Essentials of Marketing 7th Edition by Charles Lamb,Joe Hair,Carl McDaniel

Exercise 12

In the first part of your strategic marketing plan, you stated your business mission and objectives, and performed a detailed SWOT analysis. In the second part of the plan, you identified and described target market segments and described their buying behaviors and decision-making processes. In addition, you identified sources of competitive intelligence and the need for any further marketing research before the marketing plan could be implemented. The next stages of the strategic planning process involve defining the elements of the marketing mix: (Part 3) product and place, (Part 4) promotion and pricing strategies. After reading Chapter 10, you can use the following exercises to guide you through the third part of your strategic marketing plan:
1. How would you classify the offering to your customers? Is it a consumer product? A business-to-business product? A good or a service? How does this classification change the focus of your e-marketing plan? Is your product unique enough to be patented? Check with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office at www.uspto.gov.
2. Place your company's offerings into a product portfolio. Consider the broader impact of marketing a product item within a line or mix. Factors to consider are those such as price, image, complementary products, distribution relationship, and so on. Are there any special product features that selling on the Internet would allow you to add or force you to take away?
3. Does your chosen company have a brand name and brand mark? If not, design both. If so, evaluate the ability of the brand name and mark to communicate effectively to the target market. Is strong branding more or less important in an Internet environment? Why? What makes branding so important?
4. What will your company Internet address be? To check and see what URLs are available, go to www.companyname.com and try some out. Should your URL be the same as your company name? Why or why not? What happens if a customer mistypes your name? Should you register under alternative spellings?
5. Is the product packaged and labeled? How should it be packaged and why? Does the package and label design match other communications tools? How is this an opportunity to communicate with your customers?
6. Evaluate warranties or guarantees offered by your firm, including product return policies. How will customers return products they purchased from the Web site? Design the parameters for warranties and return policies. Should your return policy be stricter online than off-line? Why or why not?