Assignment:
Preface:
You are a marketing consultant to The Waters Bottling Company (WBC) of Munsonville, NH. They have never done any marketing for their water before so they will need to be educated as to the role of marketing in their company's success. They started their company last year and want to "do it right" according to their president and founder, Dr. M. Waters. (The M stands for Muddy so he prudently only uses the initial. He also is rather fond of Blues music, which he would like to incorporate into the marketing plan in some way.) They want to sell their crystal clear granite filtered mountain water to the "right" market. It is your job to identify that target market. At this point, they don't even know how the product should be packaged or a name to identify it. They will be relying on you for all of the details to make this product successful. They are well funded and ready to bring this product to market.
Use the Marketing Planning Guide to build your marketing plan for their naturally mineral rich pure mountain water. Be sure to relate the marketing concepts/ theories to this product/ company as you build the marketing plan over the length of the course.
Marketing Planning Guide
Section 1 - The Environment (Module 1)
• Introduction to Marketing
o The Marketing Mix
o The Marketing Environment
o Marketing and its relationship with other functional areas of business
• Strategic Marketing
o Planning Process
• Strategy
o Organizational Levels
o Goals and Objectives
• Planning Gap
o Ethics in Marketing
Section 2 - Market Research & Targeting (Module 2)
• Market Research
o Research Methods & Data Mining
o Market Research Process
• Consumer Behavior
o B2C vs. B2B
o Consumer Decision Making Process
o Factors Affecting B2C and B2B consumer behavior
• Market Segmentation
o Market Segmentation Concepts
o Segmentation Process
o Segmentation Strategies
• Target Marketing
Section 3 - Product & Price (Module 3 LASA 1)
• The Product
o Product Levels: Core, Actual, & Augmented (Packaging)
o Product Life Cycle
o BCG Model
• Services Marketing
• Price Determination & Pricing Strategies
o Supply & Demand
o Competition
o Objectives and Strategies
Section 4 - Place & Promotion (Module 4)
• Distribution Channels
o Length & Width
o Direct & Indirect
o Vertical & Horizontal Channel Conflict
• Promotion
o Communication Process & Tools
o Product Life Cycle
o Push vs. Pull
Section 5 - Personal Selling & Global Markets (Module 5 LASA 2)
• Promotion Mix
o Advertising
o Personal Selling
o Sales Promotion
o Direct Marketing
o Public Relations
• Brand Management
o Branding Strategies
o Emotional Branding
o Brand Extension
• Global Markets
o Opportunities & Challenges
Executive Summary
o Marketing Implementation & Evaluation
You will create a complete Marketing Plan by the end of the course. You will write the first section of the Marketing Plan for this assignment. Use the guide to identify the sections of the Marketing Plan and the marketing elements contained therein. This assignment will focus on Section 1 - The Environment (Module 1).
Over the span of the course, you will gather information from a number of probable sources. Some of the sources may include, but are not limited to, the Internet, public libraries, business magazines, newspapers, the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, annual reports, consultant/industry analyst reports, databases, Department of Commerce publications, Temple and other university libraries, trade and academic journals, Moody's, Value Line, etc.
You may be surprised and overwhelmed by the volume of information that is available for many topics, though you may have to do some "detective work" to locate them.
You may find Web sites such as Hoovers.com and Lexis-Nexis extremely helpful.
Create a 4- to 6-page Word document for your Marketing Plan Section. Apply a standard business writing style using the Market Planning
Guide sections as your (headers/ sub heads/ bullets) to your work. Be sure to cite your work in the APA format.