Lamb Chapter 20 Web Exercise

Marketing Strategy—How It All Fits Together

Vignette: Planet Java is a new product launched by Coca-Cola that has generated such a positive response from consumers that only limited pilot testing was done before the product was launched nationally.

Featured URL: www.cocacola.com

Step By Step
You have probably seen a Russian doll, the kind where each part is a different size and fits into a larger part. A company's marketing strategy is much the same: it has many elements that fit together. One of the more important is the marketing plan, which is central to everything the company is hoping to accomplish. When a company gains competitive advantages and uses them well, its resources and strengths are applied to maximum benefit; also, weaknesses are recognized and steps can be taken to minimize their effect on success.

In Chapter 19 you considered a list of questions in developing a marketing plan for a website that would appeal to senior citizens. You used ideas from existing sites aimed at children and then revised a particular site to appeal to an older market.

Now you will extend this process, by generating guidelines for developing a marketing plan that will encompass a company's entire outlook. You will take your ideas for the website and apply them to develop plans for all aspects of the company. You want to be able to see not only where you are today with your marketing ideas, but also where you plan to go in the future.

For this exercise, choose from one of the following business ideas:

• custom car parts
  
• dance club
  
• personal fitness trainer
  
• holiday gift baskets
  
• exclusive cosmetics
  
• sports gear
  
• another choice approved by your instructor

  Find at least two examples on the Web of sites promoting a similar business in an effective manner. This will provide your with ideas. To get started with your search, see the site ideas listed in the Resources section.

1. Develop a business mission statement for your business
   
2. State your objectives. Include the use of a website to promote your business.
   
3. Conduct a SWOT analysis.
   

Site Ideas

• Open Search Guide to Classic Cars.
  
• Latin and Salsa Dance Club Directory.
  
• Personal Fitness Trainer Marketing Association.
  
• Just Gift Baskets.
  
• Cosmetic Companies Guide.
  
• Sports and fitness gear.
  

Marketing Sites

• Marketing North America Resource Directory.
  
• Canadian Institute of Marketing.
  
• About.com - Marketing.
  
• Marketing Your Business for Success workbook.

Search Sites

• Google.
  
• Dogpile.
  
• Mamma.
  

Handy References

• Dictionary.
  
• Voycabulary.
  
• Thesaurus.
  
• Ask Jeeves.
  
• WWW Virtual Library.
  
• AltaVista-Translator.

These Web Exercises provide an additional opportunity for exploration of Chapter 20.

Super Marketer's Tool Kit

One of the best tool kits you can have as a marketer is a bookmark or favourites file that you can use as an easy reference when you need information related to your field and you need it quickly. There is a vast amount of information available on the Web today, and it is constantly evolving and being modified. One way to keep up is to develop your own list of helpful sites.

If you are using Netscape, you can organize your bookmarks into folders, one for each category. You might have folders for sales, for marketing associations, for marketing agencies, for public relations, and so on.

Once you have organized your bookmarks, save the folders. It is often helpful to name each folder after the date it was last updated. If you have a server, you can do a file transfer and place the bookmarks file on the Web; then you can access it from whichever computer you happen to be using. If you don't have this option, simply save your file to a diskette and carry the diskette with you to use wherever you happen to be.

A personal bookmark file can be especially helpful, as this will display the most commonly used bookmarks along the toolbar for easy access when you are on the Web.
If you use Internet Explorer, you will want to set up folders in your Favorites so that you can easily find the most useful sites. There is nothing more frustrating than having to spend a lot of time looking for a great site when you can no longer remember the key words you used to find it in the first place.

It is also helpful to keep your best search engines and other handy references like a dictionary or thesaurus or library bookmarked–for examples, see the Resources section.

Create your own marketing bookmark or favourites file, and save it to a disk.