Developing a Marketing strategy

Build a market strategy for a security consulting firm:

11. Describe THE PRODUCT that you will provide using your analysis of yourself, the market and the competition to explain how you reached this conclusion. Assuming that your product is largely or wholly a service, describe the People who will deliver the service, the Physical Environment (if any) in which the service will be provided and the Process (if appropriate) through which the service will be provided.

12. How will your service be distributed (DISTRIBUTION, LOCATION & TIMING)? Some relevant issues to consider relate to both where and when your service will be available to customers. Where will it be located and why? Will an agent be used? How will customers be able to order your service? Are there tangible elements associated with your service? If so how will they be distributed?

13. What are the VARIATIONS (in distribution) BY TARGET MARKET, if any? Use the customer segmentation analysis developed for Module01 as a basis for a table to describe any variations in distribution.

* The MOD01 Background lecture Segmentation has a simple example of a Product-Market Matrix – Slide 9, dealing with the toothpaste market. There is a further example in the presentation about the SLP “Notes for the SLP” accessible on the MOD01 Background Info page.

EXPECTATIONS

Inclusion and Revision of Prior Sections (taken into account in Module 4)

Each time you submit a new set of sections of the Marketing Strategy, include the prior sections, revised in the light of feedback and any further research you have conducted, as necessary. So it is expected that your starting point for the sections for this module will be the feedback you received for Module 1. Review the feedback and make improvements to your module 1 sections. Then consider the sections above for module 2.

This idea of continual review and revision underlies the approach to the project in MKT301. You cannot expect to get everything right in developing a marketing strategy the first time around as you will learn more and develop and revise your thinking. For instance you might believe there are no segments in your market and then later on when thinking about promotion or price come to understand that there are, in which case you should revise the earlier sections of the SLP dealing with segmentation. Or you might come to realize that there are other skills or requirements which serving your chosen market require which you had not taken account of initially so you should revise the section on your skills and abilities. Adopting this approach is important and will have the benefit of enabling you to improve SLP grades at the end of the course as all revisions, if shown clearly to the grader, will be taken into account when the full, completed and revised marketing strategy document for your business is submitted in Module 4. You can show revisions using the Track Changes option in Word.

Including prior sections is also essential to enable the grader to understand your analysis and enables you to tell a coherent story.

For example in SLP01 you described the market and market segments for your firm’s products. Now in module 2 you’ll provide an analysis of the marketing mix elements, (Product and Place), but your analysis of each of these only makes sense in reference to the segments described in the earlier section. If you don’t include the sections for SLP01 then the grader won’t know what segments there are and so won’t be able to make as much sense of your analysis as if you included them. Similarly the various elements of the mix are related to one another. Thus all prior sections should be included with each new set of sections submitted for grading.

Thus it is a REQUIREMENT, for acceptance and grading of your SLP sections that the prior sections, revised if you wish, are included with each new SLP section. If prior sections are not included your grader has been instructed to request the prior sections be included in a new submission and not to grade the paper until received. Thus not including the prior sections will delay the grading of your work.

Thus your paper for SLP02 should consist of the following:

Title page (see MOD01 instructions for details)
The SLP01 sections of the strategy – revised as necessary. (No need to include the SLP01 title page)
The SLP02 sections of the strategy – as indicated above.
References, Bibliography, Appendices etc.
General Expectations

It is expected that you will explain the alternatives you considered and why you decided to make the recommendations you do. Also that you will use information from the background readings as well as any good quality sources you can find to deepen your understanding of the project and that you will cite and reference all sources and resources. New sources and resources should be added to section 10. Market Research.

The following will be assessed in particular:

Your demonstrated understanding of the concepts and frameworks used to conduct analysis for the project. Generally formal definitions are not required as understanding can usually be demonstrated by the way you apply or interpret the concepts.

Your ability to conduct marketing analysis appropriate to the project. The sections above require a combination of description, (e.g. what will be done) and analysis (explaining why it should be done that way). Graders will place more weight on analysis than description alone.
Write in a succinct, organized, and professional way. DO NOT USE ESSAY FORMAT – you don’t have the space in three pages.

The MOD01 Background Info section contains “Notes for the SLP” which gives guidance for ALL the sections of the entire SLP.