When a company focuses on organic growth to build its revenues, scanning the competitive landscape is important to develop unique points of differentiation that make the product stand out. Understanding a company’s competition also helps the marketer shape the value proposition, or the reason why the target market should buy the product or service. In other words, why should a consumer buy your product?
You decide to meet with you marketing team to start brainstorming ideas for Sof-A-Logue.com. Your team includes 3 branding managers, responsible for specific product lines; 2 graphic artists; 2 copywriters; 1 Web site developer; 1 market research analyst; and 1 advertising manager.
The First Meeting
To prepare for the meeting, it is important to introduce the new project to the team. The timeline to introduce the strategic marketing plan to the executive committee is short. Your team needs to research the market, the competition, and other background information to develop the strategy that will be presented to upper management.
Because some of the team members may be unfamiliar with basic marketing concepts, you will design a brief e-handout that can outline points of discussion for the meeting. The e-handout will define some basic marketing concepts as well as how you will apply them to Sof-A-Logue.com’s situation.
Part 1: Research for the E-Handout
Using company Web sites and articles from the library’s full-text databases, research the current national marketing strategies of 2 like-sized competitors in Sof-A-Logue’s industry.
Provide a brief background of the companies and the industry in which they compete.
Describe the strategies used by each company.
