Reference no: EM131186791 , Length: word count:2500

Assignment 1 - Marketing Audit

The Assignment - 2 options

Your first assessment task asked you to reflect on and write about the concept of the value proposition and exchange. This assignment now asks you to build on this by conducting a marketing audit and then from that information develop a marketing plan (next assignment).

You may complete these two assignments individually or in a group of three (3) people. You cannot change groups or opt in or out of the group once you have joined a group (team). Most marketers work in teams. Doing a team assessment may be of value to you in developing your teamwork skills. The teamwork experience gained in this course could be a useful example to place on your CV.

You must submit your intention to work in a group (team) to Karen by email. You will be asked to complete the team form supplied on Study Desk stating your group member names, their student numbers, and naming the person who will submit the two assignments (the marketing audit and the marketing plan). The same person must submit both assignments.

Regarding the assignments - the Marketing Audit and the Marketing Plan you have choices on which company you select. It doesn't matter which company you select, but it does matter that you complete the Marketing Audit and the Marketing Plan on the same company.

Before you can develop your marketing plan and recommendations you need to know more about the product offering, possible competitors, market opportunities and other environmental factors that are likely to impact your strategy and implementation plan. This review and analysis is known as a Marketing Audit. You are required to conduct a Marketing Audit that includes an analysis of the internal and external factors that will be relevant to the development of a marketing strategy for either a company or product of your choice or based on the case study information provided. This assignment should be 2500 words maximum - excluding references.

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 required 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 (which is assignment 2).

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.

Report Writing

Guidelines on writing reports

For assignments 1 and 2 (not the marketing reflection) your reports should comprise:

1. An executive summary (no more than 1 page);

2. An introduction (approximately 200 words);

2. The body that includes all the analysis of the current marketing and internal and external firm environments, customer analysis, competitor analysis and any other analysis. (Approximately 2000 words); and

3. A conclusion. This includes the statement of the issues you have found, the gaps identified, overall strategic approach and future recommendations. (Approximately 200 - 300 words).

Assignment 2 - The strategic marketing plan

General overview

This assignment leads on from assignment 1. Essentially you are required to establish a marketing plan to grow the market and sales for the organisation you have chosen in the target market you have focused on and given the situational analysis you have conducted in assignment 1.

This assignment should commence with an overall summary (about one page) of the context that you established in assignment 1. This will allow the marker to come up to speed on your analysis and thinking as the baseline for your recommendations in this assignment (it is unlikely that you will have the same marker for both pieces of assessment so consider this in what you present). You DO NOT need to include the full assignment 1 here but you may wish to replicate some of the analysis tables in appendices to this assignment if they are relevant - if you do this, make sure you refer to them in your summary and highlight the key features that a reader needs to note from these tables and analysis summaries. You may make adjustments to your original analysis and conclusions here based on the marking feedback you received in the first assignment.

This assignment should then commence with a specific statement of the marketing objective/s that will guide this plan based on the context you have set from assignment one. You will then show how each of the marketing mix elements (the 4 Ps) will contribute to the achievement of this objective in your plan. Each of the elements of the marketing mix are to be considered (product, place, price and promotion) and for each you will need to discuss the strategy you will adopt (with appropriate justification from theory and other sources), and the tactics you would recommend.

Finally, you will conclude with consideration of a timeline for this plan indicating the ordering of your tactical elements which will result in the achievement of the overall objectives of the plan. You also need to present a contingency plan which would consider any threats or potential reactions from competitors that you identified in assignment one as potentially having a negative impact on your plan and how you would propose these be dealt with if and when they arise. There is no requirement in this plan to focus on or prepare and defend a budget.

2500 words, please read and let me know if you need any info before taking the deal as due time is quite short. New Zealand Student, so please select New Zealand Company.