you will work on number of project activities that will assist you to complete this part of the assessment.  Activities will be completed in the class and at home as directed by your assessor.

Read the assessment task thoroughly before you commence. Your assessor will also discuss it in class with you.

This assessment task requires you to take on the role of Marketing Manager and implement and monitor marketing strategies and tactics for a given Company in Appendix 1.  

Your assessor will specify the dates on which you must submit/present your work.

Part A: Develop a marketing strategies briefing and plan a team building activity (Approximately 500 words)

The first part of the assessment task is to develop a brief about marketing strategies and tactics for your company and based on the marketing strategies in the Marketing Plan. You will present the brief to a team as per instructions in Part B of this assessment.

The brief that you prepare should include:

1. A brief overview of your company's Marketing Plan, including marketing objectives and performance targets to staff. 

2. A discussion of the marketing strategies in the Plan and the order of priority in which you think they should be addressed, as applicable.

3. A discussion of the marketing mix that will be implemented based on the marketing strategies.

4. A discussion of the resources that are required to implement the marketing strategies, such as personnel involved, costs and budgets, equipment if any required and any other resources as required.

5. An action plan for implementing the marketing strategies and using a project planning tool such as a GANTT chart or PERT chart.  The action plan should identify timelines and roles and responsibilities for your team members and that will be discussed and confirmed at the briefing (Part C).

6. A proposed communication strategy throughout the implementation of the marketing activities.  Your communication strategy should ensure that all team members are kept informed of each other's activities.

You should also identify and plan a team building activity to use at the beginning of the briefing (Part C).  The team building activity can be any activity of your choice.  You will need to ensure that you prepare any resources that you need for this team building activity such as paper and pen for each team member.

You will be assessed as to whether you have addressed all of the required information for the brief and that your brief is clear and relevant to the Marketing Strategies in the Marketing Plan. You will be also assessed on whether you have provided a clear and relevant action plan for implementation (e.g. GANTT chart or PERT chart or other project planning tool), as well as a clear and relevant communication strategy to be followed during the implementation of the marketing activities.  All your documents must be written in plain English.

Your briefing and action plan and will need to be submitted in Part B of the assessment task.

Part B: Develop and send an agenda for the briefing (Approximately 100 Words)

The outcome of part B is to develop an agenda for your briefing, as well as to send the agenda, briefing paper and action plan to participants.

First of all, you will need to identify the team who will be involved in the marketing strategies implementation project.  Identification of team members should be based on a realistic scenario of who might be involved depending on the marketing strategies that you are implementing. Team members should include both marketing personnel as well as non-marketing personnel, for example, sales, public relations or advertising staff as applicable to the marketing strategies. The list of team members' names should be included in the agenda as those participating.

Once you have identified the team members, you will need to include their names and position titles in the agenda. The names of the 'team members' will be fellow students. Your assessor will advise you of the names of the students that are included in your team.  You may allocate each 'team member' any position title that you like.  Note that the assessor will also be one of the 'team members'.

The agenda should be set out according to a standard format for agendas and should include the date and time of the briefing, as well as the duration of the briefing. The agenda should also identify that a team building activity will be undertaken at the outset of the briefing.

The agenda for the briefing, briefing paper and action plan must be sent to participants by email at least three days before the briefing date (your assessor will tell you on which date you need to conduct the briefing). This covering email should briefly outline the purpose of the meeting, as well as the date and time of the meeting and advise participants to read the briefing paper, as well as review the action plan prior to the meeting.

Your assessor will advise you of the email addresses to which you must send the documentation. Your assessor will also be one of the recipients.

You will be assessed on the following criteria:

• Relevant team members identified and included in the agenda.
• Team members identified include both marketing and non-marketing personnel as relevant to marketing activities
• Agenda developed according to standard format and includes details of briefing time, date and duration.
• Agenda written in plain English.
• Agenda clearly sets out key points for discussion at the briefing.
• Agenda, as well as briefing, action plan and communication strategy sent by email to each participant at least three days before the specified briefing date.
• Covering email briefly outlines the purpose of the meeting, as well as the date and time of the meeting and advises participants to read the briefing paper, as well as review the action plan prior to the meeting.

Part C: Conduct briefing

The next part of this assessment is to conduct the briefing. 

Before you commence your briefing, explain to your team that you want them to participate in a short team building activity to help team bonding.  Provide clear instructions for the activity to the team.

You should provide a summary of the briefing paper and action plan that you have prepared.   You should ensure that you also address your proposed communication strategy throughout the implementation phase.  Your presentation should last no more than 10 minutes as it is assumed that participants have read the briefing prior to the meeting.

At the end of your presentation you should invite questions and discussions and confirm the roles and responsibilities included in your action plan for implementation. If there are any changes to be made as a result of the discussion, you will need to update your documents and send them back to your team after the briefing.

You will be assessed on the following criteria:

• Suitable team building activity conducted at commencement of meeting
• Summary of briefing paper, action plan and communication strategy presented in clear and plain English.
• Presentation timeline of no more than 10 minutes adhered to
• Questions and discussion promoted at the end of the meeting.
• Documents updated based on feedback at meeting - only if applicable.

Part D: Develop and present a monitoring report (Approximately300 Words)

Imagine that you have commenced the marketing activities as identified in your implementation plan and that you are meeting with your team again to report on progress.

You will need to email your team to invite them to a progress meeting. Your assessor will advise you of the date for this progress meeting. The email you send should advise the team of the date and time of the meeting, as well as the duration of the meeting.

Prior to the meeting you will need to review marketing activity based on your implementation plan. This may require you to develop data based on imaginary progress, if you are unable to find this information in any marketing updates for the organisation. You must choose a range of marketing metrics to assess progress on all aspects of the marketing mix.  Marketing metrics could include market share analysis, sales analysis, feedback from customer surveys, etc.

You must develop a short report on marketing progress for discussion at the progress meeting.  Your report does not need to be written it can be a series of short dot points that you prepare to speak to verbally at the meeting. However, you must prepare a hand out or power point setting out the marketing performance data.

At the meeting you will need to provide a verbal report on:

• Promotional activities undertaken and outcomes, especially in relation to communication objectives in the marketing plan.
• An assessment of the product, pricing and distribution decisions made in relation to the marketing activities undertaken and whether these met the objectives of the marketing plan.
• Marketing performance in relation to the targets identified in the Marketing Plan.
• An analysis of the costs of marketing against outcomes and the marketing budget.

At the end of the meeting, your assessor will play the role of Sales Manager and provide you with recommendations for improvements to marketing activities or strategies based on his or her experience, as well as interaction with customers.  You will need to note down the recommended improvements for use in the final part of this assessment, Part E.

You will be assessed on the following criteria:

• Email sent to team at least three days before meeting advising of date, time and duration of progress meeting.
• Marketing performance data identified and discussed.
• Marketing performance data included in a hand out or power point and provided to team.
• Relevant marketing metrics used for analysing marketing performance.
• Verbal report at progress meeting addresses:
• Promotional activities undertaken and outcomes, especially in relation to communication objectives in the marketing plan.
• An assessment of the product, pricing and distribution decisions made in relation to the marketing activities undertaken and whether these met the objectives of the marketing plan.
• Marketing performance in relation to the targets identified in the Marketing Plan.
• An analysis of the costs of marketing against outcomes and the marketing budget.

Part E: Marketing performance report (Approximately 600 Words)

The final part of the assessment requires you to review progress to date and identify areas for improvement within the marketing mix. This will be in form of a brief email to your team. Your assessor will identify the date on which you will need to send this email.

In relation to the product and/or service area of your chosen company, research and identify new or emerging trends.  You may do this through using a wide range of external sources of data.

Your email should include:

• A brief summary of marketing progress as discussed at the progress meeting and an indication of whether you believe this progress is satisfactory.
• A summary of the recommended improvements discussed at the previous meeting (Part D).
• A summary of how you believe the recommended improvements could improve business practices and how you intend to implement the recommended improvements.
• A summary of the research that you have undertaken into new and emergency trends for your company and your view of the potential impact of these trends on your company and its marketing strategies.
• Your recommended changes to marketing objectives based on recommended improvements and trends.

You will be assessed on the following criteria:

• Marketing performance report emailed to assessor by specified date.
• Performance report clear, relevant and written in plain English.
• New and emerging trends identified as relevant.
• Summary of recommended improvements based on feedback from the Sales Manager.
• Summary of how recommended improvements could improve business practices and how the recommended improvements will be implemented.
• Summary of the research undertaken into new and emerging trends and potential impact on marketing strategies
• Summary of recommended changes to marketing objectives based on recommended improvements and trends.

Attachment:- Assignment.rar