Choosing an Organization

You may choose any known organization (for-profit, not-for-profit, small, medium, large, existing, new start-up, established organizations are all permitted) or make one up for your Plan. If you make up your own organization, you will need to find (and reference where applicable) information that is relevant to this type of organization. If you are unsure, it is strongly suggested that you use an existing company. Focus on one or two major products/services rather than the whole organization.

Writing the Plan

Follow the

report format for the Marketing Plan

closely. Write in business report format using full paragraphs unless otherwise stated. It is crucial to follow various major concepts in the textbook to devise your plan and strategy for each section. In other words, use major parts of each chapter to discuss details for each section.  The length of the assignment should be between 8-10 pages, not including an appendix. A minimum of 3 scholarly sources including your textbook must be cited using any recognized citation style. Use in-text citations throughout the paper.

It is recommended that you review the grading rubric attached to this dropbox before submitting your assignment.

Marketing Plan Format

Review the Sample Marketing Plan in Appendix 1 of your etext.  Follow the table of contents below, using the Sample in the etext as a guide only for the type of content expected in each section.  Many sections are similar.  For example, both the Sample and this assignment include a SWOT analysis.  

Important: A minimum of 3 scholarly sources including your etext are required. Use in-text citations throughout the paper.

Title Page

Table of Contents

· Use the headings show in this example as your table of contents.

Introduction to Organization and Product/Service and Microenvironment  

· Background and explanation including the one or two products/services you are focusing on

· Include main actors in the micro environment (incorporate relevant aspects of Dropbox 2 into this part; see Chapter 3).

· Include a discussion of the main forces in the macroenvironment (incorporate relevant aspects of Dropbox 2 into this part; see Chapter 3).

Basic Marketing Research

· What marketing research does the organization plan (incorporate relevant aspects of Dropbox 2 into this part)?

SWOT Analysis

· Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats – a chart format is OK for this section – see SWOT section in the Sample Marketing Plan in the etext.

Competitive Analysis

· See the Competitive Review section in the Sample Marketing Plan in the etext.

Marketing Objectives

· Be specific, preferably measurable objectives, explain – see Objectives and Issues section in the Sample Marketing Plan in the etext.

Positioning, Target Market and Segmentation

· Create a positioning statement or improve upon the one the organization currently has (this can be a short phrase or one-liner – see page 204 of the etext under “Differentiation and Positioning” for examples).  What is the segment and who is the target market? Prepare a small chart similar to Table A1.1 in the Sample Marketing Plan in the etext.

Marketing Mix Strategies

Describe strategies for all 4 P’s of marketing, or how to improve what a company is currently doing; See Marketing Strategy section in the Sample Marketing Plan in etext but describe these in further detail with full analysis for each separately – this may be your largest section of the report.

· Product

· Price

· Place

· Promotion and Integrated Marketing Communication (also incorporate Dropbox 5 into this area)

Ethical, Legal and Privacy Considerations

· What ethical and legal issues present themselves?  Consider any of these as relevant and describe how you would address these.

Conclusion  

Appendix (optional)

1. Discuss some of the main actors in the microenvironment and the main forces in the macro-environment for your organization. Please be specific and provide relevant analysis useful for the organization. 

Walmart Inc.

Walmart is an American largest retail company with a revenue of $ 500.3 billion. It has secure 1st position on fortune 500 lists for the last 6 years. External and internal factors, which are also known as macro-environment and micro-environment has a direct and indirect effect on the company. 

 Micro Environmental Factors

Anything in the immediate environment including suppliers, customers, competitors, intermediaries, government and other regulating body is the microenvironment. Usually, the retailer is aware of the micro-environmental actor and it is close to the company that affects the ability to serve its customers. In this paper, I will focus on actor such as marketing intermediaries, competitors, and customers.  

1. Marketing intermediaries: intermediaries helps business promote, sell and distribute its product and services to the final buyer. Walmart involves in this kind of marketing strategy. Hundreds of brands cooperate with Walmart for its sale. It is advantageous for both Walmart and the Brand. Walmart diversified products with low inputs and other companies get a platform to introduce their new product into the market easily.

2. Competitor: Walmart has numerous of a competitor in the market. Target, Kingsooper, Costco, H-mart, Home- Depot, and Amazon is the tough competitor. Competitors always give a lesson to the company. Walmart ranked 1st position in collecting revenue among its top 10 competitors.

3. Customers: the customer is the most important actor in the microenvironment. The company cannot be imagined in the absence of customers. Walmart is a discount store. Walmart always maintains the quality and sells a product at a cheaper price. Creating value for the customer and keeping a relationship with customers is important. It has a record of serving 270 million customers weekly. 

Macro Environmental Factors

The external environment or the macro environment is the forces which are outside of the control of retailers and also has large scale effect in the economic and the industrial point of view. The macro-environmental factor includes political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental forces. Here I am going to discuss political, social and legal forces in Walmart Inc.

1. Political stability: is an important external force for Walmart, its suppliers, and manufacturers. Political stability plays a crucial role if Walmart wants to expand its physical stores and e-commerce platform. The expansion of Walmart relies on taking over the Chinese market and handle the threat wisely. Walmart has a higher wage rate in comparison to another retail store. Walmart faced higher political pressure in higher wages. Furthermore, political stability in the locations where its suppliers and manufacturers are operating allows suppliers to meet standards and focus on operations.

2. Economic Factor: instability and change in the economy are one of the greatest threats to Walmart. According to the annual report, the economic factor effect Walmart and the supplier, as a result, an increase in the cost of goods sold can affect pricing strategy. Inflation in the economy badly affects the consumer demand for Walmart product, slow down the net sales and inventory turnover. Increasing interest rates also affect the economy of Walmart. 

3. Technological factor: Emerging technology is one of the biggest challenges for Walmart. Today all the businesses are transforming into the digital world. People are so busy to go to the physical location for shopping. Online business is expanding in the speed of light. To cope with other digital business Walmart is embracing technological innovation. For instance, online ordering, using social networking sites for the advertisement of the product, Walmart mobile app, robots, and automated units are testing on the few locations of Walmart and waiting for a positive response. 

2. Consider what marketing research the organization has done or can conduct in the future. Include at least one specific primary data collection and one specific secondary data gathering. Also, what marketing decisions have been or could be made with that marketing research?  

Walmart has had the option to minimize expenses for its buyers through various key capabilities including the capacity to oversee productive inventory network activities through its kin, procedures, and innovation. One of the main organizations in the market to have the option to genuinely prevail with an Every Day Low Price Strategy, Walmart has gotten skilled at guaranteeing that the correct items are in the opportune spot at the ideal time. Being the biggest retailer on the planet implies access to a really dumbfounding measure of information. Information that can be utilized to make fascinating open doors for the association to have the option to all the more likely comprehend what is and isn’t selling in the entirety of its stores and on its site so as to decide how to modify its contributions for what’s to come. Despite the company’s wealth of data, Walmart has in more recent years implemented an interesting, albeit more old fashioned approach to determining how to stock its toy inventories for the holiday season. Specifically, for the past couple of years, Walmart has assembled a focus group of 1,000 kids to try out new toys from manufacturers with the goal of identifying which toys are going to be hot sellers during the holiday season. This year Walmart had its focus groups which in total involved about 1,000 children play with, comment on, and rate over 80 toys from a number of big-name manufacturers. From there Walmart took the feedback and ratings and compiled the data into a top-20 list to be used by its buyers as a guide for their holiday season toy purchases (Marketing Management 2E, chapter 16).

Work cited:

·

Chapter 16 – The Marketing Dashboard: Metrics for Measuring Marketing Performance. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://marshall-johnstonmm.com/category/chapter-16-the-marketing-dashboard-metrics-for-measuring-marketing-performance

· Kotler, Philip, and Gary Armstrong. Principles of Marketing, 17th edition. New York City: Pearson Education, Inc., 2018. e-book. [Columbia College].

· (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.marketingtutor.net/pestle-analysis-of-walmart/

1. Look at the Figure in Chapter 14 entitled, Integrated Marketing Communications, which outlines the blended mix of promotional tools (advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, etc.). Consider which mix of tools will be best suited to the company/organization (choose at least 2)

2. Discuss why these would be the best marketing communication tools and summarize what kind of marketing communication you would employ (for example, what type of sales promotion would you recommend for the company, etc.).

Walmart

Wal-Mart’s integrated marketing communication strategy includes retailing high quality and marked products at the least value conceivable. To keep up low costs, the partnership decreases costs by utilizing the most recent electronic innovation and warehousing. It likewise negotiates for product straightforwardly from makers, taking out the broker. The achievement of the giant retailer depends upon effective advertising correspondence relying on sound administration choices for the combination of the different components of the promotional mix. For promoting communication to be fruitful, however, a steady choice must be made dealing with the three are from the advertising blend: the product, service or the idea itself; the cost at which the item will be offered; and the place through or which clients will purchase the brand. 

In Walmart, IMC is upheld by creating far-reaching databases on present and potential costumers, fragmenting these costumers into groups with certain basic mindfulness levels and practices and creating media methodologies and interchanges that immediate the communication strategies to accomplish advertising targets. Among five, here are the two promotional tools that Walmart utilizes now and again. 

Direct marketing 

Direct marketing or digital marketing includes the media which legitimately passes on the message to the objective market. It includes TV, radio, magazines, sponsorships, and papers. Luckily enough Walmart utilizes every one of these mediums to pass on its message of ‘regular low costs’ to its clients. It promotes the TV at top review hours to focus on the best portion of the market. New items with any mechanical development are appeared in advertisements with their most up to date highlight. Walmart supports sports and good cause occasions to gain decent notoriety as a mammoth retailer that individuals appreciate. Papers and magazines are likewise utilized for a similar reason. New items with its pricelist are offered in magazines that don’t mean to focus on a specialty advertise since Walmart targets center and low-salary workers. Direct mailing is additionally one of divider store’s significant medium to refresh its current clients about new occasions that take inside the premises of Walmart, for instance, the topic for the month is pet nourishment; every single pet nourishment will be shown in the way to get the eyes of each individual who keep pets. 

Sales promotion: 

Walmart utilizes the following strategies to make mindfulness and enthusiasm for buyers to buy from Walmart 

Competition: this is utilized to help deals, where customers are entering for a month to month prize draw offering an assortment of prizes. With extravagant items, the estimation of the cost is frequently high, for example, holidays package to the customer. 

Retail location: Walmart attractively put their new product to catch the customer attention and fascinatingly decorate them so that customer persuades them to buy. 

Free samples: free testing of the item is finished by Walmart when it introduces new items for sale. 

Gifts, exhibitions and trade fair: endowments are offered at certain timespans of the year, typically when deals are low, to empower spending. In another hand, Walmart also takes a part in fair and exhibition to promote its sales for a specific department or product.

3. What types of advertising objectives would you recommend (see table entitled ‘Possible Advertising Objectives” in Chapter 15)? 

Walmart’s advertising objective incorporates informative and persuasive advertising techniques. Imparting customer esteem, constructing the brand inclination and company image, portraying accessible item and backing, improving the value advising value change to their customer ahead of time, convincing customer to purchase an item through contribution distinctive advancement and rebate, and the entrance of their items for all customers over their stores. They attempt to focus on their consumer loyalty and afterward ensure request stays for their items. Walmart controls its clients’ value-based information and helps brands retarget them towards Walmart.com and its physical areas that satisfy a guarantee to associate clients online with disconnected. 

4. How could a cloud-based CRM device help this company or organization? 

CRM or Customer Relationship Management is a system utilized by associations to deal with the organization’s relationship and connections with the potential customer. Essentially Walmart depends upon huge information investigation to get the trace of what the customer is expecting and how their desires can be met. Walmart isn’t utilizing a specific CRM for customer relationship management, yet they are utilizing multi-channel and omnichannel procedures to engage their customers. To encourage these procedures, they utilize online and mobile presence and draw in with their customer which in turn has led to increased customer satisfaction in the previous few years.

Walmart builds up the relationship with their customer by blending information in with the fun. They make a point to design occasions with their customers which incorporate possibilities that teach and simultaneously offer diversion which is topped with the social collaboration. 

In conclusion, there is nothing that the organization manages without ensuring that its activities advantage the customers here and there or the other. Walmart has managed advertising and limited time components effectively to a serious decent degree in its home state. The organization has a pledge to business greatness. This is seen by the quality and care concurred to the customer once they record to their retail location. To understand their costumer, Walmart ensures that they see each element of their business. Everything that they do is done after cautious thought of the effect of the item on the customer. 

Work cited:

· Kotler, Philip, and Gary Armstrong. Principles of Marketing, 17th edition. New York City: Pearson Education, Inc., 2018. e-book. [Columbia College]. 

·

“Marketing Management.” ManagementParadise.com Management Business Education Learning Platform RSS, 

www.managementparadise.com/forums/marketing-management

.

· “GLOBAL INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION.” UKEssays.com, www.ukessays.com/essays/marketing/global-integrated-marketing-communication-strategies-marketing-essay.php.