Already Written Marketing Plan Needs More Detail
My attached Marketing Plan failed my Professor’s standards. He wants more details in these three areas:
1. Write an introduction to your company. Describe your hypothetical company, its location, and the product it makes or the service it provides, and introduce the contents of your marketing plan. (Just make up something. It’s a fake company)
2. Decide the main goals that you would like to achieve within the next year (short term) and the mains goals that you would like to achieve within the next five years (long term). Determine the most appropriate ways to measure both short- and long-term goals.
3. Develop an environmental analysis that includes competitive, economic, political, legal, technological, and sociocultural forces.
Short and long term goals:
MUST be marketing-focused(revenue $, profit $, market share %, # of customers, customer retention %, etc)
MUST BE SMART goals per all the material that was provided explaining and giving examples of SMART GOALS (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-based)
Go back and look at the examples and materials previously provided
Environmental forces analysis
Competitive forces: MUST provide the names of at least 2 actual competitors you will face and a discussion of the overall nature of the competition in your industry/market
Economic forces: discussion of what is actually happening in the economy today (relative low inflation, low unemployment, strong economic growth etc and how these can potentially impact your business
Socio-cultural forces: identify and discuss various trends within our broader society today that could have either a positive or negative impact on your business (examples could be people seeking healthier lifestyles, two income families, single parent families, people seeking more gluten-free food etc.) The key is to think about and discuss how each trend could potentially impact your business.
Demographic trends:what ARE the demographic trends in our society (what is the fastest growing ethnic demographic for example), how does an aging baby boom generation or upcoming millennial generation possibly impact your business?
Legal/regulatory trends: what ARE theses trends within YOUR INDUSTRY.Example, if you’re doing a restaurant business, there is a trend towards requiring calorie counts on every menu item.What are the trends in YOUR industry and how might they impact you?
Technology trends:what are the trends in the use of tech within your industry today and how could those impact your business?Example, order takers and waitresses/waiters are being replaced with “ordering kiosk” in the restaurant industry.
The quickest way to get started on discovering the various trends in your industry is to just Google something like “current U.S. economic trends” or “socio-cultural tends” or “ regulatory trends in the ________ industry” and see where it leads you.Then think about any trends you discover could impact your business.
As stated in the previously provided submission checklist and grading form, good research and references are an actual necessity in order to do this environmental analysis properly.