2000 word marketing strategic plan, needed in 24 hours

ASSIGNMENT 2

MKT2009

STRATEGIC MARKETING

Strategic Marketing Plan

1. Guidelines

You are required to write 2000 words (max. 2200) Strategic Marketing Plan as a briefing for the head of marketing who will shortly be launching a project to update the marketing strategy for your chosen organization. Your plan should focus on the next 12/24 months.

You may choose your favourite brand, product, or company as a real world case and then critically analyse it (any company but McDonalds, IKEA, Burger King, BMW, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Nike, Adidas). You can choose the same company you have worked on in the first assignment.

The Strategic Marketing Plan encourages students to demonstrate their understanding of the company, the business background, subject area, to show the ability to think critically and to construct logical arguments and viable strategies and tactics to achieve marketing objectives.

Critically analysing a real world brand means (i) carrying out a substantial amount of focussed reading and (ii) producing a coherent critical assessment of what you have read.

Structure

· Title page (not included in the word count);

· Synopsis or Abstract or executive summary (not included in the word count);

· List of contents (not included in the word count);

1. Where are we now?

· Company, Brand, Product/Service Overview (who they are what they do, number of employees, markets in which they are present, brands in portfolio, market share…);

· Target Segment/s served (make your own inferences based on the review of the marketing mixes of the company; (demographics, psychographics, behavioural criteria);

· Analysis of Main Competitors and their marketing mixes;

· Current Positioning of your brand/company (compared to competitors);

· Overview of the market (market trends) based on the PESTLE analysis (use market reports, online reliable sources);

· SWOT Analysis

· What’s next (insights generated in this analytical section, e.g.: new emerging opportunities, threats).

2. Where do we want to be?

· (Briefly describe the) Scope of the project (e.g. new product development);

· Objectives (must be focused, time-framed, measurable, achievable);

· Target Segment (must be specific) and rationale for choosing this target segment;

· Positioning sought (how your brand/product should be perceived).

3. How do we get there?

· Overall Strategy (e.g. cost leadership, differentiation, focus);

· Tactics and rationale for choosing them [think about: the 4 Ps (price, place, promotion, product), relationship marketing, international marketing, social and ethical strategies, new product development, strategic alliances and networks, or the 7 Ps for services].

4. Did we get there?

· Proposed metrics (market share, sales, brand awareness, social capital…) to be used to monitor/analyse the results of the campaign.

2. Deadline

The deadline is 13 May 2019 by 10am. Submission will be made only through Turnitin.

3. Some recommendations:

· Try to provide a professional presentation of your report (it is a report…)

· Make an effort to write well and with attention to detail (such as spelling, grammar, proof-reading and so on)

· Creative/imaginative presentation (i.e. use tables, charts, diagrams, storyboards/images and so on, as well as words), to present information

· Show evidence of in-depth research

· Reference all the sources you use

· A strategic marketing plan should present some (not too many) pictures, diagrams, tables, charts, these are not included in the word count and should be all numbered and provided with a title;

· Break paragraphs and number headings and subheadings;

· Recommended sources to use are:

· Newspaper and magazine articles (online and print copy);

· Online sources (only reliable ones; e.g. Marketing Week; PR daily; PR news; Advertising Age; Admap; Campaign; Direct Marketing; Nielsen; TechCrunch, Business Insider, Strategy + Business, The conversation, enetrepreneur.com…);

· Published Books;

· Academic journal articles (e.g. Harvard Business Review; Journal of Strategic Marketing; Strategic management journal; European Journal of Marketing; Journal of International Marketing; Journal of Business Research; Marketing Intelligence & Planning; Long Range Planning; Global Strategy Journal; Strategic organization; Strategic change).

4. Some common ISSUES:

· Plagiarising material from sources: this will result in an investigation where students concerned will be interviewed and further appropriate measures may be taken, in accordance with university regulations. Turnitin reveals everything you copy, so please make sure you work on your own and do not buy or copy from other students’ work. Typical mark: Fail or early 40. So please be careful and follow the referencing guide closely. This is vitally important.

· Approaching plagiarism: close paraphrasing of whole paragraphs from sources, without acknowledging the source. Fail or marks in the range of 40s is awarded in this case. So please be careful and follow the referencing guide closely. This is vitally important.

· Choosing to focus on something that was not asked: Sometimes students choose to ignore the title and write about something, which, in some cases does not fully answer the question. This usually results in marks below 50.

· Poor English: the weakest essays have, in general, many incomprehensible sentences. It is your responsibility to ensure that your writing can be understood. Marks in the range of 50 and below.

· Not fully developing the argument: Mentioning briefly some points rather than developing the argument fully can be a common weakness. This is particularly relevant for critical evaluations it suggests very superficial understanding of the criticisms. In general, essays with not fully developed arguments would score marks in the low 50.

· Insufficient critical evaluation: explain the rationale behind your choice using statistics, figures, quote from credible sources, academic literature. Some works demonstrate good understanding of key points but fail to demonstrate a sufficient degree of critical evaluation. Typically marks in the low 60. Academic literature can be used to justify the choice of a strategy or a tactic…. Sometimes reports do not focus or do not make an appropriate use of official and relevant sources. If you cite relevant academic sources, it is to show that you are making links to literature and you should demonstrate that you have understood the theory you are citing. Sometimes students reproduce material (cite academic sources) without demonstrating any knowledge or understanding of it. It is paramount that you place what you have read in the context of the relevant literature.

· Coherence between first and second part. The two sections of the plan must be linked logically. For example, if your plan is about entering the Chinese market the PESTLE analysis should be on that market and provide information of why there is an opportunity to enter that market.

· Lack of creativity and originality in the operational part of the marketing plan (how do we get there?). While the strategic analysis is based on the retrieval and analysis, rephrasing of secondary data, the second part of the plan (where do we want to be and how do we get there) is based on your ideas and knowledge, bearing in mind the context. Typically marks in the low 60 or 50.

5 Marking criteria

6. Referencing

In the text should refer to:

1. Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication;

2. Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication;

3. Three or more authors: first author's name followed by "et al." and the year of publication.

Examples: "Strunk and White (1979) propose an alternative methodology..." or "Van der Geer et al. (2000) have recently shown .... or academic research has highlighted that consumers use both normative and informational cues to make decision about travel services when they use online consumer reviews (Filieri, 2015)"

Reference List:

References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically

if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters "a", "b", "c", etc., placed after the year of publication. You are free to use any referencing style (e.g. APA, Harvard…) but once you have decided which one to use please use it consistently in your reference list.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:

Filieri, R. (2015). What makes online reviews helpful? A diagnosticity-adoption framework to explain informational and normative influences in e-WOM. Journal of Business Research, 68(6), 1261-1270.

Reference to a book:

Dey, B., Sorour, K., & Filieri, R. (eds.) (2016). ICTs in Developing Countries: Research, Practices and Policy Implications. Springer: Wien, Austria.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

Alguezaui S, Filieri R. (2011). Innovation Across Tech-Firm’s Boundaries: a Knowledge-Based View. In: Contractor, F., Kumar, V., Pedersen, T., and Kundu, S, (eds.) Outsourcing and Offshoring of Business Activities: Determinants, Implications and Challenges. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp.210-238.

Reference to a newspaper/magazine article (online):

Trend, N. (2013, October 23). TripAdvisor and the issue of trust. The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/10399563/TripAdvisor-and-the-issue-of-trust.html.

Press release

Gartner. (2012, September 17). Gartner says by 2014, 10e15 percent of social media reviews to be promotional, paid for by companies [Press release]. Retrieved from http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2161315.