Assignment - Marketing Audit
Max 2,500 words
The Assignment (You have two options)
Your first assessment task asked you to reflect on and write about marketing management philosophies. This assignment now asks you to build on this by conducting a marketing audit and then from that information develop a marketing plan - assignment
You have 2 choices for these next 2 assignments as follows:
1. You can choose to complete these assignment tasks using the organisation or company that you work for, or
2. You can base your assignment on an organisation or company with which you are familiar, or one that you may simply have an interest in.
Should you experience problems in choosing a company/organisation, please get in touch with the course examiner.
Once you choose an option you are not able to change it between the two assignments as assignment 2 builds on assignment 1. You do not need to declare your intent to use either method until you submit your assignment.
Before you can develop your marketing plan and recommendations you need to know more about the product offering, possible competitors, market opportunities and other environmental factors that are likely to impact your strategy and implementation plan. This review and analysis is known as a Marketing Audit. In assignment 1 you are required to conduct a Marketing Audit that includes an analysis of the internal and external factors that will be relevant to the development of a marketing strategy for either a company or product of your choice. This assignment should be 2500 words maximum - excluding references; refer to the Communications Skills Handbook for more information about what is and what is not included in a word count.
The Assignment Task
The assignment will have four sections as follows:
Section 1 - Organisational Overview
A marketing audit should always commence with an overview of the company, its vision, mission and brand value. This information provides the reader with sufficient context to then understand and evaluate your future recommendations and analysis. In this section you should also provide sufficient information about the company and the product/service you are focusing on so that the marker can appreciate the contextual issues you explore in later sections of the assignment. It is also important that you incorporate here some insights about the value proposition for this product/service.
Section 2 - Environmental Scan
In reviewing the organisation you are studying it is also important to consider and review the organisation in terms of its internal strengths and weaknesses and the external opportunities and threats it faces. SWOT, TOWS and PESTEL analyses are good tools to assist this stage of your analysis as are environmental scans and it is recommended that you use some of these tools in this section to summarise and highlight relevant information. You may also use any other additional analysis tools that you deem appropriate to provide you with the information for your audit. In this section you would use tables, graphs and other ways to summarise the information - do not forget to discuss your analysis and findings do not just present the information and hope that the marker will understand what you think is important here.
Section 3 - Customer, Competitor and Stakeholder analysis
Next, you would consider the market in which the firm operates in terms of both competitors and customers and this is done in 4 parts as outlined next:
1) A Target Market Analysis - Who are the target markets for this company and product? It is likely that you will discover more than one possible target market from the information you source, whilst you need to list them all in this part of your audit and to analyse their priority and relevant merits, when it comes to your second assignment and to the customer analysis (the next step) you are only required to focus on ONE (1) target market. This is important - at this stage of your assignment choose ONE target market, defend that choice (justify with information from the first two sections and other sources) and then only discuss and plan for that ONE target market.
2) A Customer Analysis - Once you have selected and justified the ONE target market you wish to focus on, outline any demographic and/or behavioural characteristics of this segment. You would need to comment on:
i. Who is this market (demographics), where are they located, how do they spend their time and money (psychographics); what else defines them (interests, attitudes, values and/or lifestyles);
ii. the relative size of the segment;
iii. potential market share and opportunities for growth and development;
iv. any other information including their likely purchase behaviour and motivations purchasing this product as well as what the product offering would be for this segment (what are they buying and why); and
v. refer and reiterate how the value proposition discussed in section 1 relates to this segment with this product/service.
3) A Competitor Analysis - Given how you have defined the product offering and value proposition for your chosen target audience in terms of its benefits or features, this section would focus on how your product offering compares to alternative purchase choices. Remember this can be broader than just substitute brands - think more broadly here about substitute options for spending their money. So you need to also include an analysis of the products/services/substitutions that are likely to be competition for this product offering in this market segment. You are also required in this section to include an overview of the current positioning, value-chain structure, marketing channels used and relevant market drivers for this product/service.
4) A Stakeholder Analysis - You need to consider any other stakeholders who might have an interest in or be able to impact the marketing of this product offering in this segment.
Section 4 - Conclusions and recommendations for preliminary marketing strategy
Once you have completed these steps you are then required to summarise the main points and salient elements of this analysis to a concise statement of the overall strategic approach you will be recommending for your marketing and implementation plan - a preliminary marketing strategy (which is assignment 2).
You need to defend your final decisions using both theory and practice references and the content and learning activities presented in modules 1-4 will support this assessment task. You should try to have a good list of references showing where you have found your information and it is important to cite all work and websites you have visited. Check with a USQ reference librarian if you are having trouble finding appropriate information.
Report Writing
Guidelines on writing reports are provided of the 4th edition of the Communication Skills Handbook.
For assignments 1 and 2 (not the marketing reflection) your reports should comprise:
1. An executive summary (no more than 1 page);
2. An introduction (approximately 200 words);
2. The body that includes all the analysis of the current marketing and internal and external firm environments, customer analysis, competitor analysis and any other analysis. (Approximately 2000 words); and
3. A conclusion. This includes the statement of the issues you have found, the gaps identified, overall strategic approach and future recommendations.
(Approximately 200 to 300 words).
The report should present logical, sequential and persuasive arguments, justified or supported by secondary sources of evidence. The purpose of your audit is not to simply reword or describe the product or brand or to provide direct quotes from the literature, but to offer a thorough understanding of the marketing issues, challenges and opportunities facing your chosen organisation in their goal of growing their market share in this industry and with this product. Assignment 2 will then outline the proposed marketing plan to take the next step forward to market.
In this assignment you will be assessed on:
1. The ability to locate, assess and research material related to current marketing planning process and environmental scanning requirements. You will need to use logic and read widely to identify issues and leads to where you should research for this firm. These are important skills for a marketer to develop;
2. The ability to demonstrate an understanding of the current marketing planning process and environmental scanning requirements;
3. The ability to identify and assess relevant theoretical and management issues in the environmental scan and audit (SWOT, PESTEL, TOWS, customer, competitor and stakeholder analysis);
4. How well you present logical arguments and gap analysis and how well you defend your recommendations and conclusions.
5. The ability to justify your position with use of supporting references; and
6. The communication style you adopt, including correct spelling, grammar and referencing. Your report should be in Times New Roman 12 point with one and a half line spacing.