MAN0713M
Marketing Strategy
Project Workbook

Developed by Dr Raisa Yakimova
August 2015

PROJECT – GENERAL OUTLINE
Introduction:
The Project work book sheets are designed as a guide to assist you with your project development.  The work book sheets detail the work you should be completed at certain stages of the semester. The work will help you to:
•    Plan the project work,
•    Motivate group progress on the project.

Setting the Scene for your Project

Your marketing manager has asked your team to write a 3,000 report that documents the process of developing a proposed marketing strategy for Fuel Angel (see project brief), following the marketing planning process (see Jobber and Ellis-Chadwick, 2013, Chapter 2).

How marks are awarded:

In assessing your final report, you manager (tutor) will allocate marks for:
•    Research and Analysis (40%),
•    Recommendations (40%), and
•    Structure and Presentation (20%).

Your report should have all the main sections of a business report, which could include):*

1.    Executive Summary (approximately 4% of marks)

2.    Strategic recommendations (approximately 40% of marks)
a.    Marketing objectives
b.    Strategy
o    Target market(s) focus
c.    Marketing mix decisions
o    Product, Promotion, Price, Place
d.    Control (see Jobber and Ellis-Chadwick, 2013, Chapter 22, pp. 838-845)

Fuel Angel Brief

Fuel Angel is a product that prevents users from pouring the incorrect fuel type into diesel fuelled cars. Pouring the wrong fuel into cars is a common, costly problem among UK car owners. Although Fuel Angel provides a solution to this consumer problem, sales of the Fuel Angel have not been brilliant since the product was launched in 2008. DDN Ltd needs your help to develop a marketing strategy for Fuel Angel that will help to penetrate the market and grow sales in the UK.

1. Examine the Project brief
To fully understand what your senior manager is asking you to do, you should read the Project Workbook and examine the marking criteria (see last page of this Project Workbook, and the approximate mark breakdown p. 2-3). Make sure you have read the Project Workbook and marking criteria before you come to the Session 1 tutorial. The Project Workbook tells you the main elements your manager is looking for in a successful report. In Session 1 you will have the opportunity to ask your manager (module leader) questions about what your group needs to do to write a successful report documenting your marketing strategy proposal.

3. Get to know your group member strengths & 4. Develop strategy to progress the Project
Once you have formed groups, you should take some time to get to know your group members. You could consider addressing the following questions:
•    What strengths does each group member contribute to your team?
•    Are there any tasks specific group members are particularly interested in contributing towards?
•    Would someone like to be a group leader?
Once you have gotten to know your group members a little better, you can start thinking about task break-down, and which team members might contribute to particular tasks to complete the project. The completion of a successful report will likely require your group breaking down into smaller teams to complete certain tasks, and then re-grouping to put together parts of the report. I would strongly recommend that one group member acts as the leader who organises group meetings, develops deadlines, and follow-ups on work-in-progress.
Some questions you may consider to plan the breakdown of your Project:
•    What will be the word limit for each section of the report?
•    How will your group keep in contact?
•    Are any group members planning to be away during any period in the semester?
Tip: Use group meetings to make imposed deadlines.
A great way to fast-track group report completion is to plan in advance a series of group meetings designed to discuss work that has been completed. The meeting dates give group members deadlines before which they must submit their completed sections to group members. To prepare for each meeting, group members should be prepared to discuss the work of other group members. This means each group member will need to have read others’ work and written constructive comments about how sections can be improved. Based on the feedback discussed in meetings, group members may need to refine sections of the report.

1. Compile a detailed marketing audit for Fuel Angel based on rigorous research
The focus of week 3-4 activities is to compile a detailed marketing audit for Fuel Angel. As you know, a marketing audit involves:
•    Macro-environment (PESTEL analysis, see Figure 1)
•    Micro-environment analysis (the market, customers, competition)
•    SWOT analysis
Make sure you are employing many sources of research to compile your situation analysis. You could use the Google search engine and library databases to develop your situation analysis. Make an appointment to see a librarian who can suggest useful databases you could use.
PESTEL analysis guidance: To develop an appropriate marketing strategy, you will need to have an appreciation of the macro-economic and natural environment (i.e. ecology, global warming) factors, that impact Fuel Angel. Your report should include only those factors that will impact the proposed marketing strategy for Fuel Angel.
It’s best to meet with your group to brainstorm what are the main environmental factors relevant to Fuel Angel, before group members go away and conduct research to develop this section. The PESTEL analysis needs to be focused. To achieve the necessary focus, PESTEL analysis needs to be based on strong reasoning and agreement among group members.

2. Develop profiles of your target market(s)
Based on your detailed research about Fuel Angel, you need to write target market customer profiles that describe customer characteristics for each segment. You should choose 1-3 specific target markets that you think will have the greatest influence on improving sales for the Fuel Angel. This customer profile section is very important, as a customer focus is critical to successful marketing strategies. An accurate customer profile also demonstrates to managers of Fuel Angel that you understand the customer. Your customer profile should be underpinned by solid research.

Figure 1. Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal factors (PESTEL)

For each potential target market, consider the following questions:
1.    Are the selected consumers likely to buy the product? Why? Why not (be a devil’s advocate here to ensure that your arguments why the selected target market customers will buy the product are well thought out)?

2.    What are the shared characteristics of the target market? Describe these characteristics in great detail. i.e. interests, places they frequent, lifestyle, preferences, attitudes, etc.

3.    Is the selected target market substantial enough in size so you can meet your marketing objectives?
Your customer profiles need to provide details on 1-3, to justify your selected target market(s).

3. Proof read your sections of the report
Any group members contributing to writing sections of the report should carefully proof read their work before showing it to their group members. Do not expect your group members to proof read your work – this is a skill you must master so you can develop excellent business reports that will ensure your speedy promotion in the future. Tips for proof reading:
1.    Ask yourself: What is the purpose of the report section?
2.    Has your writing helped you to achieve the section’s purpose in the most concise way?
3.    Make sure every paragraph argues/or develops one core idea
4.    Each paragraph should contain at least three sentences (a common student error is to leave one lone sentence sitting out there on its own. Remember – one sentence is not a paragraph. Unless the sentence is a heading, all sentences should be contained within paragraphs)
5.    Each sentence should be no longer than 12 words, excluding in-text referencing (use the Harvard Author (Year) referencing in the body of your report)
6.    Make sure you are using in-text references to show where every source of ideas/information came from (eg. Keller, 2004 at the beginning or end of sentences in report body)
7.    Each sentence should contain only one idea (more than one idea per sentence is a sure way to lose your reader)
8.    Check that you have included in the end reference list every in-text reference that appeared in the body of a section (ensure you keep adding to your reference list as you go, so you don’t lose track of the sources of information contained in your report)

Week 7-9: Work Book Sheet No. 3
Overview of tasks for weeks 7-9:
1. Brainstorm appropriate marketing objectives
2. Brainstorm an appropriate marketing strategy
3. Consider the best controls

1. Brainstorm appropriate marketing objectives
Before you start to brainstorm, you should ask whether all group members are well informed and confident about critical factors in the marketing audit (see workbook sheet 2). All group members should have read the findings from the PESTEL, micro-environment and SWOT analysis.
Once your group is confident about the situation and PESTEL analysis and the customer profile, you can meet to brainstorm an appropriate positioning and objectives for the campaign. Remember that the objectives you select must be SMART:
S – specific,
M – measurable,
A – actionable and appropriate to the marketing brief,
R – realistic,
T – time specific.
For more details on SMART objectives, see Smith and Taylor, 2004 (Blackboard Reading Lists), Chapter 2, pp. 43-46.

2. Brainstorm an appropriate marketing strategy
To consider the possibilities for your proposed marketing strategy, you could ask the following questions:
1.    How are you going to achieve your marketing objectives?
2.    Broadly, what types of marketing activities will allow you to achieve your marketing objectives?
Consider two possible marketing strategies and argue the strengths and weaknesses of each proposed program within your group, before you choose one. Make sure that the marketing strategy you choose is the strongest in terms of helping you to achieve point 1 above. You will need to discuss 1 and 2 in detail among group members.
Once you have chosen the strongest marketing strategy, design the marketing program. This step involves identifying specific marketing mix activities that will be part of your marketing program.
Now you need to document your group’s justification for your selecting the marketing strategy and program. This will require you to document the logic underpinning your group’s decision for selecting the marketing strategy and program.

3. Consider the best controls
You will need to identify appropriate controls that will allow you to measure the achievement of marketing objectives. For more details on different types of marketing controls see Jobber and Ellis-Chadwick (2013) pp. 838-845.
Tip: If you are having trouble identifying controls that will allow you to evaluate the achievement of marketing objectives, you might want to check whether you objectives are SMART. By definition SMART objectives are measurable. You may need to re-state your marketing objectives so that they are indeed SMART, and can be measured.