15

Marketing Plan

Goals:

• Use customer and competitor survey data to identify market niche for student business
• Calculate market niche sales potential

Skills:

• Writing
• Conceptualizing math analysis strategies
• Using weighted averages

Overview:

Up to this point, students have been self-assessing their business interests and capabilities, conceptualizing their business concepts and goals, and gathering data related to potential customers and competitors. The remaining sections of the course involve assimilating this information into a cohesive and practical Marketing and Financial Plan. This requires students to utilize analytical (math) skills and write a clear and integrated business plan.

In this chapter, students combine the customer and competitor data into a Marketing Plan. From the customer survey data, the students determine the overall market sales potential for all businesses providing a similar product or service in their service area. Students then incorporate competitor survey data and available resources to identify their market niche sales and estimate the potential sales for their business.