only for The GrAde

Marketing Plan Assignment: General Instructions (read all instructions first)

As a learning exercise in this introductory course, and as your Final Exam substitute, you will be required to write an abbreviated Marketing Plan to support the launch of a new product. A full-fledged Marketing Plan can run to dozens of pages. This assignment will be a very abbreviated version that will help you apply the concepts learned in class. Following the instructions is very important to the success of your plan (final grade). Please read all instructions carefully!

· This is a group project. You will be given some time during class periods (anywhere from 30-90 minutes) to meet with your group and work on the plan. Additional time outside of class will be necessary.

· This is a semester-long project. START EARLY.

· Objectives:

· To help you better understand the material by relating it to the "real world" of business

· To teach you the importance of integrating material and achieving internal consistency

· To give you practice in writing concisely and for a specifically requested format

· To give you actual practice in constructing a Marketing Plan

Read the Full Instructions for the Plan: There are things in later parts that you should consider first before making a firm commitment in earlier parts. Read instructions carefully.

· Recognize that when instructions say to use POINT FORM, it means "Point Form" not paragraph and not full sentences. It should be individual points preceded by a bullet. When you are asked to LIST something, you are to put it in the form of a list, not a sentence or a paragraph.

Steps

1. Choose Your Product. Start the process of the Marketing Plan by choosing a product to market. Check below to find a list of possible product categories. Consider these product categories a starting point and then think broadly and creatively. Have some fun here: what is something your group thinks the world really needs? What is there a need for out there that no one else seems to be offering? What product seems to sell well that you could adapt for a different target market or for a different company?

Use your imaginations and your powers of observation. If you individually have something you want to market one day, you may be able to convince your group to take it on as their project. Think about opposites as well; in the category of automobiles, you not only can invent a car or any possible kind of gadget to go in one, you also could market something to reduce the use of automobiles, such as something to do with public transit.

Note that product can mean a good (hammer), service (haircut), event (The Rolling Stones' Toronto SARS Concert), person (think about how we market politicians at election time), place (vacation in Canada), an organization (Red Cross). To a Marketer, these are all products that can be marketed. If you are interested in computers, is there a related service you can think of that you'd like to see marketed? Or a socially beneficial plan to make computers available to students from low income families?

Your chosen product must be something that is not currently being sold by a particular company. For example, in a product class of soft drinks, you could be a new company bringing out a new cola or orange drink, or you could be Coca-Cola bringing out a new flavor of drink that they don't currently make, but you may not present yourself as Coca Cola developing a Marketing Plan for Diet Coke, because that particular product/brand already exists on the market.

2. Follow Format and Instructions. Read the instructions carefully as they tell you what you are supposed to do. Be sure to include everything, in the correct order, and respecting length limits. Label everything. Read the text to be sure you fully understand the terms and are using them properly. Do not define terms; just use them in a way that shows you understand them.

Write succinctly, clearly, and precisely, as if writing for a busy boss with no time to read, or an overworked loan officer who will read someone else's proposal first if yours looks too long and complicated. Decide what you will tell that boss or loan officer in your plan that will make your case quickly, succinctly, and convincingly. Plan the layout to make it enticing to read. Where instructions say LIST, do so. If you are asked for a list of three items, label them 1., 2., 3. Just about everything in this Marketing Plan is in Point Form (one exception is the Executive Summary). You are not required to put anything in double-spaced format.

You don't need to do a lot of outside research, but you may need to check out some secondary research on your target market and do some small-sample-size research to find out whether your new idea is feasible. If you cite statistics other than one of general knowledge (general knowledge statistic: the main target market for beer drinkers is young men aged 18-35), cite it briefly within the paragraph where you use it, like this: "A recent article in the Globe and Mail (6/27/03) suggested that attendance at live theatre is lower than it has been in thirty years." Note that you do not need a separate sheet for references.

Write only in your own words. I am not interested in seeing how much material you can copy from the internet. You may use the Internet for background information if you wish, and of course you will be using your textbook, but write the plan in YOUR OWN WORDS.

3. How to Prepare Your Document. When preparing the paper to hand it in, ensure that:

· All pages are single-spaced

· Use black type in 12-point font (Times New Roman is best, and use only one font)

· Have no less than 1-inch margins all around

· Use portrait format (single column)

· Keep everything as simple as possible - no fancy graphics, no charts (unless specified in the instructions), no pictures, no color - just writing.

· Write exactly the number of pages specified and as specified. Do not put your name(s) on any page other than the cover page (and the Executive Summary page where you list group member names)

The Sections of the Plan

Cover Page

On the bottom of the cover page, list the title of the product and names of those group members who have contributed.

Executive Summary

Page 1 – One page

Use sentence/paragraph form because you are discussing what your plan is about.

In the center of the top of this page, put the phrase "Executive Summary For [Name of Product]" inserting the name of your product instead of the brackets, then skip down two lines and start to write your summary. Do not write more than one page.

The executive summary is a summary of the most important information in your marketing plan. Start with a paragraph that consists only of a statement, no longer than 3 - 4 lines, of what your product is, its name, your company name, and to whom you intend to market your product.

The remainder of the executive summary should present your main goals and recommendations, to enable top management to easily find the major points of the plan. It is essentially a one-page summary of your entire plan.

Keep the executive summary simple and straightforward. It must be terse but also must include important details. Avoid phrases like, "This is in the plan" or "refer to XYZ." A busy boss or loan officer is not going to go elsewhere to read anything; it's your responsibility to get it all there on the first page. Write concisely in crisp clear business language; persuade with facts rather than with rhetoric. Always write the executive summary after you have finished your project rather than when you start.

Page 2

Table of Contents

The Table of Contents is in detailed point form, single-spaced, making page locations easy to find.

Page 3

Market Description

Describe your ONE target market segment in detail, approximately 6-7 lines of point form writing. Make a chart to show the Customer Needs and Corresponding Feature/Benefit for that segment. State briefly why you chose this target market. State specifically what "gap" in the market you are filling, that is, how your product is better than what is currently being offered by the competition.

For simplifying this exercise, make this target market as narrow as possible and choose ONLY ONE very narrow specific target market. Obviously in the "real world" you well might target more than one market, but for every market there must be a full analysis, so this assignment requires that you choose only ONE target market, partly to limit the amount of work you have to do.

Include a “gap” statement. The "gap" statement relates to competition as well as customer needs. Be sure that what you later write about the competition matches what you say here about the gap. This gap should be a very brief and concise statement of what is not out there that you think there is a need for. Don't just list your product and all the great things it does. Explain where it fits between what is out there and what is not but that there's a need for. This will lead later into your discussion of the competition and eventually of your strategy.

Product Review

Summarize the main features of all the company's products. State what other products your company produces, including what it is, what it costs, and who buys it, and describe briefly where the new product fits into your existing product line.

Read about the Boston Consulting Group for some ideas on this; do not use the BCG model word for word, just what may apply to your company's products. This is not a description of your product; you will do that in the Strategy section; this is a brief description of the rest of the products your firm produces (maybe there are none; if so, say so) and how your new product fits in with ones you already market.

Page 4

Competitive Review

List the three major competitors you will face when trying to market this product, and briefly state each one's general market position and their strategies. Do this in list form (1.2.3.) with "Position" and "Strategies" clearly labeled for each company:

Keep these short, terse, concise. Remember that even if you have what seems to be a "new" product that never existed before, there will always be competition; you just need to figure out what it is. For example, if you invent a device that will automatically vacuum your car floor while it is parked and nobody else produces such a thing, your immediate competition is items that do essentially the same thing such as an attachment for the household vacuum or a small vacuum that plugs into the cigarette heater. If you invent something that really seems to have no direct competition, your competition would be anything else that someone could spend money on. There is ALWAYS competition.

The competition section of the Plan should give you a good picture of what you are up against -- your three main competitors and what are they doing out there that you had better know about. The Internet can be a good place to find descriptions of other companies' market position and strategies. You also can find these out by observing the product and its packaging and advertisements.

Distribution Review

Briefly evaluate the current types of channels used to distribute products like yours and comment on how effective they are. Describe broad recent trends in sales of things similar to your product. State in 1 - 2 lines how you will probably sell your product - the place where it will be offered for sale.

You're starting to think here about whether you will sell your product as it's usually sold by others right now, or do something different. Following length limits, recognize that your fuller description of distribution will come in the Strategy section. Here, you speak to broad recent trends in sales of things similar to your product and indicate briefly where you will probably sell your product (on line? at Hazelton Lanes? at Honest Ed's?). This is not the place to write in detail about your 17 trucks and 47 warehouses - you don't have space.

Page 5

(Point Form, Single-Spaced)

SWOT Analysis

Strengths - what do you do well?

Weaknesses - what are you not so good at? Where might you need to improve?

Your strengths section can include a tangible strength (e.g.: state-of-the-art drill press) or an intangible strength (e.g.: goodwill) of your company.

Opportunities - What's coming that might be a chance for you to profit or succeed?

Threats - What's coming that might cause you problems?

Strengths and Weaknesses

State one major strength your company has, and one major weakness it suffers.

Opportunities and Threats

List three specific opportunities and three specific threats, each set ranked in order of importance, clearly labeled, and numbered, with threats separate from opportunities. List them in the proper order (it's what makes it S-W-O-T). This is a glimpse into the future; what you think is coming, what major positive or negative developments might affect your organization and your plans. Describe briefly how you will capitalize on the opportunities available in each case and how you will meet the challenge of the threats.

Make these threats and opportunities specific to your industry and/or company and related to a particular environment. Do not list general things like the "economy" or "competition" as threats; they are threats for any business. And don't list your marketing task as a threat; a threat to a cereal company is not "How to market our cereal."

Some Good Examples of Product-Specific Threats From Previous Student Papers (Plan product in parentheses)

Threat - Increased crime in downtown; 30% rise over the last two years in beatings and shootings (from a Plan for a Downtown Nightclub)

- Will meet by installing security system, hiring security personnel

Threat - Declining cost of electronic equipment (from a Plan with a product that was highly internet and technology-based)

- Will meet by hiring recent graduates of high-tech programs to keep us up to date

Threat - Transmission standards that vary across the world (from a Plan for SmallWorld cell phone)

- Will meet by creating adaptor that will handle various types/levels of transmission

Objectives and Issues

List (label, number) your three main Objectives in a way that makes it clear exactly what they are, in order of their importance. State clearly, directly under each Objective, ONE major Issue affecting the accomplishment of each objective, phrasing the issue as a question.

This is the section from which you get the goals that you will put in your Executive Summary and which will start your thinking on your Marketing Strategy: what you want to do and what key issues will affect your doing it. To get a better idea of your objectives, look ahead to Controls to see how these objectives will be tested after implementing the Plan.

Objectives are specific things that you want to accomplish. Issues are broad categories of problems, things you'll need to think about while working out how you will obtain your objectives. In the example of the objective of 15% market share, notice that the issue is not the specific question, "how can we get a market share of 15%?" but rather the very general question of "how does one go about increasing market share?" An even better way to phrase an issue here would be something like, "Given that we are a service industry with limited resources, how do we increase market share without risking XYZ?".

Make your objectives specific to your organization. Don't state as objectives things which are just common business sense or part of general business practice. The following are all incorrect objectives from previous Plans; they are incorrect because these are general things any marketer strives for.

· satisfy customers

· make sure production meets demand

· be located in the right place

· have a strategy that appeals to the target market

Satisfying customers, producing enough, finding a good location, determining the right strategy -- these are not objectives for a Marketing Plan any more than an objective of my teaching this course would be "to give a class that teaches students what they need to know," or "to offer the course twice each year."

Objectives must be clear, specific, numeric, and limited to a particular time period

Poorly-Stated Objectives Well-Stated Objectives

To make money Earn a 10% ROI by the second year of operations

To get more customers We will increase our market share from 16% to 18% by the end of fiscal 2007, by increasing our community sponsorship budget by 15%

To get bigger Our objective is to open three new units by the end of fiscal 2007 in each of the 3 Atlantic provinces where we have no stores

Some examples of well stated issues for objectives (from previous Plans)

OBJECTIVES AND ISSUES

OBJECTIVES AND ISSUES

· Earn a 10%profit in our second year of operation

· Issue: How can we attract and retain a strong and loyal customer base?

· Open 3 franchises within the Extended Market Area of Calgary by the end of 2015

· issue: How do we ensure success in a slow economy?

· Capture 10% of market in our first year and increase that to 14% in our second year

· Issue: What do we need to do to constantly attract new customers?

Note that you are not required here to discuss how you will achieve the objective or to discuss how you will deal with the one major issue, only to list what they are. In a full length Marketing Plan, of course you would address these; this is a much-abbreviated Plan to introduce you to the concept.

Value Proposition

State in no more than 3 lines the value proposition of your product.

Page 6 and 7

Point Form, Single-Spaced

Marketing Strategy

Here you start the most important part of the Marketing Plan; it is particularly important in this part that you use the marketing theory and terminology you have been learning. As you start this part of the Plan, go back and re-read carefully the three main objectives that you outlined in the Objectives and Issues section, because strategy is largely about how you accomplish your objectives. Use the concepts presented in your textbook.

This isn’t a lot of space to cover your strategy; you're going to have to shorten it and part of the learning exercise in this assignment is for you to figure out how to do this. Trim it down, use concise point form, avoid wasted words or saying the same thing twice. Prioritize; not everything is equally important; decide what's most important; it will vary from product to product. It's not easy, but it's part of the purpose of the assignment -- to give you practice in deciding what is important and then writing it concisely.

Be sure that everything formulate as strategy specifically and clearly links back to and is consistent with the Current Marketing Situation Analysis part of the Plan. Everything you propose must directly relate to and deal with threats, opportunities, critical issues, and objectives as stated in the earlier part of the Plan.

Page 6

Positioning

State clearly and succinctly how you are positioning your product, relative to customer needs and what the competition is doing, and why you made that choice.

Positioning is essentially a description of your broad strategic plan, the "marketing logic" with which you hope to achieve your marketing objectives as your text puts it. This takes some careful thinking through, as it is at the heart of your Marketing Plan and its proposed strategy. You are answering the question of why consumers should and will buy your product instead of others out there in the market. What kinds of features and attributes does your product offer? What benefits does it offer to the consumer? You do not need to draw a positioning map.

Marketing Research

State three things you will need to find out more about in order to help ensure that the product launch is a success. Do not elaborate; just state.

Marketing Organization

State very briefly how your company will be organized to handle the Marketing functions: by product, customer, geography, a combination, or other?

Page 7

Product Strategy

State clearly and concisely at the start of the section exactly the main strategy for this part of the Mix. Then describe some specific details of your strategy for that area, going into further description and justification for your choices using theory and terminology from your text. List and label one specific tactic you will do to help ensure this part of the Marketing Mix is successful.

Price Strategy

State clearly and concisely at the start of the section exactly the main strategy for this part of the Mix. Then describe some specific details of your strategy for that area, going into further description and justification for your choices using theory and terminology from your text to back up your decisions. List and label one specific tactic you will do to help ensure this part of the Marketing Mix is successful.

Distribution Strategy

State clearly and concisely at the start of the section exactly the main strategy for this part of the Mix. Then describe some specific details of your strategy for that area, going into further description and justification for your choices using theory and terminology from your text chapters to back up your decisions. List and label one specific tactic you will do to help ensure this part of the Marketing Mix is successful.

Marketing Communications Strategy

State clearly and concisely at the start of the section exactly the main strategy for this part of the Mix. Then describe some specific details of your strategy for that area, going into further description and justification for your choices using theory and terminology from your text chapters to back up your decisions. List and label one specific tactic you will do to help ensure this part of the Marketing Mix is successful.

Page 8

Point Form, Single-Spaced

In the "real world" you would have to put a lot more effort into your action program, budget, and controls to meet the stringent requirements of a lending officer or boss and to have a solid idea of where you are going, but here you are just showing that you know they are necessary and that they need to be internally consistent. Do the whole thing in one page, keeping it concise enough to do so.

Action Program

List briefly, in order, your three major actions that you will need to do now, in 6 months, and at the end of one year, with a rough estimate of how long they will take to do. Make this one major action for each time period, three total, not nine.

This is the "who, what, when, and how much" of strategic planning. What will you do now, what will you do in six months, what will you do in a year? Show specifically what will be done and when in relation to other things that must be done. You can't do this till you've done the Marketing Strategy. Once you have outlined what you are going to do in strategic terms, in this section you get more specific and do some reality testing, answering such questions as when you plan to set up your first office, when you plan to start hiring staff, etc.

Budgets

The Budget section of the Plan consists of 3 items

1. Money Needed

State a rough estimate of how much money you will need to start production and marketing of this product and a brief description of where you will get the money.

Example

Money needed to start up this business: roughly $3 Million, to be obtained from will of Great Aunt Gus

2. Expected Revenue

State a general figure for expected sales for each of your first three years.

Example

Sales in Years 1-3: $25,000, $50,000, $100,000

Note the pattern here; I'm expecting to double my sales each year. That will have implications for my marketing strategy that must be covered in the Strategic Planning part of the Plan

3. Expected Expenses

List the three major items which will make up a large part of your costs or expenses

Example

Top three costs: building the factory, labor, purchasing the copyright

In a course like this, any budget figures would be largely made up because you cannot know, without a lot more work than you can do in this short a time with an imaginary product, exactly how much things will cost or even exactly what will be required. But you can show that you have a general idea of where you will get the money to set up the business (it's okay to say you inherited it from a Great Aunt or that you are a subsidiary of a huge already-existing corporation) and how you will allocate it (is $14.39 enough to set up an office in Calgary?), and that you have a sense of the internal logic of the Plan. I grade this section, and most of the plan, not on the accuracy of your figures (how do I know how much it will cost to build a coffin shaped like a hockey stick? [actual student Marketing Plan product]), but on the internal consistency of your plan and the evidence there that you have some idea what you are doing.

Controls

Briefly describe 3 tests that you will create or set up to check whether or not you have been successful and used well the money you were lent or given. State the goal that this control measures.

This involves measuring and evaluating results to be sure you are doing what you thought you wanted to do, and taking measures to fix things if you aren't. Financial goals by market are a common method. Use this section to help you determine your Objectives. Pretend you are facing a panel of fierce money lenders two years from now who want to know how you have spent the money they so graciously loaned you for this enterprise, or imagine that you are on your deathbed preparing to meet Great Aunt Gus (if you are so religiously inclined); what will you tell them? What tests will you perform to know if you have been successful? Do not actually create these tests, just briefly describe them. Once you have put this clearly into words, you will have a good idea of what your goals and objectives are.

Example of a Control

Goal - Awareness and visibility of Sudd in the market, to ensure sustainability

Measure of Performance - Use customer surveys and field research to ensure that at least 60% of potential customers are aware of Sudd and that 50% of major drugstores and supermarkets shelve our product effectively.

Notes

· No appendices or reference pages needed

· This is a term-long project. START EARLY!

· Product Classes For Marketing Plans - You may choose a good, service, idea, event, person... any of the many things that a product can be.

· AUTOMOBILES

· BOOKS/PAPER GOODS

· COMPUTERS/COMMUNICATIONS

· DOG OR OTHER PET CARE

· ELECTRONICS

· FUNERAL SERVICES

· GALLERIES, ART OR OTHER

· HOBBIES

· INK (think computers OR getting inked!)

· JEWELRY/WATCH SALES/REPAIR

· KITCHENWARE/SMALL APPLIANCES

· LADIES OR MEN'S WEAR

· MUSIC, LIVE OR TAPED

· NAIL OR OTHER BODY-PART CARE

· OUTDOOR OR INDOOR FURNITURE

· PERFUME/COLOGNE/COSMETICS

· QUICK MEALS

· RESTAURANTS/FOOD PRODUCTS

· SHAMPOO/HAIR OR BODY CARE

· TOYS/SPORTS EQUIPMENT

· UNDERWEAR, USEFUL OR SEXY

· VACATIONS & TRAVEL

· WASHER/DRIERS OR OTHER APPLIANCES

· XYLOPHONE OR OTHER MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

· YOGA OR OTHER SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY

· ZOO OR OTHER NOT-FOR-PROFIT MEMBERSHIP

Assumptions

Assumptions are a crucial part of any academic exercise; they put limits on what would otherwise be too huge a task for a term-long course.

Assumptions I Make

I assume you have read the full instructions and your textbook. I also assume that in taking an introductory level Marketing course, you do not yet know everything about Marketing (I don't either and none of us ever will), and I am not expecting from you a document such as I would get if I hired J. Walter Thompson to write a Marketing Plan for me, or if I asked a fourth-year Marketing Honors student to do one.

Assumptions You May Make

This is not an Accounting course. You may make up any financial figures; I'd have no way of checking if they were correct anyway. Just be sure everything is internally consistent.

This is not an Engineering course. If you have a clever idea for a product, you may assume it is possible to produce it. A Plan a few years ago invented a machine that crawls along the floor, hanging wallpaper as it goes. Absurd? You bet. Grade on the project? A, because the Marketing Plan was well written and included everything it was supposed to include. And who knows, maybe one day there WILL be such a thing.

This is not a Finance course. If you need money to set up your production plant, it's fine with me if you assume that you have inherited $3 million from a favorite great-aunt. You don't have to be concerned with preferred stock, debentures, and shareholders' equity. Take what money you need from your imagination, but do give some indication of where you will get money from.

This is not a Law course. If you have an exciting product but you're not quite sure about legalities, you may assume that the product is legal to produce and that you have any licenses you need, or that you have an ethical path through the problem. Note that you cannot assume something like an exclusive patent that means you don't have to worry about competition; you cannot assume away anything that is a fundamental part of marketing (and besides, there will ALWAYS be competition of some kind).

This IS a course based in Ethics. If you are intrigued by questionable ethical implications of a product, this course is a good place to tackle them. As a marketer, you well may be handed a product to market that does not meet your personal ethical standards; you will have to decide what to do about it. Resign, refuse, or resolve it. So, I will not tell you that you can't market guns for Smith and Wesson, or alcoholic beverages, or an alibi service (one Plan did a good job with this one, providing the company with a kind of disclaimer as to what the service might be used for). You may one day have to tackle something you'd rather not have to face. If you want to do something on the edge in this Marketing Plan, go for it.

All the issues surrounding assumptions are important in the real world and you would have to face them differently if you were actually marketing the product. But these assumptions allow you to reduce to some extent the work required in what is, after all, a term-long course, and to focus on what the course is all about -- Marketing.

A major thing I'm looking for in your plan is consistency -- logical internal consistency, no matter what you are marketing. When I am grading your plan to market a $12,000 watch, I don't care where you got the money to build the factory, I don't care whether you could actually get the patent for its peculiar inner workings, I don't care if you have made up most of your cost figures, and I don't care whether this watch will actually do the 73 functions you claim it will, but I DO care if you make the impossible assumption that it will only cost you $1.00 to make and you decide to sell it at Honest Ed's, and I don't want to read that you are going to steal the plans for it from some poor unsuspecting soul in Kansas.

Finally, but perhaps most important - I'm looking for theory. Be sure you show me in the Marketing Plan that you have read your text and understand the concepts we discuss in class related to marketing theory. Don't put quotes from the book ("as Armstrong/Kotler say on page 73, we must...."); I'm looking for use of the marketing terms and theory in your work (e.g.: when you're discussing the product itself, tell me what the core product is, as well as the actual and augmented product, but don't waste space defining those terms). This is a somewhat elusive concept, not always easy to do, but it is often what makes the difference between a B+ and an A paper. And I'm looking for a little creativity - have some fun with this project!

Some More Comments on Writing, Formatting, and Printing

Follow Instructions - If the assignment says "List 3 in order of importance" list three and be sure they are in order of importance. One Plan listed 13 items when asked to list 3 and lost all the points allotted to that section.

Give yourself time. Finish your assignment AT LEAST one full day ahead of the due date so you have time to review it and be sure it includes everything and says what you intended for it to say.

Edit! Don't write meaningless gibberish; don't make silly mistakes that make your report look foolish and cause your Loan Officer to laugh at you! Don't tell me that "these people are busy managing children and careers that like to entertain..." There are few careers I'm aware of that actually like to entertain; there are perhaps some children but I doubt that's what the writer meant to say. Read your writing, preferably aloud at least to yourself, and ideally to someone who is not taking the course, to be sure it makes sense. Be sure you've said what you meant to say.

Don't speak in generalities. Don't tell me that a demographic factor is that "Life Cycle is constantly changing and with it consumer demands." Tell me instead perhaps that, "The aging baby boomers will soon be dying and will need more coffins." Don't tell me that "Apart from the 4 P's, effort is also very important in Marketing." Don't re-word that one, just leave it out. It is of no possible help to a Marketing Plan to state that you have to make an effort.

Watch your choice of words. Don't use flippant language like, "Why did we do this? I'll tell you why we did it...." Save this for used-car-ads. Also avoid colloquialisms and slang; keep the writing serious. Don't use too much jargon. Yes, you need to use the terminology of the field ("Target Market" not "the people we sell to") but don't use language that few people will understand or acronyms that a reader will have to go look up. Write in plain English and use proper words. Also avoid meaningless, trite, or colloquial phrases.

Don't make statements you can't back up. Someone told me that Coke and Pepsi "don't really worry" about the smaller private label bottlers. In the cola business a 1% share of the market is worth billions of dollars; the Coke and Pepsi Wars are all about taking business away from the smaller independent bottlers.

Skip the rhetoric. One of the objectives of this assignment is to help you get comfortable with writing in business style - short, concise, precise.

One Plan said about threats:

"In the global market, telecommunications companies must be visionary and anticipatory in their marketing strategies to ensure survival. It is become increasingly important to develop new products/services with increasing customer demand for faster and efficient telecommunications. The intense competitive environment is perhaps the greatest threat to our organization. This is why we are proactive, determined to be the first to penetrate the market of communication technology. We plan to utilize relationship marketing to establish early and valuable relationships with realty developers who in turn link us to our target market. This strategic position will ease the entry into the GTA area and help us to understand and satisfy the growing end user demand."

Try Instead:

Threats: Fast Changing Technology

Meet by getting in early and practicing relationship marketing

Skip the rhetoric and get right to the point by telling me exactly what the threat is and how you will meet it.

How to Fail the Marketing Plan

F’s are a rare commodity in courses I teach, and since I don’t give them out often, I am careful and selective about to whom I grant them. If you really do have your heart set on failing the Marketing Plan, here are some suggestions as to how to go about doing it:

1. Don’t hand it in at all.

2. Send it a week late with no reason why.

3. Only do parts of it.

4. Write a full page for each part, even if the instructions say only write ½ page or ¼ page hoping if you provide enough verbiage some of it may be relevant.

5. Ignore the structure of the Marketing Plan. After all, you know by now what one should look like. Why bother to read what the professor wants you to put in the Plan, when you know better.

6. Send it in handwritten form, in crayon.

7. Engage in the Mac-Syndrome: concentrate only on filling the pages with elaborate graphs, charts, and full color pictures, and use 17 different fonts in each section, totally neglecting content.

8. Use only the headings given in the instructions and write nothing of your own input below those headings; the professor probably only wants to see her own work anyway.

9. Get in a big battle with your team members the day before the Plan is due and send in five separate Plans, claiming that teamwork never works in business anyway.

10. Don’t bother with theory. After all, those hundreds of pages in the text that contain all that theory are only there to confuse you. Stick to everyday common sense ideas that any sixth grader could come up with after watching an afternoon of TV. That’s all Marketing’s about anyway.

11. Don’t use the terminology of the field. Why bother typing out “intended target market” each time, when the professor will know that when you wrote “guys” you meant the people at whom you are aiming your marketing mix.

12. Don’t include all the stuff asked for on the instructions for the Marketing Plan. After all, your professor couldn’t possibly want to wade through all that stuff. Choose yourself what you think is most important.

13. Choose three products instead of one and write three times the amount of material. Your professor will be impressed with your industriousness.

14. Write your Plan in the lingo of another field. Try terms from Chaucerian English, or Botany. Or Philosophy! You know your professor is big on interdisciplinary work and teaches a course that’s cross listed with the Philosophy Department. Instead of writing 3-4 lines about your product strategy, write what you think Plato would say about how your product fits in with his image of the cave.

15. Write everything in improper English; your professor is a Business professor and probably doesn't know anything about proper English anyway.

16. Only do every other part of the Plan. You’re getting tired and it’s the end of term.

19. Don’t put anything in the required format. Instead, knowing your professor, who holds an Minor in Finance, loves numbers, convert your entire Marketing Plan to binary code and attach it in a 40-page appendix.

20. Don’t read the instructions at all. Just guess at what should be included. It will make for a much livelier marking week for the professor and she’ll thank you for it.

10