Based on Nike Marketing Plan

1. Is your product for consumers or businesses? If it's a consumer product, would you classify it as a convenience product (something fairly inexpensive and frequently purchased), a shopping product (something consumers will invest effort in researching and buying), a specialty product (something with unique characteristics that consumers will spend time obtaining), or an unsought product (something that consumers don't plan to buy but may suddenly need or be unaware of until needed)? What does this classification mean in terms of how you market to your customers? For example, if yours is a convenience product, you should make it widely available, because customers won't spend a lot of time researching it and trying to find it. Compose a paragraph to summarize your ideas about the product's classification and the implications for your plan.

2. If your product is for businesses, would you classify it as an installation (a facility, for instance, or a piece of heavy machinery), accessory equipment (such as file cabinets and tools), raw materials (such as ingredients for food), component parts (such as preassembled clocks for car dashboards), process materials (used in manufacturing another product), MRO supplies (maintenance, repair, and operating items that aren't part of the finished product, like cleaning supplies), or business services (such as marketing research services)? Why would a business need a product like yours, when would it buy such a product, and what are the implications for your marketing plan? Compose a paragraph summarizing your ideas.

3. You have more decisions to make about your product. Where in the product life cycle is it? How long do you expect your product to remain in its current stage? What does this mean for your sales and profitability? Also consider the product adoption process, meaning how long consumers in your target market might need to try and ultimately adopt your product. What marketing steps can you take to encourage product adoption and to boost sales and profitability during the product's life cycle, in the context of your resources and competition? Compose a paragraph summarizing some ideas, including a very rough estimate of costs and, if possible, a broad timetable for your activities.

4. If you're marketing an existing product, how can you determine the level of brand awareness, the perceived brand quality, the brand associations, and the brand loyalty within your target market? If you're marketing a new product under a new brand, what can you do to make your brand name easy to remember, suggestive of the product's benefits or attributes, and distinctive for competitive differentiation? Will you use an individual brand (each product carries its own brand) or a family brand (products within the line carry the same brand), and why? Finally, would it be a good idea for you to license an established brand from someone else, if you have the resources? Compose a paragraph explaining decisions about branding.

5. If your product is tangible, what will you do about packaging and labeling? Does your product need protection as it moves from the manufacturing facility to the store and then goes home with buyers? What can you change to make your packaging distinctive so it attracts attention on store shelves and is convenient for both retailers and shoppers? How can you use packaging for sustainability? How can you use labeling to inform consumers about the product, meet regulatory requirements, and set your product apart from competing products? Compose a paragraph about your packaging and labeling decisions.

6. If you're preparing a plan for a new product, take some time to explore your options in product development. You already have one or more ideas for a new product. Have you screened out ideas that have low potential or that don't fit with the strengths and opportunities you identified during your environmental analysis? How can you test product concepts and analyze their business potential? What about test marketing prior to the actual product introduction? Compose a paragraph about a new product development process, identifying particular strengths you can apply and particular challenges to be addressed. Add a couple of sentences about a possible schedule and budget for development.

7. To be competitive, you have to differentiate your product from others on the market, on the basis of quality, design and features, and/or support services. Based on your earlier competitive analysis, and your knowledge of customers' needs and buying behavior, which one or more of these points of differentiation would be most meaningful to your target market, and why? What are the implications for the marketing plan? Compose a paragraph about your product differentiation.

8. Our next decision concerns product positioning. What do you want customers in your target market to think about your product? What image do you want to project, relative to competing products? Select two attributes or benefits for your position, such as style and quality. How can you use these attributes or benefits to position your product for your target market and distinguish it from competitors? Compose a paragraph about your positioning. If you're planning for an existing product, write about positioning or repositioning this product.

9. Are you going to market an intangible service? If so, how important is the element of customer contact, meaning the interaction between the customer and the service provider? High-contact services require special attention to the employee delivering the service as well as to the physical surroundings. Also consider perishability, which implies that you must encourage use of your services when you have capacity to deliver it. Consider heterogeneity, variations in quality that must be controlled to avoid disappointing customers who expect the same quality every time they buy your service. Finally, think about how you can manage and meet customers' expectations of service quality, given the possible costs and possible pricing. Compose a paragraph or two summarizing your ideas about services marketing and the role of service quality in your marketing plan.