Marketing Plan Assignment

Marketing Plan Assignment

Overview and Objectives

The marketing planning outline below is abridged to reflect the information available in the PharmaSim simulation. Section 2 of the PharmaSim manual details the information available to the marketing planner in the PharmaSim world.

The Marketing Plan

Your marketing plan will consist of three key sections (the plan should include all these major sections, but the specific lettered points within these sections need not be discussed if they are not relevant). For example, if production capabilities are not central to your analysis, do not discuss them.

Please use headers and bullets when writing the plan to keep your exposition efficient.

1. Situation Analysis

The situation analysis you write should consists of the following sections:

Overall Category Analysis Here you will review the relevant trends affecting your brand and the category. These might indicate the category is stagnant or, alternatively, a great opportunity. You should consider:

1. market trends (current and future size of the market, overall category penetration and usage, changes in share, growth rate of population and sales, etc.);
2. category marketing activity (distribution channels, pricing across channels, how brands in general are marketed);
3. sales, price, and cost data on products (variable and fixed costs and their impact on pricing);
4. environmental factors (number of persons getting ill, seasonality issues, inflation, manufacturing and product technology changes, regulatory issues, etc.)

Sales Analysis The sales analysis is an assessment of the brand’s performance to date – an opportunity to evaluate your historic performance. You should address questions such as:

1. how well is your brand performing vis a vis other brands in the company
2. sales, costs, and profit trends for your products; break even analysis

Competitors - By analyzing competitors, it is often possible to exploit their weaknesses or anticipate potential problems.  For each key competitor, consider:

1. their share, product attributes, financial resources, production capabilities, marketing programs
2. their strengths and weaknesses relative to your own firm
3. likely future strategies

A table contrasting your and competitive products can be insightful.

Customers - An analysis of customers is perhaps the most important aspect of the marketing plan. One might learn of impending problems or opportunities.  Things to consider in your analysis of customers include:

1. Who are the customers?
2. How do they differ? Can they be segmented by their needs or purchase behaviors
3. Why do customers buy the product?
4. What attributes of the product are important to what segments
5. How do they choose?
6. Are they aware of the brand, how do they perceive it, have they tried it, and are they loyal?
7. Where and when do they buy?
8. Who influences the buyer?
9. What is the channel buying process?

Company - An analysis of an organization’s ability to market products can also help in assessing the factors impeding or abetting a product’s success. For example, a company may have no distribution network or may market products that overlap. Things to consider include: