What is your role?
You and Susan now have a good sense of the size of Petopia’s market opportunity. You now need to start thinking about how you’re going to get customers to call for your van. To do so, you’ll develop a marketing plan for Petopia’s first year.

Why is this assignment important?
A good marketing plan doesn’t just tell you where your advertising dollars will be spent. In essence, it helps you define the actions you will take to best present your business to your target audience.

Investing the time up front to figure out how you can reach your target audience in the most cost-effective manner can keep you from spending advertising money impulsively or unnecessarily. Setting a marketing budget for both your money and for your time is a critical element of managing scarce resources. You’ll be able to focus your time and energy on running your business operations, knowing that you’ve put a sound strategy in place to promote your business. Not having a comprehensive marketing plan can cause significant problems, not the least of which could be a decline in sales.

Remember that developing an effective marketing plan is just one aspect of promoting your business. At this time, you should also start thinking about how you intend to retain customers and about how you and your employees can be good salespeople for your business.

How will this assignment work?
In this assignment, you’ll review several advertising options that are available to Petopia. Armed with this information, you’ll use an Excel workbook to plan Petopia’s advertising spending for its first year. You’ll explain your choices and the rationale for them to Susan by answering worksheet questions.

What Next: Click What's involved in creating a marketing plan?