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Assignment 1: Part A: Your Marketing Plan

Due Week 4 and worth 200 points

At the end of this course, you will have created a marketing plan for a hypothetical product-based company. Each assignment focuses on a different section of the overall marketing plan. For Assignment 1, you will compile information on the company’s background information, an environmental analysis, your company’s short and long-term goals, and a SWOT analysis.

For information on Website analytics, visit Google Analytics at http://www.google.com/analytics/why/.

Note: You may create and / or make all necessary assumptions needed for the completion of this assignment.

Write a five to six (5-6) page paper in which you:

1. Write an introduction to your company. Describe your company, its location, and the product it makes or the service it provides.

2. Develop an environmental analysis that includes competitive, economic, political, legal, technological, and sociocultural forces.

3. Determine the primary and secondary target markets for your company. Next, analyze the primary and secondary target markets that you identified for your company. Be sure to cover the 4Ps, 5Cs and STP.

4. Decide the main goals that you would like to achieve within the next year (short term) and the main goals that you would like to achieve within the next five (5) years (long term). Determine the most appropriate ways to measure both short- and long-term goals. Note: Consider the following metrics: tracking downloads of Website content, Website visitors, increases in market share, customer value, new product adoption rates, retention, rate of growth compared to competition and the market, margin, and customer engagement.

5. Develop both a SWOT analysis and needs analysis for your product. Each analysis should examine four (4) strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for your company.

6. Use at least four (4) academic resources as quantitative marketing research to determine the feasibility of your product / service. These resources should be industry specific and relate to your chosen product / service. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
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 assignment page length.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

Analyze the marketing framework including the concepts of the 5Cs, STP, and 4Ps.
Develop strategies to assess performance and achieve marketing goals.
Examine the marketing science of customer behavior and products in the marketing exchange process, and create dynamic strategies for competing.
Evaluate target customer segments and positioning products within these segments.
Use technology and information resources to research issues in marketing management.
Write clearly and concisely about marketing management using proper writing mechanics.
Grading for this assignment will be based on answer quality, logic / organization of the paper, and language and writing skills, using the following rubric found here.