Assignment 4: Supply Chain Management and Financial Plan

Introduction

Whenever a business plan is developed, within it must be a well-written and founded strategy called a marketing plan. Therefore, a marketing plan represents a comprehensive framework of ideas that outline what a given business intends to do in terms of advertising and overall marketing of its goods and services (Chernev, 2015). Within this plan are important aspects that include the analysis of the situation, marketing strategies, sales forecasts, and even the budget and other resources that will be important towards the achievement of the pre-determined objectives.

Additionally, it is important to understand that the implementation of a marketing plan must follow a step-by-step process in order to be successful. In the beginning, it is vital to assess the current situation of the business, and then describe the target customers before listing all the viable marketing objectives. The next step is to ensure there are clear communication platforms in place to aid the implementation of the marketing strategy and tactics. Finally, always putting in place a substantial budget in terms of both human and material resources is additionally crucial.

The basic characteristics of any given marketing plan include; market research which is essentially the backbone of any plan, the target market, positioning within the market, competitive analysis, the market strategy, the budget and finally the metrics.

Primary Target Market

Coffee is already a main product in most restaurants and other coffee bar businesses not just in the United States, but also in other areas around the world. Therefore, the introduction of an online order and delivery platform is meant to ensure that those people that do not get the time to visit coffee outlets have a daily dose of their favorite drink. The primary target market drip coffee drinkers, the specialty coffee drinkers, and the whole been buyers. Since the online platform will have a wide variety of services for all coffee lovers, it is important to highlight that it will cater for the drip drinkers that need readymade coffee, the specialty drinkers will choose from a wide range of coffee strands available while those that like to enjoy their coffee at home will have whatever quantity they like delivered right to their doorstep.

Customer Research

Entrepreneurs need to understand that an innovative product will only come out of the full identification of the customers’ needs and coming up with tangible solutions to those needs is very important before setting up any business venture. Therefore, there are a number of methods that can be used to determine the gap that the customers would like filled and why, thus giving the business advantage within the market (Sawhney & Goodman, 2017). These methods of getting information from the customers include;

Conducting surveys and interviewing customers. This is a method that goes right to the source with a given business idea. The customers will highlight the problems they have in terms of getting their coffee and the business objectives will be arranged towards the solving of those problems. Researches, interviews, and surveys are important tools in the collection of first-hand data which is vital in business proceedings. Another method of defining what the customers need is by analyzing the competition. Here, applying the SWOT rule is paramount as you will be able to learn the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats they face hence putting you in a better position within the market. Most of the time, there is always existing data. This can become an important tool to understand the customers because it points the investor directly towards the existing business gap without the need for expensive research and other information mining strategies.

The Marketing Mix

Once a product or a service is out there, a business must act in a certain way in order to influence the identified customers to purchase the products. The online order and delivery platform are meant to provide people with an easier way to get coffee despite their busy schedules. The pricing strategy will be for both purposes of market penetration and it will also be affordable enough in light of tough economic times (Armstrong, et al., 2015). In order to inform the target audience of the relative merits we bring we intend to offer customers an exclusive preview of how the online order and delivery platform will work, carry out social media projects and marketing schemes, host an event where we further promote and educate the customers in how the brand works and finally share the customer reviews and use them as checkpoints in the implementation process.

Marketing Plan and Budget

The primary objective of the advertising budget and plan is to communicate the general ambitions of the Coffee Business and specifically allocate the necessary funds and other resources that will be vital in the pursuit of set goals. The marketing plan highlights the standards of performance, the core competencies we wish to adhere to, SWOT analysis, the features of the customers and the target market (Jha, Aggarwal, Gupta & Sarker, 2016). The advertising budget and plan is as follows;

Budget Category Amount

· Advertising $ 10,000

· Merchandising $ 15,000

· Publicity/Public Relations $ 9, 000

· Customer Service Support $ 5, 000

· Copywriting $ 3, 000

· Web Design and Maintenance $ 8, 000

· Contingency Plan Funds $ 18, 000

References

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Buchwitz, L. A., Trifts, V., & Gaudet, D. (2015). Marketing: an introduction.

Chernev, A. (2015). The marketing plan handbook. Cerebellum Press.

Jha, P. C., Aggarwal, S., Gupta, A., & Sarker, R. (2016). Multi-criteria media mix decision model for advertising a single product with segment specific and mass media. Journal of Industrial and Management Optimisation, 12(4), 1367-1389.

Sawhney, M., & Goodman, P. (2017). PageWell 2.0: Using customer research for product development. Kellogg School of Management Cases, 1-27.