Week 3 Journal

Marketing Planning Checklist 2 A answer these questions in relation to your Group Live Case Study Project

In relation to my group’s case study, UCU Refectory, it is hard to answer the questions as they have provided us with minimal information, however I will try to answer in terms of recommending what they should do.

1. Were the appropriate personnel & stakeholders involved in planning? Who are they?
The personnel who is involved planning is the UCU personnel, the stakeholders include the UC staff and students as well as outside customers.In terms of planning, the UCU staff have been the only stakeholders involved, as it was a last minute decision to re-do the refectory.

2. How would you plan this?
I would have interviewed staff and students to see what they would like to have done to the refectory to include these stakeholders into the planning process. This could be done in the form of a simple survey of a sample of students/staff.

3. How was progress measured?
Progressed could be measured in different ways in terms of time managementand the financial budget ( for the restoration, new branding, and promotion).

4. Were suitable metrics and measurement intervals selected for measuring progress?
No

5. Were planning decisions made after investigating multiple options to address opportunities, threat and competitive situations?
No

6. Were marketing metrics, forecasts, schedules, budgets and implementation responsibilities clearly delineated, realistic coordinated and communicated effectively?
The scheduled finish date for the refectory is in November, however i am not sure if this information has been communicated to the University.

7. How can the marketing planning and implementation be managed better in the future and improved?
To have a plan before starting major changes within the UCU business. Use suitable metrics and sampling methods to see what they should be altering, instead of altering what they (the UCU staff) thinks should be done.

Marketing Planning Checklist 2 B

1. What constitutes good marketing research?
Good marketing research is a large range of different research secondary and primary.

The most successful way to conduct this research is by following the Marketing Research Process.

Characteristics of good marketing research include: Scientific method, research creativity, multiple methods, interdependence, value and cost of information, healthy skepticism and ethical marketing.

2. What are good metrics for measuring marketing productivity?
There are two categories for marketing metrics; these are External and Internal metrics.

External metrics include: market share, relative price, number of complaints, customer satisfaction, distribution, total number of customers and loyalty.

Internal metrics include: awareness of goals, commitment to goals, active support, resource adequacy, staffing levels, desire to learn, willingness to change, freedom to fall and autonomy.

Each of these metrics has their own measuring system, whether it is qualitative or quantitive.

3. How can marketers assess their return on investment of marketing expenditures?
Profitability, market share, loss leading.

4. How can companies more accurately measure and forecast demand?
Companies can measure forecast demand in a range of ways including: surveying buyers’ intentions, sales trends, composite of sales force opinions, expert opinions, past-sales analysis and market-test method.

5. Do they follow the Marketing Research Process: Strategic Issues and Considerations
· Problem identification
· Formulate research objectives
· Determine sources and types of data
· Research design
· Data Collection
· Data Analysis
· Results presentation

No, as it was a last minute decision, there was no market research implemented before re-doing the refectory.


Week 3 Blog Response

“I think the grant finder is successful with its easy layout, use of buttons and functions such as dragging favorites to quickly bookmark particular grants that the user is interested in. The tabs are relevant to what the users are looking for, as well as having an extensive search bar.

I don't think there were any grants that would suit the UCU events project.
However, the Canberra Business Development Fund seems most suited to this project than the others as our project meets the fund criteria.”

* Since this blog our group has changed to the UCU Operations – Food Court project.