Business Plan

Business Description 'Your Story'

1. Business Description “Your Story”
 a. A summary or overview description of your business including the products or services you will produce and your business name.
 b. Your positioning in the market, unique competitive advantage, markets you will serve, your business location, overall pricing strategy, distribution methods and promotion methods.
 c. Sustainability practices.
 
2. Analysis of Current Market Situation
a. Conduct a PESTEL (Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural, Technological, Environmental, Legal) Analysis detailing trends in the market.
Detail a minimum of eight (8) trends in your PESTEL Analysis from a minimum of three (3) factors.
 b. Provide a Market Opportunity Analysis of the potential markets for your product or service including your rationale for starting this type of business.  Include research supporting why you think the opportunity exists and why you are in a good position to start this type of business.
 i. Primary market and secondary markets outlined with supporting research.
 ii. Quantitative analysis including size estimates of the market.
c. Include a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis summarizing your internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats (can be completed in a table format).   
 
3. Product or Service Description
a. Describe the products and/or services your business will produce, including how many products and/or services you plan to sell. Breakdown into categories. Think different revenue streams.
 b. Explain the product and/or service concept and what makes them unique.
 c. Discuss how you plan to package and distribute your products and/or services.
 d. Describe after sales service and support strategies and plans.

 4. Competitive Analysis
a. Provide a detailed discussion and analysis of the competition. This discussion and comparison (see below) is to include your top 3 competitors and their position along key criteria.
  i. years in business ii. stage of business life cycle iii. internal expertise
 iv. products produced v. pricing strategies
 vi. promotion methods vii. customer base viii. markets served ix. unique advantage  x. Sustainability practices.
b. Summarize your competition utilizing a Competition Matrix or Comparison Chart.
 
5. Target Market and Segmentation Methods
 a. Describe in detail what methods you will use for customer segmentation and define your target customer segment(s) including both demographic and psychographic details.
b. A description of your primary, secondary and tertiary customer segment(s) including a persona (see below) of your target customer in each target customer segment.  Explain why you chose the segment(s) you did.  
Detail a minimum of one (1) target segment. ii. Develop a persona for each target customer segment described above presented in a visually appealing, one-page summary with, at a minimum, the following detail: i. Summary / Bio:  includes a compelling persona description that includes customer segmentation details (demographic and psychographic).
 ii. Pains: the customer needs required to be met by the product and / or service. iii. Gains: the benefits that a customer receives by purchasing the product and / or service. iv. Tasks: the activities a customer needs to complete to receive the product and / or service. v. Channels:  the customer’s preferred methods of communication / engagement. vi. Brand Affiliation: other brands with which a customer may affiliate.
6. Pricing Strategy
a. What will your pricing strategy be and what are your reasons for choosing that strategy?  Will your strategy be skimming, penetration, at-the-market, other?  b. How will you know if your pricing strategy is working?   c. How does your pricing strategy compare to that of your competition?
 
7. Location/Distribution –a. Where will you locate your business?  b. Will you rent or buy?  Will you need to renovate?  What are the costs?   c. What are the major reasons you chose that particular location?  d. How will you distribute the products to your customers?     

 8. Promotion Methodsa. Please identify and explain what methods of promotion you will use and why. b. For each target customer segment (see above section), develop a promotional campaign that identifies key messaging, channels to market, and a sample advertisement to be used in the campaign. I Detail a minimum of one (1) promotional campaign.
c. Develop a campaign calendar outlining the proposed timing of all promotional campaign(s) for Year One.  In addition to your campaign calendar, include your Year One Marketing budget on a spreadsheet listing your promotion methods, costs and assumptions.  i. Indicate the sources of information you used to obtain the costs of the various promotion items. Therefore, Research and reference your costs.  
 
9. Marketing Plan Summary    a. What do you see as the strengths of your marketing plan?  Limitations?   b. How and when will you know if your plan is effective?  How and when will you evaluate it?   c. What makes your plan superior to those of your competitors?
 
10. Written Structure and Report Presentation  (not a heading but included for total marks)
 a. Clear headings and organization of the Report b. Proper use of the language including a complete lack of spelling and grammatical errors, c. Professional use of APA Referencing throughout the Report, and  d. Language used in the report is compelling to the reader to convey the information contained within the Report.