Marketing Plan – Assignment 2

Assignment 2: Marketing Plan

Due Week 5 and worth 100 points

This assignment consists of two sections: a marketing plan (Word document) and Marketing Budget (Excel document) Note: You must submit both sections as separate files for the completion of this assignment.

For
the first 6 months your company is in business—to give you time to
perfect your product and to learn from actual customers—you will start
marketing and selling in your own community, a radius of 25 miles from
where you live.

For most non-alcoholic beverages, marketing (as opposed to the actual product itself) is key to success. Cola drinks, for example, are fairly undifferentiated, as are many energy drinks, juices, bottled water, and the like.
Companies producing these types of beverages differentiate themselves
and attract market share through marketing and brand awareness—both of
which are critical to success.

Section 1: Marketing Plan and Sales Strategy (MS Word or equivalent)

Write the 6-page marketing plan and sales strategy section of your business plan in which you do the following:

1. Define your company’s target market.
   1. Analyze
      the types of consumers who will be drinking your beverage in
      demographic terms (i.e., age, education level, income, gender, ethnic
      group, etc.). Outline the demographic information for your company
      specified on the worksheet in the course text (p. 107 | Demographic Description).
   2. Support your analysis with actual data on the size of the demographic groups in your local community (nearby zip codes).
      • Hints: At American FactFinder (http://factfinder.census.gov), you will find demographic information on potential consumers in your area. If
        you are selling through other businesses (such as grocery stores),
        indicate the number of those businesses in your local area. You will
        find information about such businesses in your local area at County Business Patterns (http://www.census.gov/econ/cbp/). Check Chapter 2 of Successful Business Plan for more research sources.
2. Assess your company’s market competition.
   1. Use the factors listed in the course text graphic (p. 123 | Assess the Competition) to assess your company’s market competition.
   2. Defend
      your plan to differentiate yourself from the competition using the
      information detailed on the worksheet in the text (p. 131 | Market Share Distribution).

• Hints: Every business faces competition, and the non-alcoholic beverage market is an especially crowded market.
• Hints:
  For example, in the soft drink market, it is intimidating to try to
  compete against Coke and Pepsi. Newcomers in mature markets typically
  must pursue niche markets or even create new market categories, as Red
  Bull did with energy drinks.

1. Clarify your company’s message using the information provided on the worksheet in the text (p. 160 | The Five F’s). Create a marketing slogan/tagline for your product.
   • • Hints: Before you choose your marketing vehicles, you must determine the message you want to convey through those vehicles.
2. Identify
   the marketing vehicles you plan to use to build your company’s brand.
   Justify the key reasons why they will be effective.
   • Hints: If you plan to use online marketing tactics, refer to the worksheet in the text (p. 171 | Online Marketing Tactics) to aid your response. Remember that even
     if you’re selling through grocery stores, you need to build your brand
     and social media is a major part of that in regard to beverages. Some
     of the marketing tactics that beverage companies use include sampling
     in grocery stores, building a following on social media, sponsoring
     events, and exhibiting at trade shows attended by retailers. You will
     use a combination of these tactics. For example, if you decide to give
     out samples in grocery stores, promote your sampling on your social
     media networks and those of the grocery store.
   • Hints:
     If you are planning to distribute through resellers, describe how you
     plan to reach them, for example, through industry trade shows or by
     establishing your own sales force. For information on trade shows, visit the Trade Show News Network (http://www.tsnn.com). You can exhibit or network at these shows.
3. Format your assignment according to these formatting requirements:

1. Cite the resources you have used to complete the exercise. Note: There is no minimum requirement for the number of resources used in the exercise.
2. The
   paper must be typed, double-spaced, using Times New Roman font (size
   12), with 1-inch margins on all sides; references must follow APA
   format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
3. Include
   a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s
   name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover
   page and the reference page are not included in the required page
   length.

Section 2: Marketing Budget (MS Excel worksheets template)

Section
2 uses the “Business Plan Financials” MS Excel template (see: Required
Course Files in Week 1). Use the Business Plan Financials Guide (see:
Required Course Files in Week 1) to support your development of the
marketing budget.

1. Complete the “Marketing Budget” worksheet for your company.

Note:
Complete the Setup tab first based on the instructions located in the
Business Plan Financials Guide (document you also downloaded from
PlanningShop). Only the setup tab and marketing tab should be completed
for this assignment.

• • • Hints:
      The goal of the marketing budget is to help you determine how much it
      will cost you to reach your market and achieve your sales goals.
    • Hints: When filling out the “Marketing Budget” worksheet in the Excel spreadsheet, do the following:
      • Begin
        in the current year and complete a marketing budget for the first year
        of your business. The information you enter in the marketing budget
        spreadsheet will flow through to your “Income Statement” in the
        “Business Plan Financials.”
      • Leave the number at zero (0) for any marketing vehicles you do not intend to use.
      • Remember
        that all marketing activities involve costs. If social media represents
        a significant portion of your marketing, assume you will incur costs of
        advertising and these should be reflected on your budget. Even if a
        social media site charges nothing to use it, you will need to use
        company resources to manage the site, pay someone to execute your social
        media marketing campaigns, and most likely pay for ads on that site.
      • Do not leave the “Marketing Budget” blank assuming you will not have any marketing costs.
      • Do
        not complete all the rows; only fill in the costs for the marketing
        vehicles you will actually use. These must match the content you
        describe in Question 4 Word portion of this assignment.

The specific course learning outcome associated with this assignment is:

• Create
  a marketing plan that identifies a target market, market competition, a
  company message, and marketing vehicles for a company.

Pages from textbook will be scanned and forwarded as needed.

Name: BUS599 Week 5 Assignment 2: Marketing Plan