Assignment: Milestone One Guidelines
This milestone establishes your chosen organization's direction within the marketplace. This is important because it drives the subsequent activities, milestones, and the final project. Without a strong sense of the organization's purpose within the marketplace, knowledge of consumer trends, and how to meet target market needs at the appropriate price, management is less likely to maximize the efficiency of business activities and more likely to miss fully meeting the needs of its chosen target market. This milestone establishes how the organization will differentiate itself from its competition through branding with a unique product or service offering designed to meet specific consumer needs or desires that are shaped by their demographics, personality, or buying style.
Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:
Section Two: Branding and Idea Context
For your project idea, write a short paper that addresses the following:
• Corporate mission and how the new product or service aligns with it
• Defining features of the product(s)/service(s)
o How the product will be marketed internally and externally
o How the company is differentiating from competition
o Alignment of pricing with market position and corporate mission
• Your substantiated opinion of brand effectiveness
Section Three: Defining Product or Service Need
For your idea, continue your paper by addressing the following:
• Behavioral and/or lifestyle demographics of the targeted consumer or buying style of organizational buyer and why they are a good choice
• What unsatisfied need the product/service fulfills
• How the customer/buyer seeks information to fill the need
• How the product is purchased (characterize the buying situation)
• Why your chosen target market is the best choice
Section Six: Pricing
Using the idea that you have chosen, finish your paper by covering the following:
• Explain the fixed and variable costs and how these fit with the company's short- and long-term goals. Use a narrative with a table to show calculations for cost categories. Provide reasonable estimates for each of the categories. Specific or in-depth financial analysis is not necessary.
• Examine competitors' pricing and explain reasoning for differences.
• Estimate how much you think the target market is willing to pay for your product/service. Is this due to preferences for social responsibility, ethical behavior, or other intangibles?
• What pricing strategy (skimming, penetration, economy, or premium) is most appropriate and why?