Marketing Project II should be uploaded here. 

For purposes of this paper, you must use the same business that you used in Section 1 (Environmental Analysis and Target Market). In this assignment you will examine the marketing mix – or the 4 P’s – of your business. 

Your assignment should be divided into the following sections and address the following factors:

Product

The term “product” refers to tangible, physical products as well as services. In this section, you are asked to describe the product offerings of your business, addressing such factors as:

• What does the customer want from the product/service offered by your business? What needs does it satisfy? What features does it have to meet those needs?
• How is your product differentiated versus your competitors?
• How is it positioned within the market? 
• Discuss your brand name and symbol.  Are there any packaging needs; if so, describe. 
• What product lines will you offer?  Give examples of product items within each line.

Price

From a marketing viewpoint, price is the money exchanged for the ownership or use of a product or service. From a consumer’s viewpoint, price is often used to indicate value when it is compared with perceived benefits such as quality, durability, etc. In this section, you are asked to address the following: 

• What is the pricing strategy you have adopted for your product or service?
• Are there established price points for these products or services in you area? What are they? What will you charge for your services? 
• How will your price compare with your competitors?
• Is your customer base price sensitive? Will a small decrease in price versus your competition gain you extra market share? Conversely, will a small increase in price versus your competition cause you to lose market share?
• What discounts should be offered to your customers (if any)?

Place

Place is essentially about getting the product or services to your customers where they want to buy them – you have to offer the product to the buyer at the right place at the right time. This section of your paper should address:

• Where do you plan to offer your products or services for sale? Be specific. If you are offering your products for sale in a store, for example, what kind? A specialty boutique, a supermarket, a department store? Online?
• What do your competitors do, and how can you learn from that and/or differentiate?
• How can you access the right distribution channels to make certain that your product is available where your customers want it?

Promotion

Promotion represents the various aspects of marketing communication about the product or service with the goal of generating a positive customer response. This section of your paper should address:

• Where and when can you get across your marketing messages to your target market?
• Will you reach your market by advertising in the press, on TV or radio, on the Internet, on billboards, or some other fashion? 
• How do your competitors do their promotions, and how does that influence your choice of promotional strategy?
• What other non-advertising forms of promotion will you use?  Social media?  Personal selling?  Sales promotion?  Public relations and publicity?  Give examples of each. 
• What message will your promotion emphasize?

Format / design requirements:

• For this second part of the marketing project, you may either write a paper or prepare a Power point slide presentation.
• Your work should be a minimum of 4 pages long for a paper, and 8 pages for a Power point, not including a cover page and/or references. If writing a paper, you should use 1” margins throughout as well as a 10-12 Times New Roman font or similar font.
• The assignment will be graded on the quality and thoroughness of your analysis, how well you address the topics, and the level of analysis demonstrated in linking your findings to concepts covered in this course. A grading rubric is available under the “Resources” tab in the main menu of Blackboard. 

**FULL INSTRUCTIONS AND PROJECT I IS ATTACHED

Competency

Apply management strategies to a business-to-business (B2B) salesforce.

Scenario Information

You are the regional sales manager for International Herb Express (IHE) which is a large, US-based spice & herbs supplier. IHE sells to other businesses that purchase bulk spices and spice blends for use in their end products. The primary customers are baking and soup mix corporations that sell to other businesses, for example, bakeries, restaurants, other food-service, and regional grocery chains. IHE is launching a new spice blend that reflects a more diverse cultural & ethnic flavor profile than IHE's traditional offerings.

The abridged marketing strategy for this new spice blend is to target both current customers, but also to reach new customers that are target regions with higher ethnic diversity and/or the more adventurous "foodies" market. The marketing efforts will focus on taste testing, sampling, and on-site promotion. IHE is launching this marketing plan to help create a product offering that is not as commodity-driven (as most spices and herbs are the same quality no matter where they are purchased) and can potentially offer higher profit margins.

It is important to note that spices and other ingredients are raw goods and traded as commodities. The raw price for these goods changes on a day-to-day basis. Pricing is based on classic supply and demand, though nature is a key contributor to the supply–extreme weather as well as health of crops have a direct impact on the supply chain and access to the raw goods.

Instructions

As the year ends, the VP of Sales and Marketing asks you to review the current compensation program and to make a recommendation for the new year's compensation program that will be presented to the full sales organization on a video conference at the end of the month. There are 8 members of the sales staff that are part of the compensation program.

For the current year, the sales staff (eight sales regional managers) was paid a base salary ($42,000) and then received a commission on a quarterly basis (6.1%) for all net invoiced orders in their region. The highest paid sales person received total salary and commission of $133,500, and the lowest paid sales person was paid $48,100. The total salary and commission for the sales team is $625,750. This resulted in profit of $1,757,500.

The company's CFO was very happy with this program, but the VP of Sales & Marketing felt that the plan only focused on individual results. The VP felt that in order to encourage the sales staff to balance their efforts between the low-cost/high-volume items and the higher-margin new products, a new plan should reflect those goals. Both executives see the sales potential growing for the business. Both also want to begin "grooming" any current sales staff. Management wants to encourage current staff to be promoted or transferred to new opportunities. Management is aware of the growth expectation and they want the strongest team to be in place in the best positions.

You are to create a proposal that:

• Outlines at least two compensation programs and then make a recommendation for which program would be more ideal.
• Suggests a training program for regional sales managers to obtain leadership skills as well as reinforcing B2B skills that trainees can use to prepare for future promotional opportunities.
  • The training program may or may not be part of the compensation program. Identify and defend which approach you support.

Purpose of Assignment 

Understanding the various phases of a product or service lifecycle is critical when addressing a market. If your product is in decline and the competitor's product is in growth, your strategy for the product or service will be different. This exercise will enable students to demonstrate an understanding of both their product/service life cycle stage and a competitor's product. It is designed to help students explore product mix strategies in the various phases of a product or service life cycle. This tool is critical when addressing a market penetration, market saturation or product/service decline. 

Assignment Steps 

Resource: Plunkett Research Online located in the University Library.

Design a minimum 1,050-word New or Product Refresh Product Launch Plan in Microsoft®Word. The product launch plan will be for two markets: U.S. and one international market. Domestic market generally means the market where the company headquarters are located. If you choose a domestic market that is not the U.S. than your other market is required to be the U.S. Compare your product/service to at least one other competitor. This can be a product/service that is used by a team member in their individual assignment. The competitor does not need to be in both markets, you can have two different competitors, one for each market. 

Include the following:

• Brief SWOT (emphasizes internal market–Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) and/or TOWS (emphasizes the external market–Threats, Opportunities, Weakness, Strength).
• A graph or chart if the team deems it necessary. 

Include two of the following:

• Definition of product or service.
• Description of product or service–marketing message.
• Why the product or service needs to be introduced or refreshed (target audience).
• Address competition in each region and how the new product or refresh provides a competitive advantage.
• Evaluate the potential growth rate. Look for information on similar products/services to determine a 3 year growth rate (Compound Annual Growth Rate-CAGR). Information may be located in the University Library.

Note: Charts/graphs/tables do not count toward the word count.

Cite a minimum of three peer-reviewed references.

Format your assignment consistent with APA guidelines. 

PART 2. 

Purpose of Assignment 

The purpose of this assignment is to creatively illustrate traditional and new media options. An understanding of the target audience and effective communication for each is a desired outcome. It provides the Learning Team the opportunity to creatively illustrate traditional and new media options. An understanding of the target audience and effective communication for each is a desired outcome. 

Assignment Steps 

As a Learning Team choose a brand (different from the Week 3 Learning Team Assignment) and a related brand strategy. 

Create a Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation, Prezi, or Vimeo video, etc. which illustrates one traditional media option (print, TV, radio, billboard, etc.) and one new (social media) media option for your brand and brand strategy. The presentation should be a minimum of 7-10 slides or, if Prezi or Vimeo video, an 8-minute minimum.

Note: Prezi presentations cannot be uploaded to the classroom. Please provide your instructor with the link to the presentation on the web. Prezi will provide you with a URL link to the presentation.

Discuss in a minimum 700 words the differences between the traditional media option and the new media option in terms of audience, reach, channel and content. A table of differences may be used to concisely illustrate the differences but you must include a discussion of insights/concerns/issues between the media options.

Note: Charts/graphs/tables in your Microsoft® Word write-up do not count towards the word count.

Cite a minimum of three peer-reviewed references.

Format your assignment consistent with APA guidelines.

(Merchandise Management and Pricing)

you will have been exposed to the spectrum of financial, merchandising, and pricing options available to a retail merchant.  You should be able to plan an excellent overall merchandising strategy for your store. 

1.  Remind me of the name of your business and tell me where you plan to open it.    

3.  From the text and any other sources, explain the merchandising strategy you plan to adopt.  Choose an assortment strategy from those in the text.  How wide and how deep will your product line be in terms of satisfying your target customer base’s needs for your category of products? 

What specific brands do you plan to carry in each of your product categories?  Why will those brands appeal to your target customer? 

How basic versus how innovative do you plan to be in merchandising? 

How risky is your merchandising strategy and what are its disadvantages/ 

Describe how you would design the inside of the store, including the walking/shopping paths, the clustering of products, the themes, the signage, the ambiance, and any store atmospherics that you plan to add (pictures, music, etc). 

If you want, you can show me your store’s name and the major signage in the actual colors and fonts that you would use (you can blow them up in size and actually design the signage in MS Word or in PowerPoint).  Show me the colors that would be used in creating the atmospherics of the business. 

4. Who (demographically) would you would hire as your sales employees?  How would you train them? 

5.  Describe your pricing philosophy for the store in general and for your major brands in some detail based on the principles and options in the pricing chapter of your text.

(Your Promotion Campaign)

Now that you have been exposed to nearly the entire spectrum of promotion strategies available to a retail merchant, you should be able to plan an excellent overall marketing campaign for your store.    

Design a really appealing promotional campaign to launch your business.  Using your book as well as your good sense, explain to me where you would advertise, how you would advertise, what PR and event sponsorship activities you would engage in.

Go ahead and mock up any newspaper or billboard advertising, including copy for the ads.  You can use a graphics package, snips from the Internet, and so on.  What will your main them be in your advertising message? 

What kind of radio stations would you use for advertising (if any)?  What would you emphasize in the ads?  What would you say in the copy?

What local television shows would you use for advertising (if any)?  What would you emphasize in the ads?  What would you say in the copy?  Who would be on the ads?

Go ahead and design a social media campaign to get the word out about your business.  How would you use Facebook, Twitter, and maybe even Foursquare to promote your business?  Would you consider Groupon or some other pricing promotion to start, or do you feel that might affect how people will think of your launch and your business?  

Are there any other promotional opportunities you would try to take advantage of in launching your store? 

Your major brands are likely to offer co-op advertising opportunities.  Discuss what it would take for you to take advantage of those opportunities in your launch.

Competency

Create a strategic sales plan.

Scenario Information

You are the regional sales manager for International Herb Express (IHE) which is a large, US-based spice & herbs supplier. IHE sells to other businesses that purchase bulk spices and spice blends for use in their end products. The primary customers are baking and soup mix corporations that sell to other businesses, for example, bakeries, restaurants, other food-service, and regional grocery chains. IHE is launching a new spice blend that reflects a more diverse cultural & ethnic flavor profile than IHE's traditional offerings.

The abridged marketing strategy for this new spice blend is to target both current customers, but also to reach new customers that are target regions with higher ethnic diversity and/or the more adventurous "foodies" market. The marketing efforts will focus on taste testing, sampling, and on-site promotion. IHE is launching this marketing plan to help create a product offering that is not as commodity-driven (as most spices and herbs are the same quality no matter where they are purchased) and can potentially offer higher profit margins.

It is important to note that spices and other ingredients are raw goods and traded as commodities. The raw price for these goods changes on a day-to-day basis. Pricing is based on classic supply and demand, though nature is a key contributor to the supply–extreme weather as well as health of crops have a direct impact on the supply chain and access to the raw goods.

Instructions

Having recently been promoted to Director of New Business Sales, part of your new responsibilities is to create a presentation for the next sales managers' meeting. Since you are still relatively new at giving presentations, you want your slides and corresponding notes on the slides to offer enough detail to make you prepared for the open "question and answer" session that will immediately follow your presentation.

Your presentation will be delivered via PowerPoint slides to highlight main ideas and will utilize the PowerPoint notes feature to include specific details for each slide that will reinforce the communication provided via the slide.

The PowerPoint presentation should include:

• Strategic sales plan overview for the new spice blend including:
  • Sales vision statement
  • Sales force's objectives/goals that compliments the marketing plan
  • Recommended sales tactics to meet the sales objectives
  • Suggested metrics that will evaluate success in meeting objectives
• Evaluation of the suggested sales plan through the key questions:
  • Who: Target buyer overview
  • What: Key selling features and benefits
  • Why: Highlight comparison to competitive products
  • When: Timing of sales events (ie, launch, promotional periods if you recommend them, etc)
• Recommended communication style the sales force should use for the product launch with customers

Please note any details not noted above can be created by the student, but must be consistent with acceptable and common business scenarios.