This week only –Marketing Plan Milestone 1 (3 pages- double-spaced)

FULL Paper — will do in stages of 3 milestones
The paper includes the three Milestone papers, and adds an implementation and evaluation plan, a table of contents, and an executive summary. Your  submission should be a polished, integrated paper that incorporates previous feedback. The final touches will be a title page and a consolidated

References

list. Paper length: 10-12 pp. not including title page, table of contents, and references.

Required structure and content:

• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Executive Summary
• Company Profile
• Situational Analysis
• Marketing Objectives
• Research
• Target Markets
• Marketing Mix: product, promotion, distribution, pricing
• Implementation and Evaluation Plan

References

Marketing Plan Milestone 1
This is the first of three papers. You will need to choose a company that has or could have a marketing problem that needs to be solved. It can be a for-profit or nonprofit organization. Your paper will combine the Milestones, reflecting feedback received, and add to them. See the full description of the full paper above.

The Milestone 1 paper will identify and describe your chosen company, what business it is in, and set out the problem that needs to be solved. This is a situational analysis. See the description on page 246 of your textbook. Paper length: 3-4 pp. not including title page and references. 

All papers in this course are to be in APA format, with a title page, running head, and references. APA is in 12- point Times New Roman, double-spaced throughout. See

this reference

for more details on APA style.

Remember, papers may only be submitted as Word documents.
For later weeks(Just for reference)

Milestone 2

For your Milestone 2 paper about your chosen organization, you will outline your marketing objectives, describe any research you would do, and describe your target market(s). Paper length: 3-4 pp. not including title page and references.
The Milestone 3
The Milestone 3 paper will describe the marketing mix for your project, including product, promotion, distribution, and pricing. Paper length: 3-4 pp. not including title page and references.

Confirming Pages

Section IV Developing Marketing Plans 231

example, a brand manager may have to present a marketing plan to senior executives in a
firm to get a budget request filled. This would be an internal source. Similarly, proposals
for funding from investors or business loans from banks often require a marketing plan.
These would be external sources.

Figure 1 presents a format for preparing marketing plans. Each of the 10 elements will
be briefly discussed. We will refer to previous chapters and sections in this text and to other
sources where additional information can be obtained when a marketing plan is being
prepared. We also will offer additional information for focusing particular sections of the
plan as well as for developing financial analysis.

Title Page
The title page should contain the following information: (1) the name of the product or
brand for which the marketing plan has been prepared—for example, Marketing Plan for
Little Friskies Dog Food; (2) the time period for which the plan is designed—for example,
2008–2010; (3) the person(s) and position(s) of those submitting the plan—for example,
submitted by Amy Lewis, brand manager; (4) the persons, group, or agency to whom the
plan is being submitted—for example, submitted to Lauren Ellis, product group manager;
and (5) the date of submission of the plan—for example, June 30, 2008.

While preparing the title page is a simple task, remember that it is the first thing readers
see. Thus, a title page that is poorly laid out, is smudged, or contains misspelled words can
lead to the inference that the project was developed hurriedly and with little attention to
detail. As with the rest of the project, appearances are important and affect what people
think about the plan.

Executive Summary
The executive summary is a two- to three-page summary of the contents of the report. Its
purpose is to provide a quick summary of the marketing plan for executives who need to be
informed about the plan but are typically not directly involved in plan approval. For
instance, senior executives for firms with a broad product line may not have time to read
the entire plan but need an overview to keep informed about operations.

The executive summary should include a brief introduction, the major aspects of the
marketing plan, and a budget statement. This is not the place to go into detail about each and
every aspect of the marketing plan. Rather, it should focus on the major market opportunity
and the key elements of the marketing plan that are designed to capitalize on this opportunity.

It is also useful to state specifically how much money is required to implement the plan.
In an ongoing firm, many costs can be estimated from historical data or from discussions with
other executives in charge of specific functional areas. However, in many situations (such as
a class project), sufficient information is not always available to give exact costs for every
aspect of production, promotion, and distribution. In these cases, include a rough estimate of

FIGURE 1
A Marketing Plan
Format

• Title page.
• Executive summary.
• Table of contents.
• Introduction.
• Situational analysis.
• Marketing planning.
• Implementation and control of the marketing plan.
• Summary.
• Appendix: Financial analysis.
• References.

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Confirming Pages

total marketing costs of the plan. In many ongoing firms, marketing cost elements are
concentrated in the areas of promotion and marketing research, and these figures are
integrated with those from other functional areas as parts of the overall business plan.

Table of Contents
The table of contents is a listing of everything contained in the plan and where it is located
in the report. Reports that contain a variety of charts and figures may also have a table of
exhibits listing their titles and page numbers within the report.

In addition to using the table of contents as a place to find specific information, readers
may also review it to see if each section of the report is logically sequenced. For example,
situational analysis logically precedes marketing planning as an activity, and this ordering
makes sense in presenting the plan.

Introduction
The types of information and amount of detail reported in the introduction depend in part
on whether the plan is being designed for a new or existing product or brand. If the product
is new, the introduction should explain the product concept and the reasons it is expected to
be successful. Basically, this part of the report should make the new idea sound attractive
to management or investors. In addition, it is useful to offer estimates of expected sales,
costs, and return on investment.

If the marketing plan is for an existing brand in an ongoing firm, it is common to begin
the report with a brief history of the brand. The major focus here is on the brand’s
performance in the last three to five years. It is useful to prepare graphs of the brand’s
performance that show its sales, profits, and market share for previous years and to explain
the reasons for any major changes. These exhibits can also be extended to include predicted
changes in these variables given the new marketing plan. A brief discussion of the overall
strategy followed in previous years also provides understanding of how much change is
being proposed in the new marketing plan.

Also useful in the introduction is to offer a precise statement of the purpose of the report
as well as a roadmap of the report. In other words, tell readers what this report is, how it is
organized, and what will be covered in the following sections.

Situational Analysis
The situational analysis is not unlike the analysis discussed in Chapter 1 and Section II of
this text. The focus remains on the most critical and relevant environmental conditions (or
changes in them) that affect the success or failure of the proposed plan. While any aspect
of the economic, social, political, legal, or cooperative environments might deserve
considerable attention, there is seldom if ever a marketing plan in which the competitive
environment does not require considerable discussion. In fact, the competitive environment
may be set off as a separate section called industry analysis. The strengths and weaknesses
of major competitors, their relative market shares, and the success of various competitive
strategies are critical elements of the situation analysis.

Marketing Planning
Marketing planning is, of course, a critical section of the report. As previously noted, it
includes three major elements: marketing objectives, target markets, and the marketing mix.

Marketing Objectives
Marketing objectives are often stated in plans in terms of the percentage of particular outcomes
that are to be achieved: for example, 80 percent awareness of the brand in particular markets,
increase in trial rate by 30 percent, distribution coverage of 60 percent, or increase in total

232 Section IV Developing Marketing Plans

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