Homework: Personal Marketing Strategy
Note that this is part of a final project that is to create an attractive marketing plan for your own personal and/or professional brand, i.e., "Brand You." So, used previous homeworks to connect all the homework in the project. Remember that this is a personalized marketing plan about me.
Part of the Final Marketing Yourself Plan -
When marketing a product, brand, or organization, marketers must always consider the need to continuously improve their product offerings in order to elevate, or even just maintain, their position in the marketplace. Such a continuous improvement process starts with understanding where you currently are in the marketplace (i.e., how your product is perceived in comparison to other products) and what is desired by your target audiences. At that point you have the challenge to choose which goals to set and how you'll try to reach them. If you've completed the homeworks thus far, you've already evaluated Product You with your Raw Materials Assessment. You also have assessed your target audiences with the Product/Audience Match Strategy. Now it's time to set strategic goals and contemplate the actions to reach those goals. Setting goals is a difficult process, mainly because there are so many options available to you. Your personal and professional branding options are not limited to a mere fork in the road with two choices (à la Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"). It's more like hundreds (or even thousands) of choices if you really open your thinking about what your future could hold. Thus, this homework will require some degree of self-reflection to determine where you would like to move your personal brand and/or professional brand over the next one to five years.
Self-Reflection, Objectives, and Strategies
The best way to start this goal-setting process is to consider the values you assessed in your Raw Materials Inventory. If your aspirations for your personal brand and professional brand are developed with your values in mind, you'll be more likely to feel motivated to work to achieve them, and you'll be more likely to be satisfied when those goals are reached. The next step is to consider how you would like to be perceived by others as you develop your brand. What would you like people to think about you a year from now? Two years from now? Five or ten years from now? What type of brand would you like to develop? As you consider these questions, keep in mind the idea that you want to change not only the "perception" of your brand, but also the underlying "reality" of that brand. For example, if you want to be perceived as being an expert in mobile marketing, then develop your knowledge and skills pertaining to mobile marketing and then market that expertise. Always remember that the best way to be perceived as an expert in a particular area is to truly become an expert in that area. Once you start to have general ideas or goals of what you want for your brand, set specific objectives with those ideas in mind. Remember to use the SMART method (as explained in one of the assigned videos for this module) to set useful objectives. Finally, list some strategies, tactics, or actions that will help you reach your objectives. The more descriptive you are when listing the strategies (as well as the objectives), the more likely you'll be to complete them
Specific Elements
After you have completed the above steps, create a document as follows:
a. Cover Page: Name, Panther ID, Major, Minor, Certificate(s), Homework Title
b. Introduction: Discuss the purpose for having a personal marketing strategy.
c. General Branding Goals: Discuss your brand aspirations for one, two, five and/or ten years from now. Describe how you will want people to perceive you.
d. Specific Branding Objectives: Using the SMART goals method, write at least 5 clear and achievable objectives that align with your general branding goals.
e. Strategies/Tactics: To reach your objectives, you'll need specific strategies or tasks that clearly lead to those objectives. Discuss the strategies or tactics that will help you reach the objectives that you listed in Part 4. Have at least two strategies/tactics for each objective.
f. Synthesis/Summary: Summarize your personal market strategy and provide a synthesis of how the pieces fit together.
Format your homework according to the give formatting requirements:
a. The answer must be double spaced, typed, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
b. The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the homework, the course title, the student's name, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
c. Also include a reference page. The references and Citations should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.