Marketing Plan SOSTAC Model

This assignment should be presented in a standard marketing plan format of 4,000 words. The marketing
plan should follow the SOSTAC model. It is vital to read and understand the marking rubric.
Evaluate ONE company of choice. This organisation can be an international firm. The marketing plan
should be based on one particular geographic area (e.g. Skechers in Singapore, ally propo Singapore
focused). This plan should identify the current ways the company generates value for stakeholders in the
chosen geographic area and some regional influence.
A marketing plan is a business document written for the purpose of explaining the current local market
position of a business and its marketing strategy for the period covered by the marketing plan. Marketing
plans usually cover a period of one year. The assessment will require writing an individual marketing plan
covering a period of one year. The purpose of coursework is to clearly exhibit the steps or actions that
have been taken to achieve the planned goals. For example, a marketing plan might have a strategy to
increase the organization’s market share by ten percent. The plan would then outline the strategy and
steps that need to be achieved in order to reach a ten percent increase in market share.
Marketing Plan for an existing company in your chosen subject area.
As the assignment for this module, you are required to write a Marketing Plan assessing the CURRENT
marketing strategies of an existing company in your subject area from the list below. You should evaluate
ONE company of your choice; however, every individual’s brand selection has to differ and assess this
company.
You will be evaluating:
S – Situational analysis (assessing the current macro and micro environment)
O – Objectives (TWO SMART objectives). These objectives will derive from the TOWS analysis/company
website etc.
S – Strategy (assessing the current strategies & recommend new strategies which relate to the 2 SMART
objectives)
T – Tactics (assessing the current & recommend new tactics in relation to the strategies)
A – Action (Please use a Gantt chart to help explain the actions as part of the tactical plans) (INCLUDES A
DETAILED 1-YEAR MARKETING BUDGET)
C – Control (You can either investigate what the company is currently doing or make suggestions via
further reading.) (State the company’s KPI’s in conjunction with the objectives set & list out the control
and measurement methods that you will deploy)
Coursework Structure
Executive summary – limit to one page providing complete converge of each section of your plan. The
reader should be able to have a basic understanding of all aspects of your plan. The summary assists the
reader in understanding your plan.
Introduction – Intro in to the marketing plan
The main body of Work – it should contain the following stages.
STAGE 1
Situational analysis – The situation analysis should provide an overview of the organisation/market
offering (product or service) by addressing internal and external factors impacting the business.
The situation analysis can be organised into three sections:
• Market Analysis
• Competitor Analysis
• Company Analyses
With key models (TOWS, PESTEL, value chain, Product Life Cycle etc.) and marketing concepts applied.
Tables can be used, but a critical discussion of the most important elements which directly influence the
objectives, strategy and implementation must be critically discussed. This can be a paragraph under tables
such as PESTEL or TOWS/Porter’s five forces. Problems may result from internal resource limitations,
environmental trends, or competitor actions. They may influence the whole industry or just your company.
Some may be solvable, while others may not be. Opportunities can often result from environmental trends
or a mistake by your competitors. It may be useful to consider where the product is located in the product
life cycle.
Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning (STP)- Helps brings to life who your existing customers are and
what their motivations are. Additional concepts such as brand personality, perceptual map, unique selling
point (USP) can be used to help explain “positioning”.
STAGE 2
Objectives- Your marketing planning framework should focus on the Objective/s of your strategy. Stage 1
looked at the situation analysis which provided an overview of your organization, specifically: addressing
internal and external factors impacting your business. Typical objectives include sales, profits, market
share, advertising awareness, etc.
Objectives are outcomes and cannot be directly controlled. For example, to spend four million dollars on
advertising is a planned action. Advertising spending can have several measurable outcomes or objectives;
aided and unaided recall, change in product positioning, or sales. Be careful not to state planned actions as
objectives.
To help create your objectives, I recommend using measurable and realistic goals to achieve the marketing
strategy, focusing on ensuring you make each objective
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant & Time-Bound (SMART).
You are required to devise 2 (TWO) smart objectives; these will derive from either:
a) existing objectives that may be found on a company’s website
b) objectives can also derive from the TOWS analysis
Each objective will have its own strategy and implementation/tactic.
STAGE 3
Strategy – Strategy means how you plan to get there in terms of fulfilling the objectives set.
A marketing strategy is a broad directional statement that describes how marketing objectives will be
accomplished. Within our marketing plan, the marketing strategies represent a first overview of various
marketing tools and how they will be used to achieve the marketing objectives. While marketing
objectives are specific, quantifiable, and measurable, marketing strategies are descriptive.
In other words, you are expected to apply marketing strategic frameworks here! Such as Ansoff matrix,
brand extension, line extension etc…
Remember you will need a:
• Strategy for objectives 1 & 2
STAGE 4
Implementation or Tactics – Tactics cover the specific tools of the marketing mix (7p’s – Product, Price,
Place, Promotion, People, Process and Physical Evidence) that you plan to use to realise the objectives of
your marketing plan. This section of a marketing plan relates to putting the strategy into action (step by
step) you would be going into a lot more detail for each tactic.
To help achieve the objectives above, use the 7p’s of the Marketing Mix to focus on the key attributes to
be considered by Company X in order to meet your objectives. As stated, each objective has its own
Strategy. Therefore the implementation section goes into critical explanation and justification of the step
by step action of each strategy by using the relevant attributes of the marketing mix.
STAGE 5
Action – focused on bringing your plan to life to make actionable measures. The action section covers what
needs to be achieved for each of the tactics listed in the previous section of the SOSTAC plan to realise the
objectives of your marketing plan.
List out a 1-year marketing budget.
STAGE 6
Control – The final stage is to lay out the plan to monitor and measure the performance based on the
objectives set in stage 2. The tactics have been considered, and the control section provides with a series
of tailored dashboards for each tactic. Look to set the KPI’s per tactic that ties back into the objectives set
and set up a weekly/monthly set of monitoring dashboards to ensure it is on track to meet the objectives
set.
Conclusion – It should be the summary of your key findings and recommendations.
References – Must follow the APA 7th Edition Style.