Assignment 3: Part C: Your Marketing Plan

Brand Strategy: Good job, would have liked more rationale on how these choices resonate with your target market. You described your branding strategy and the brand promise, but it did not show a clear knowledge of the meaning of a brand promise. Most of your branding elements of the name, logo, and slogan and brand extension were provided.

Target Market: Your target markets are too broad. You only used one or two bases of segmentation to describe your target audiences. Considerations should be: age, lifestyle values, attitudes, wants and needs, gender, number of kids, education income, stage in the household lifecycle, geographic location (urban vs. rural, etc.), or risk orientation, etc. This section is worth 48 points, more thorough rationale for your targets along a good section for scholarly references to substantiate your position.

Positioning Statement and Perceptual Map: You did not submit or incompletely included a perceptual map that shows your company’s position against its competitors. Who are the competitors? What are their positions? How does that compare to your position? See textbook pages 107-113. You did not share a fully prepared positioning statement that included who you are talking to, who you are better than and why you are better. Be very realistic in this comparison. You can't be the best with the lowest price. Think of three legged stool with Quality, Service, and Price as the legs. If you have the lowest price - your quality and service need to match that; otherwise you have a lopsided stool.

Consumer Behavior: You need to explain more about your target market's consumer behavior - lifestyle values, attributes, wants and needs, etc. with the brand name, logo, slogan, brand extension, and positioning statement. Why your brand's promise will resonate with them. It is not clear how and why you developed your branding elements to impact the consumer buying process for your target audience. This section is a good section to use scholarly resources to validate your target market’s consumer behavior.

References and Citations: Your paper does not meet the required number of references; some or all references poor quality choices. Use at least three (3) academic resources as quantitative marketing research to determine the feasibility of your product / service. In order to receive most points, you must submit four or more. These resources should be industry specific and relate to your chosen product / service. Note: Newspapers, magazines, and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources and although you should reference if you use, they do not count towards your minimum. Quality references are peer-reviewed, scholarly journal published in the last 5 years. A good way to incorporate is by using Journal of Marketing for your theories and consumer behavior observations.

Mechanics: Do not use first or second person; eliminate the use of I, we, our, you, yours, etc. Please use the templates EXACTLY as provided in assignments and announcements. The templates are APA formatted, has all the elements needed that matches the rubric, and has tips so you gain the most points. As a final note, there were multiple grammatical issues with this paper. Please make sure to proofread your paper before submitting it. One of the best ways to do this is to read it aloud. Hearing what you've written is a great way to catch grammatical issues. Use of Quotes: quoting should be done only sparingly; be sure that you have a good reason to include a direct quotation when you decide to do so.