Trader Joe Marketing Plan
You are a marketing specialist tasked with creating a tempting dessert that will effectively extend Trader Joe’s current specialty dessert product line of frozen pumpkin cheesecake and strawberries dipped in white chocolate. Then, your assignment is to develop a marketing plan to launch the new dessert nationally within the network of TJ stores.
Before reading any further, we would like you to review Appendix A “Building an effective Marketing Plan” (pp. 56-70) and Chapters 21-22. Please feel free to look up marketing plans in other literature, as well, as you may need it for the paper. As you can see, marketing plans often differ in nature and content depending on many factors such as the nature of the industry, management needs, and the purpose of the plan. However, most plans follow a similar structure. A product or brand plan would include all of the following components (below). Please use this framework to develop the marketing plan for your new dessert:
- Executive Summary – a very short (200-250 words) summary outlining the goals and recommendations included in the plan.
- Situation Analysis – a concise description (350-700 words) of the current relevant conditions in the market:
- Market Summary
- Market Needs
- Competition
- Market Trends
- SWOT Analysis
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Opportunities
- Threats
- Market Summary
- Marketing Strategies – The main body of the plan explaining the logic by which you hope to achieve your marketing objectives. This includes identifying the target market, outlining the marketing mix strategies and the level of expenditure.
- Marketing Objectives
- Marketing Strategies
- Marketing Tactics
- Marketing Strategies
- Target market
- Demographics
- Psychographics
- Product positioning (USP)
- Marketing Mix
- Pricing
- Quantity
- Product review
- Features, benefits
- Points of difference
- Promotion
- IMC
- Message
- Media
- Advertising
- Sales Promotion
- IMC
- Distribution
- Types
- Pricing
- Implementation Milestones
- Marketing Objectives
- Annotated Bibliography – Please be sure to attach an annotated bibliography to your marketing plan that documents all your sources for the project.
Assignment Instructions
In doing this term project, you will demonstrate a sound understanding of Marketing Principles and the various methods for developing overall marketing strategy. You are to present your marketing plan in a professional manner. Your marketing plan will include a title page, table of contents, an annotated bibliography, and appendices (if needed). Be sure to reference the textbook and cite any and all sources correctly, so that your academic integrity is not called into question. Overall, your final project is expected to be 3,750 – 4,250 words (10-12 pages, 12 point font, 1.5 line spacing).
It should be well written and organized, in proper format (APA, MLA or Chicago), using proper sentence structure and spellchecked. The How to create an Annotated Bibliography and Research and Library Tips pages of the Course Information documents will assist you in successfully completing this assignment.
The evaluation of the marketing plan will consider your ability to apply the techniques of marketing planning, strategy development, and implementation to a real world business scenario. For further information on how you are graded please review the Writing Rubric.
Sources: Trader Joe’s: This case was prepared by Professor Linda Rochford, associate professor of marketing, University of Minnesota, Duluth, from the following sources: “Trader Joe’s Company,” www.hovers.com; SN’s Top 75 Retailers for 2009, supermarketnews.com, accessed October 15, 2009; David Orgel, “Trader Joe’s President Shares Secrets of Success,” Supermarket News, February 6, 2006; Joy Buchanan, “More Than Just Goat Cheese,” Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News, December 9, 2005; Mark Hamstra, “Convenience Only One Small Part of Total Value Equation,” Supermarket News, July 17, 2006; and “Behind the Scenes at Trader Joe’s,” Private Label Buyer 20, no. 4 (April 2006)
