Posted: June 9th, 2015

Marketing Plan Progress Assignment 3

Marketing Plan Progress Assignment 3

Customer Analysis and Distribution

Once you have completed the SWOT analysis, you can start thinking about segmentation, targeting and positioning.

1. Use Mediamark Research, IBISWorld, journal articles, and/or any other relevant sources you can find to learn about the existing consumers of your product/brand.

Be sure to address:

1. Demographic profile – Create a demographic profile of current users. Investigate factors such as typical occupations, marital status, sex, household head, race, education, age, household income, stage in family life cycle, and social class. You may wish to include graphs to visually reinforce and consolidate your written description.
2. Psychographic profile – Create a psychographic profile of heavy users. Investigate or infer user personality, values, and lifestyles.
3. Buying behavior profile. What is the purchase occasion? What benefits are sought? What is the usage pattern? Consider when used, where used, how used, frequency of use, average amount used, urban density of consumers (rural, urban, suburban), geographic regions of heaviest usage, and so on.

2. BCG & Product Life Cycle

1. In what Boston Consulting Group (BCG) quadrant would your place your product/brand/company? What data and source of data did you use to come to this conclusion?
2. What stage is your product/brand/company in – in the product life cycle? How did you come to this conclusion?
3. How is your company managing this stage?

3. Distribution analysis

1. Diagram and briefly discuss channels of distribution for your brand from the manufacturer to the consumer. Include types of intermediaries (wholesalers, retailers) and their functions in each channel,
2. Determine whether distribution is international, national, regional, or local.
3. Determine if distribution is intensive, selective, or exclusive.

Note: Often a short interview with a store manager can provide you with this information.