• The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
  • Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of this definition.
  • Defend how you would change the definition.
  • Assess whether the definition is clear, accurate, relevant, and current in today’s organizations and society.

• Many people think of marketing as only promotion. However, marketing is much more. A common way of understanding the essentials of marketing is using the 4Ps model—product, price, place, and promotion.
  • Analyze each of the 4Ps and explain how they create value for organizations. Remember, value creation is any type of activity or outcome that will add to the long-term success of the organization. It is more than simply economic value and includes enhancements such as customer good will, employee satisfaction, supplier networks, managerial skills and experience, and ethical or community factors. Creating value can include intangible as well as tangible assets, such as intellectual property and a business plan.
  • Justify which of the four functions (4Ps) seems to provide the most value to organizations.

• Marketing has evolved into a major business function that crosses all areas of an organization. For example, marketing may advise production about how much of the company’s product to make and then may tell logistics when to ship it. Accordingly, marketing influences business practices and it may also have wider influence on society.
  • Assess the importance of marketing to society.
  • Evaluate how marketing has changed society.
  • Analyze how marketing has impacted today’s lifestyle.

• A SWOTT analysis helps evaluate current performance and future potential, especially in relation to competitors. Organizations use SWOTT to assess strengths and weaknesses within the organization, threats and opportunities from outside the organization, and trends that might have long-term consequences for the organization and the industry as a whole.
  • Perform a brief SWOTT analysis on a company of your choice as seen through the eyes of a marketing manager.
  • Justify some recommendations for overcoming factors that might impede progress of the organization and for taking advantage of factors that could benefit the organization.

• Market growth is accomplished by one or more of the following strategies: Market Penetration (increasing market share), Market Development (new markets), Product Development (new products or services), and Diversification (promoting new or expanding existing products to reach a new market). Remember, the diversification strategy stands apart from the other three strategies. The first three strategies are pursued with the same technical, financial, and merchandising resources used for the original product line, whereas diversification usually requires a company to acquire new skills, new techniques, and new facilities.
  • Assess each of these strategies and provide an example for each category.
  • Out of the four strategies, choose a strategy that best suits growth in a company of your choice and justify how you would use this strategy.

Justify your answers with examples, research, and reasoning.Your initial posting should be the equivalent of 1.5 single-spaced pages (700 to 800 words) in length. Be sure to cite your sources using APA format.

PART 2

Course Project – Developing a Marketing Strategy

This course has major project assignments due in Week 3 and Week 5. It will take more than a week's effort to adequately complete them. Plan time to start the research and work on those assignments earlier than the week in which they are due.For the course project of this course, you will select an organization, analyze the market for the organization’s product/service, analyze the organization’s current marketing strategy, and justify recommendations for the marketing strategy to make the organization more effective.To assist you in planning for the course project, the following table provides a high-level overview of the project deliverables during the course.

Choosing an Organization

In this first week of your course project, select an organization to study in depth over the next five weeks. Each week, your assignment will require you to evaluate this organization. You may use an organization you currently belong to, a past organization, or an organization that you identify through research. Be sure to review the types of information you will need for the project (all five weeks) before choosing your organization. You might need to create some hypothetical details to fill gaps in researched information. However, the project should use as much real information as possible.You should have your organization approved by your instructor before moving forward with the assignment. Contact your instructor early in the week to gain approval.For the Week 1 paper, complete the following tasks:

• Summarize key details about your organization. What does it do? Who are its customers, clients, prospects, or constituents? For convenience in this class, we will call them customers.
• Perform a SWOTT analysis, placing particular emphasis on long-term trends affecting your organization and what your competitors are doing.
• Analyze the organization’s mission statement. Does it address the following core components?
  • Customers—who do we serve?
  • Product/service—what do we provide?
  • Market—who/where are our customers?
  • Core competencies—how do we provide or deliver our product/service? What gives us a competitive advantage?
  • Measurability—how do we know when we are successful?
• Defend a new/revised mission statement. It should be a succinct statement of what the organization is, what it does, and who its customers are. Be sure to support why your revisions are an improvement to the current mission statement.

Submission Details:

• Submit your plan in a 3- to 4-page Microsoft Word document, using APA style.

NEEDS COVER PAGE. APA FORMAT. 4 REFERENCES WITH URL PLEASE. 3-4 PAGES.