Marketing and Customer Service

COMPILING A MARKETING PLAN

Instructions:

1. All questions must be answered.

2. Use the organization of Debeers group Known for mining diamonds. Website: https://www.debeersgroup.com/

3. The document must not exceed twelve pages in total. Any additional information that you may

wish to submit must be contained in attachments.

4. Sources of information and theory must be acknowledged. This is done by:

a) Putting the year of the publication and the page number or numbers on which the relevant

information appears in brackets whenever the source is used, e.g. according to Terblance

(2013, p 186) the purpose of a positioning statement is . . .

b) Listing full details of all sources referred to in-text (as in a) above) as References at the end

of the document.

5. Ideally comments on the practicality of your marketing plan should be obtained from a senior

staff member of the organization/division etc. Should such comments however not be

obtainable marks will not be lost.

6. The assignment will be assessed by evaluating:

a) Knowledge and application of theory (e.g. in profiling target markets)

b) Depth of analysis and synthesis (e.g. in scanning the environment to come up with the

SWOT analysis)

c) Motivation of statements (e.g. when applying criteria to formulate marketing objectives).

d) Logical structure (i.e. the response to any question must be aligned with the responses you

gave to the questions that preceded it).

e) Technical quality (use of sound language, referencing techniques, etc.)

Question 1:

Introduce the selected organization (or division thereof) by stating:

a) The customer needs that it is striving to satisfy (5)

b) What the organization or division does to satisfy the customer needs identified in a) above (5)

c) Who the:

(i) Direct competitors of the organization are. (5)

(ii) Form competitors of the organization are. (5)

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Question 2:

Conduct a situation analysis of the organization (or division thereof) by stating:

a) The external environmental factors, i.e. those that the organization or division cannot control.

(5)

b) The internal environmental factors are, i.e. those that the organization or division can control.

(5)

c) The opportunities and threats that emanate from the external environmental factors for the

organization. (5)

d) The strengths and weaknesses that emanate from the internal environmental factors for the

organization. (5)

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Question 3:

Formulate marketing objectives by:

a) Stating the criteria that objectives must adhere to as summarized in the acronym 'SMART'. (5)

b) Writing down at least two marketing objectives that adhere to the SMART criteria. (5)

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Question 4:

Develop a profile of the target market and a positioning statement by:

a) Describing the potential market. This must be done by describing the segments (or sub[1]markets) that the potential market consists of. Use one or more of the segmentation variables

(or descriptors), i.e. geographic, demographic, psychographic or user behavioural variables to

do so.

b) Stating the selection criteria that will be used to evaluate the market segments identified in 4

a) above for possible selection as part of the target market.

c) Using the selection criteria stated in b) above to motivate which market segments should be

selected as part of the target market and which ones should be excluded from the target

market.

d) Formulating the positioning statement that you recommend to appeal to the target market.

This must be done by stating what the organization's competitive advantage is.

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Question 5:

Put forward the SIVA (marketing mix) strategies that you recommend to realize the stated marketing

objectives by stating:

a) The solution that the features of your product or service offer the target market.

b) How the target markets will be informed of the competitive advantage that the organization

offers.

c) The value offered to the target market as reflected in the pricing strategy that you recommend.

d) How the product or service should be made accessible to the target market

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Total: [100]