Columbia Southern University Walmart Strategic Marketing Plan Project

Instructions

Marketing Plan Project: Phase 1

It is important for marketers to create a marketing plan to provide focusfor their brand, product, or company. A detailed plan prepares a business tolaunch innovative new products that are designed to increase sales to currentcustomers and to reach potential customers within their target marketsegments.

The marketing plan is designed to be subsumed under the broadercompany-wide strategic plan. The marketing plan documents how theorganization’s strategic objectives are to be achieved through specificmarketing strategies and tactics. The customer is the focus and starting pointof the marketing plan. The marketing plan is an efficient communications toolthat is linked to the plans of other organizational departments.

This Unit III Project assignment represents the first in a series ofproject assignments that will enable you to build a marketing plan for aproduct or product line of a company of your choosing. The final product is tobe delivered in Unit VII.

The marketing plan consists of the sections listed below.

• Executive Summary
• Situation Analysis
  • Market Summary
  • SWOT Analysis (i.e., analysis of strengths, weaknesses,opportunities, and threats)
  • Competition
  • Product Offerings
  • Distribution
• Marketing Strategy
  • Objectives
  • Target Markets
  • Positioning
  • Strategies
  • Marketing Mix
  • Marketing Research
• Financials
• Controls
  • Implementation
  • Marketing Organization

Over the course of the next several units, you will create a marketing planusing research from the CSU Online Library (e.g., Mergent Online database,ABI/INFORM Collection database). Each project assignment will enable you tocomplete a portion of the marketing plan, and the completed marketing planwill be submitted in Unit VII.

For this unit’s assignment, you will choose and research one of thefollowing companies for your marketing plan:

• JPMorgan Chase,
• AT&T,
• Walmart,
• ExxonMobil or
• Proctor & Gamble.

After choosing one of the aforementioned companies, you will research,analyze, and create the marketing plan sections described below for yourcompany of choice.

• Situation Analysis: Using the sections below, analyze thecompetitive market, the company’s targeted market segments, and how yourcompany’s capabilities stack up to the competition.
• Market Summary: Describe, in detail, the target market segments bydetermining their segment size, segment needs, segment growth, andsegment trends. Using more detail to describe these marketsegments will prove to be beneficial as a basis for the marketingstrategies and tactical programs presented later in yourmarketing plan.
• SWOT Analysis: Include the sections described below.
  • Strengths: In this section, list and describe your company’sinternal physical and financial capabilities thatcan enable it to reach its stated objectives.
  • Weaknesses: In this section, list the internal elements that mayprevent or slow your company’s ability to achieveits stated objectives.
  • Opportunities: In this section, list the external and potentiallyprofitable areas in which your company may findan interest in which to target, engage, andperform.
  • Threats: In this section, list the external and potentiallyunfavorable trials that can negatively affect yourcompany’s business model and competitiveness.
• Competition: List your company’s main competitors, and describe whatpositions they occupy in the market in which your companywishes to compete. Also, this section is where you shouldprovide a summary of the competitors’ strategies.
• Product Offerings: Review the company’s products or product lines, andidentify their main features.
• Distribution: Describe and provide an overview of each of your company’sproduct distribution channels.

Your assignment will be a minimum of four pages in length. Ensure that youintroduce the company you have chosen, and identify each section with aheading in your assignment. You should reference at least three sources tosupport this section of your marketing plan. All sources used, including the textbook, must be referencedand follow APA 7th edition formatting, and quoted or paraphrased material must haveaccompanying in-text citations.