First carefully read the Sports CalendarCase then follows these instructions for developing a detailed concreteTactical Marketing Plan for this business venture.You will assume to be playing the role of the partners in this venture; work accordingly within bounds of the working capital (budget) that can be totally raised for this prospect.

The results of the marketing research conducted by the venture team are shown in the exhibits;utilize these empirical findings,and your estimated interpretations of their significance and bearing to this prospect, to base your tactical working, analyses, and decisions thereof.

* Start with a situational/SWOT analysis, by labeling the different strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats faced by this business venture with regard to the sports calendar offering that you are working on. Typically, strengths & weaknesses are factors internal to the firm, while opportunities & threats are factors posed by the external environment.

* Then, proceed toward doing the Market Segmentation and Targeting for this sports calendar offering. Explain the manner in which you have segmented the market, by explicating the variables you have used for segmentation, as shown by the research in the case itself.This determines which of the segments will constitute your prospective target market for the calendar.

* Now, you enter the phase of designing the marketing strategy for this business. The task calls for setting and implementing the suitable combination of your marketing mix elements (4Ps) to target your prospective market, as follows:

~ Product the offering here is naturally the sports calendar; so, the nature of the product choice lies in you figuring out the most suited size (dimensions) for the calendar as you judge its market demand as seen in the marketing research done by the partners in the case. The calendar size that you pick in procurement and lot size of the order will determine the unit variable cost in terms of the production cost for each calendar that the printer will be charging the business.

~ Price here, you determine the unit selling price for the calendar picked by you. The selling price per calendar will depend on your chosen marketing channels and modes of distribution. If you choose to use the bookstore wholesale route (for a certain lot of the inventory as given in the case), the unit selling price will be set as the described percentage of markup over the unit variable cost of the calendar size as picked by you. If you choose to ignore the bookstore offer and engage in personal selling (retail) directly by yourself, you would naturally be picking a unit selling price that you feel the target market would be comfortable paying; the marketing research done by the partners in the case would be helpful in determining this. An ideal option would be to utilize both wholesale and retail; your pricing will vary accordingly as per the two channels.

~ Place here, you lay out your channel intermediaries and the functions they perform, along with the sales management as suited. These pertain to the bookstore wholesale channel and the retail direct channel where you do the personal selling, using retail booths or other outlets as creatively thought of and picked by you. Accordingly, assign those options and the fixed costs associated with those channels; these costs need to be planned and budgeted for from the working capital.

~ Promotion here, you allocate the different promotional elements of the communications mix that you plan to utilize for pushing sales of the calendar. Determine the suited advertising/promotions activities and chosen media outlets as given in the case, and also those promotional elements as creatively thought of and crafted by you, along with the associated fixed costs for the promotions to be planned and budgeted for from the working capital.

Please note that although we lay out the 4Ps serially for systematic reporting, you would actually be working on all four elements simultaneously when figuring out the combinations that you feel would work best for the business as judged by you.

The exercise needs to fit as a cohesive and integrated tactical marketing plan comprised of all these operationally viable and workable components.

* Finally, your tactical plan should culminate into its realizable Proforma Income Statement which reflects the topline sales revenue streams (as per your distribution channels), the varied categories of costs (fixed, variable, etc.) as being judged committed or programmable expenditures for your chosen actions, and your resulting bottomline profit from the venture.

Important to realize that there is no right or totally wrong answer for the planning exercise; it all depends on how you judge its optimal feasibility. It is necessary for you to lay out your working and explanations accordingly in the best possible details as deemed appropriate by you.