Marketing Management

College of Business Administration

Marketing Management
Project Guidelines
The Project provides opportunities to improve your understanding of how to be effective in marketing strategy,

For the topic of the project, choose a local business that is dealing with a marketing challenge and/or opportunity of interest.

OUTLINE OF PAPER
Each paper will include the following sections (numbered and labeled as follows):

1. Objectives
Clearly state SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-oriented, Time-framed) overall objectives (e.g., sales revenue and profit, $ and/or unit market share) listed in order of priority. (Do not include reasons in this section and note that strategies are not objectives.)

Marketing Recommendations & Major Reasons
Similar to the one-page paper, this section will outline recommendations (primarily) AND indented reasons (only for the most important or controversial recommendations) using the following headings:

2. Target Market
List the market segment(s) that you are targeting in order of priority (e.g., primary, secondary, tertiary). Briefly describe each segment.
The rest of your paper may primarily focus on recommendations pertaining to one (or two) of these segments. If this is the case, at the end of the Target Market section, please include a note stating the segment(s) you will focus on for the remainder of the paper.

3. Product/Service/Organization
Recommend what your product, service, or organization should be including its name, a brief overview of the product/service/organization, a brief summary of its most important benefits and features (which should be listed in detail in Appendix A), and specific recommendations for customer service. The product, service, or organization does not have to be new; it can be an existing product, service, or organization as long as it faces some interesting marketing challenges.

4. Positioning
Describe your positioning strategy and develop a positioning tagline. Remember that your positioning should differentiate your offering from competitive options. (Therefore, to have an effective positioning you need to have a clear idea of your most important competitors.) In particular, your positioning tagline should communicate (directly or indirectly) the primary benefits of your offering versus competitive options.

5. Pricing
Set an exact price and, if applicable, explain any discounts or rebates. Also outline perceived costs (Review your notes about Perceived Costs from the Pricing class).

6. Distribution
Explain how your product/service will be distributed and how you will evaluate, manage, and motivate your channels of distribution.

7. Marketing Communications
Outline individual recommendations for each of the following types of marketing communications (if they are appropriate to your product/service/organization): advertising, publicity, direct marketing, sales promotion, personal selling, and social media. Specify
the target audience, communication objectives, and approximate cost of each communication. E.g., Implement print advertising in ___(media) ______(frequency and timing) targeted to ___(audience) in order to _____(objective).

Include sample copy and rough layout for a one-page print ad or public service announcement in Appendix B.

8. Additional Recommendations & Reasons
If you have any additional recommendations (e.g., pertaining to marketing research, funding), please include them in this section.

Additional Notes from Instructor:
 Especially important recommendations, controversial recommendations, and your least obvious recommendations should have at least one reason supporting them. The reasons should be indented underneath (i.e., separate from) the recommendations. (Please refer to the “One-Page Case Analysis” assignment for other instructions regarding format.)
 The main body of the paper should be 9 pages long. The appendices described below are not included in this 9 -page limit.

9. Appendices

Appendix A: Features and Benefits
Divide one sheet of paper into two sections: the first headed “Benefits” and the second headed “Features.” List the benefits and features in order of priority, e.g., list the most important ones first. Describe the benefits and features as if you were writing actual marketing copy to be included in marketing communications. Make sure to identifies the most important overall benefits (e.g., benefits the target audience will gain from your overall product/ service/ organization) as well as from the individual features of your product/service. Begin the benefit statements with action verbs (when possible and appropriate).

Appendix B: Sample Ad
Develop a one-page print ad OR public service announcement. Include your product’s, service’s and/or organization’s name, positioning tagline, key features and benefits, additional copy (as appropriate), and rough layout (if you develop a print ad). Note: you must email the instructor a PDF of your ad for the class to review during our follow-up discussion of the projects.

Appendix C: Major Factors and Trends in the Environment
This appendix will list bulleted sentences highlighting the most important factors and trends in the environment (e.g., trends in the demographic, economic, social-cultural, natural, and political-legal environments as well as trends in your industry) that specifically relate to your product or service. Note: This is not a research project so you only need to provide a brief overview of each trend.

Appendix D: SWOT Analysis
This section will contain a SWOT analysis for your organization versus all of your competitors as a whole (i.e., versus the competitive situation overall). SWOT stands for: Strengths of your product/service/organization, Weaknesses of your product/service/organization, Opportunities = recommendations for how your organization can capitalize on competitors’ weaknesses and other market opportunities, and Threats = recommendations for how your organization can protect against threats (e.g., competitors’ strengths or other changes in the environment).

Appendix E: Analysis of Individual (Major) Competitors
This section will contain a list of the following information for each major competitive product, service, or organization:
• Name: ________
• Product/service: (brief description including major features and benefits)
• Pricing: _________
• Major strengths versus your product/service: ________
• Major weaknesses versus your product/service: _________

Appendix F: Projected Revenues, Major Costs, and Profits
Include an outline of the projected revenues, major costs, and rough profit/loss estimates for each of the first (or next) three years of marketing your product/service. Include greater detail for marketing costs than other costs. The primary purposes of this section are:
 To reflect your thinking about your allocation of expenditures among the various areas of marketing, especially marketing communications (e.g., print ads versus trade shows versus direct marketing versus personal selling)
 To get a rough idea of the other costs involved in running an organization
 To predict the type of revenue from major sources (e.g., sales, donations) your organization could expect and to predict how this revenue might change over time (versus level of marketing investment)

Total length of the project should be 10-12 pages of text (Time New Roman references and any appendix material), single-spaced (12-point font) Title (16-point font bold), heading (14-point font bold all capital) and sub heading (12-point font small letter). Be sure to include a cover page that includes the name of university, project title and your name. Use subheadings to divide the sections. Use colored A4 pages to divide the sections. Do include executive summary, table of contents and references.
Reference Style:
Be sure to cite all sources used in compiling information, whether paraphrasing or directly quoting those sources. If you are using direct quotes, include page numbers in the citation. Examples of bibliographic references:

For Journal Papers:
Sitkin, S. B., & Weingart, L. R. (1995). Determinants of risky decision-making behavior: A test of the mediating role of risk perceptions and propensity. Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 1573-1592.
For Websites:
World Trade Organization (2012). Statistics database, International Trade and Tariffs Data. Retrieved July 31, 2016, from
http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/statis_e.htm
For Books:
Carson, D., Gilmore, D., Perry, C., & Gronhaug, K. (2001). Qualitative Marketing Research. Great Britain: Sage

The most critical issue with respect to citation of sources is that the citation given in the text of the paper must match alphabetically a source in the reference list. Double-check and reconcile your reference list to make sure every citation is included!

Reference Quantity and Quality:
Your paper will be judged in part on the basis of your reference materials, both that you have used adequate sources to gain multiple perspectives and that these are respected, credible sources. It is expected that most of these are secondary sources, although primary sources are encouraged as well. A bibliography with fewer than 10 sources is likely to be judged as less than adequate.
Wikipedia may be used to help you identify credible sources, but do not rely on it as a reference. Multiple citations to Wikipedia will hurt your grade.
Tables:
All tables, figures, graphs, and exhibits included within the paper should be numbered (i.e., Figure 1) and given a descriptive heading. At the bottom of each, the word `Source’ with full bibliographic citation should be included, as shown below.

Due Date:
The project submission is due on 14/04/2022.
You are required to submit the electronic copy of the project through LMS.

Criteria for Project Evaluation

Completeness
Is all the information specified in the outline for the project included? Are the topics chosen in the situation analysis adequate/reasonable?
Do reference citations reflect thorough use of available information sources? Are appendixes used effectively to supplement the text of the paper?
Format
Has the specified structure for the document been followed? Is information presented in a neat, logical, well-organized manner?
Have all external information sources been credited through reference citations? Has the specified reference style been followed? Do citations in text and reference list match?
Creativity and Logic
Do the strategy recommendations contain imaginative ideas? Do they reflect a logical thought process? Are they reasonable and consistent with basic marketing concepts and principles?
Is the paper’s overall presentation (using such elements as cover, diagrams, maps, drafts of promotional materials) inviting, interesting, and effective?
Have you developed an overall plan that is practical, usable? Could the company actually implement it?
Writing Style
Is the paper free of spelling, grammatical and typographical errors?
Is the style of expression clear, concise and appropriate for its audience?
Has the paper been edited so that it reads as one document (rather than as segments contributed by different authors)? Does it flow well?