Business Administration 162 - Principles of Marketing - Cardona

The purpose of this stepwise assignment is to provide an opportunity to play the role of marketing manager and gain valuable, first-hand experience in writing, organizing, and polishing a marketing plan.

In this first part, you will be beginning what will be come your Executive Summary for your marketing plan. This  starts as a general description of your product. You will begin with:

• describing the good or service you plan to market 
• why the good or service is needed
• likely customers for your good or service
• your company situation and the purpose of this plan
• marketing objectives and performance measurements
• creating a SWOT Analysis

What is SWOT?

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that is used to assess the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in an organization, business or a project. 

Information in a SWOT analysis is organized into internal and external factors.

An examination of strengths & weaknesses of a company is a internal look at current company operations. It is used to identify what the company does well and where it need to improve.

An examination of the external environment in which a company operates involves identifying industry trends & outside forces that pose future threats or opportunities for the company.

SWOT, as seen above, breaks down to:

• Strengths: things your company does well, qualities that separate you from competitors, internal resources such as skilled, knowledgable staff and tangible assets such as intellectual property, capital, proprietary technologies, etc.
• Weaknesses: things your company lacks, things your competitors do better than you, resource limitations, and unclear unique selling proposition.
• Opportunities: underserved markets for specific products, few competitors in your area, emerging need for your products an services, and press/media coverage of your company.
• Threats: emerging competitors, changing regulatory environments, negative press/media coverage, and changing customer attitudes toward your company

Example SWOT Analysis

Here’s a sample SWOT matrix for an online tailored-shirt business. Although many more factors came up during brainstorming, these were deemed to be the most important.

Info sources from WordStream, UNO LibGuide, LIU Post LibGuide, Shopify.

Find SWOT Analyses in GCC Library Databases