Capstone Assessment – Strategic and Tactical Marketing Plan

Executive summary 

[On a separate page, your executive summary should include what you did, how you did it, what your main findings were and what your key recommendations are. Although the executive summary appears at the beginning of the document, it should be written last after completing the assessment. This section is excluded from the word count.]

• Introduction

[This section explains to your reader what you are going to tell them in the body of your report. It gives the background to the report and explains why it is useful. Moreover, it should state the aim/purpose and objective/s of the report, should mention any limitations and should present a very brief summary of the sections.

As you have already discussed your organisation (brand) and product (good, service, experience or idea) in the interim assessment, you can very briefly paraphrase some of that key information to give a little context. Make sure to rephrase and not self-plagiarise. 

The introduction also gives a good opportunity to summarise key findings from the interim assessment, such as the target market, to help set the scene for the discussion of your persona (only one) in the report. This section is included in the word count. ]

• Target Market Persona

[Describe a (only one) data driven customer persona in detail (that should represent the target market segment identified in your interim assessment). 

This section should start by briefly addressing the question: ‘Why did you focus on this particular persona?’ Thus, for example, if your target market was men and women, above 25 years old etc., why did you chose to focus your persona creation on women?  Are they a bigger part of your target market? Or, are they are new target market? etc. 

This section is included in the word count.]

• Marketing Mix Analysis and Recommendations

[Provide justified marketing mix recommendations for your persona utilising all 7Ps. The recommendations should be based on an analysis of the current marketing mix and identification of gaps considering your customer persona and market situation analysis (from your interim assignment). Include where necessary ethical considerations, particularly when proposing recommendations for communication strategies.

Literature should also be brought in when deciding what to recommend in order to strengthen your argument. For example, if you are proposing a loyalty program, use the literature to, e.g.  introduce what a loyalty program is, how common these programs are in customer service, how successful they are, etc.  

In this section, you should consider the comments made in the following seminal article:

Magrath, A J 1986, ‘When marketing services 4Ps are not enough’, Business Horizons, May-June, pp. 44-50.

This section is included in the word count.]

• Conclusion

[The conclusion should be brief. It should summarise the whole of the assessment or project and tie it together without introducing new material. This section is included in the word count.]

References 

[On a separate page, type references here, in alphabetical order. See the AIB Style Guide for format.   This section is excluded from the word count.]

 Appendix 1 

[On a separate page…Title of Appendix 1… This section is excluded from the word count.]

If you have used internal (not publicly available) secondary data sources, include a signed Organisational Consent as an appendix.