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Introduction 

There will be strategic planning assignments in units 1-8. These assignments are designed to have you work through the sections of a strategic marketing plan. Each strategic marketing plan could focus on the current business where you work, an entrepreneurial startup, or another business.

Each unit will cover part of the strategic marketing plan as indicated below.

Unit

Strategic Planning Assignment

Unit 1

Identification of the Strategic Business Unit (SBU) and the Business Model for the Project.

Unit 2

Environmental Analysis and Strategic Implications

Unit 3

Segmentation Analysis and Target Market Recommendations

Unit 4

SWOT Analysis and Identification of Competitive Advantages: Setting marketing goals and objectives

Unit 5

Identification of a Product Mix Strategy

Unit 6

Branding and Positioning Strategy

Unit 7

Ethical Review and Value Strategies

Unit 8

GANTT Chart and Justification for Strategic Implementation & Executive Summary.

Each strategic planning assignment will include research analysis from secondary research using academic and industry trade data. You will make strategic recommendations in each section that will need to be justified through your analysis. Each section will need to be logically linked to the earlier sections and all strategic decisions will be used to build your GANTT Chart and implementation plan in Unit 8.

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Directions

Segmentation Analysis and Target Market Recommendations

A market oriented approach starts with determining the needs, wants, and preferences of the markets served.  This requires developing an understanding of markets, market segments and segmentation techniques.

MARKET:A market is the larger set of consumers who buy goods and services.MARKET
SEGMENT:A market segment is a cluster of individuals who will react in the same way to marketing efforts in the same way (this often means that they have the same basic needs). For example, an older demographic market segment may react differently than a younger demographic market segment to a specific marketing mix.SEGMENTATION:Is the process used to determine a target market profile that clearly identifies market segments. The segmentation process uses identifying characteristics to develop a market segment profile. This will normally include a combination of characteristics such as indicated below. (Note, business segmentation criteria are also included on the assignment worksheet.)

• Demographics
• Geographic Location
• Values
• Psychographics
• Basic Needs, Wants, Preferences, or Requirements
• Buying Habits and Preferences
• Consumption/Disposition Characteristics

PRIMARY
MARKET
SEGMENT:The first market segment you should identify should the primary market segment you plan to target. This is the segment that would most likely provide the majority of your sales, where you plan to build your brand image, or you have some other strategic reason to target this segment. Identifying the primary market will allow you to determine what other markets will “fit” with this segment. An example could be a Facebook which originally targeted a college student market.SECONDARY
MARKETS
SEGMENTS:

Secondary market segments are those which would strategically follow the primary market. Again, using Facebook as an example, they expanded into a number of secondary markets. These markets can now be micro targeted across a variety of segmentation profile factors.