The Marketing Plan
Every business should determine its own criteria for success when evaluating the attractiveness of a market because every industry has its own unique circumstances. Forces that shape segment attractiveness include the following:
Market growth (market size, growth rate, and market potential)
Competitive intensity (the number of companies, the ease of entry, and substitutes)
Market access (customer familiarity, channel access, and company fit)
Although an index that is based on these criteria is useful in capturing the qualitative aspects of a market situation, the profit potential
must also be assessed for all of the segments that are deemed attractive based on their market-attractiveness indexes.
Part 1: Segmentation Application
Develop a product-focused business. Please do not use an existing company or a scenario that you utilized in a previous course. You will continue working with this business throughout the course. Complete the following:
Introduce the scenario of the business and the main product that it sells.
Analyze customers' needs for the target product.
Discuss segmentation strategies that are based on 2 real competitors' market positions.
Devise a niche marketing strategy that would be appropriate for your company's product.
This section of the paper should be 3 pages in length and use research from the library's full-text databases and other quality college-level resources.
Part 2: Gap Analysis, Benchmarking, and Competitive Advantage
Complete the following:
Carry out a gap analysis of 2 competitors. Discuss how the findings would be used.
Develop competitor and competitive benchmarking.
Competitor benchmarking involves identifying a business's main competitors and then comparing itself against them in key performance areas. Competitive benchmarking involves going outside a business's market or industry to study a company that excels in an area where the business is deficient.
Devise strategies to achieve a competitive advantage for the company.