My Understanding of a Marketing Plan
The purpose of a marketing plan is to provide us, students, with an opportunity to integrate the various marketing concepts learnt, with our creativity and critical skills. It offers us with a pragmatic way of analyzing the market gaps prevalent in today’s world, thus, developing and marketing an optimal solution. It provides us with a comprehensive outlook and understanding of the company, its industry, customers and competitors, allowing us to identify the company’s competitive advantage within the industry. Lastly, it emphasizes on the importance of having great team cohesiveness, interpersonal, influencing and negotiation skills as a member in a marketing team.
Setting Objectives and Actions
1. Discuss and brainstorm on the various contents collectively as a team
2. Discuss on the frequency and timings of group meetings (Every Monday: 1pm – 6pm)
3. Set deadlines for the respective contents
4. Delegate the contents/ components to be covered in our marketing plan
5. Do timely checks of one another’s part, and provide comments/ feedback
Defining Milestones for Implementation & Criteria for Evaluation of Task Results (?)
Analyzing on Team’s Quality of Work, Time and Resources Provided
Firstly, as for Market Analysis and Market Gap, our group managed to provide a well-elaborated analysis of the microenvironment factors, macroenvironment factors as well as the findings and implications of our market gap, especially as we have considered the feedback provided by our professor during the proposal presentation.
Secondly, Market Segmentation and Target Market. Our target market is still very vague, thus, we should have considered the following: How do we define chronic illnesses? How do we get the figures for those with parents that have chronic illnesses and prefer homecare for their parents? Thus, this will lead us to an exact figure or size of our target market, which we lacked in. Besides, knowing our market size is truly significant as it allows us to fully and wisely evaluate on the marketing efforts, implementation stage and budgeting (Moore, 2014).
Next, Marketing Mix. In terms of price and place, our team managed to provide well-elaborated justifications based on the concepts applied. As for product, a factor that we need to consider is the sensitiveness and potential concerns of the name of our product, Pria, in Singapore, especially as it was inspired by a Hindu phrase. Hence, we can take Coca Cola’s venture into China as an inspiration, where they have changed its name to “Kekoukele” which means “tasty fun”, portraying Coke’s brand while still sounding like its international name (Bhasin, 2011). As for promotion, we have conveyed the use of radio and newspaper advertising. However, we lacked in the following information: rates, timings, length/ duration, message. These require an in-depth understanding of the behavior of our target market – What time do they watch the TV or listen to the radio? How often? How big is the size of this audience? Furthermore, having a comprehensive understanding of our target market is vital, before crafting a message for advertising. Also, these messages need to resonate with them and must deliver a valuable yet personal message (Norman, 2015).
Lastly, Action Plan and Financial Statement. We managed to provide a detailed timeline of our action plan, however, our financial statement lacked in the detailed breakdown of our expenses, such as costs of manpower and storage space and justifications of our projected sales figures for the three years.
In addition, ample time and resources were provided to us in completing the project. However, certain objectives set in the beginning were not met, such as adhering to the deadlines set for our team. For instance, presentation scripts are to be prepared and memorized a day before our project meeting. However, two members failed to do so, resulting in a lot of time used to prepare their scripts, before we proceed to rehearse our presentation as a team.
Examining on My Expected Performance Level and Things Learnt from the Project
Firstly, after the delegation stage, I gave instructions and conveyed my expectations of what is needed to be covered for each part of the marketing plan. However, several mistakes were made by some of the members: incorrect application of concepts, incredible and unreliable sources cited, brief justifications and elaborations. This resulted in the rest of us to redo their parts of the project, especially when we faced time constraints. Therefore, I have learnt the importance of ensuring that my team members are clear of their respective tasks by perhaps having them to each convey their tasks and goals, as well as setting shorter deadlines, to give room for unexpected circumstances.
Secondly, a day before and at the start of group meetings, I will inform the team on the expected finish time of our meeting based on the meeting objectives, e.g. 6pm. However, halfway through the meeting, two members will mention that they need to leave earlier, e.g. at 3pm, as they “have something on”. Hence, for all group meetings, only three stayed throughout and finished what was required during the meeting. Therefore, I have learnt the importance to express my sentiments to the team, especially when certain actions of the members might detriment the team’s progress and level of performance, instead of keeping them to myself.