Sonic Marketing Plan & Exercises

With Chapter 3: Jane Melody asks you to scan Sonic’s external environment for early warning signals of new opportunities and emerging threats that could affect the success of the Sonic 1000 PDA. Using Internet or library sources (or both), locate information to answer three questions about key areas of the macroenvironment. What demographic changes are likely to affect Sonic’s targeted segments? What economic trends might influence buyer behavior in Sonic’s targeted segments? How might the rapid pace of technological change alter Sonic’s competitive situation? Enter your answers about Sonic’s environment in the appropriate sections of a written marketing plan to record your comments. With Chapter 4: Your next task is to consider how marketing research can help Sonic support its marketing strategy. Jane Melody also asks you how Sonic can measure results after the marketing plan is implemented.

She wants you to answer the following three questions. What surveys, focus groups, observation, behavioral data, or experiments will Sonic need to support its marketing strategy? Be specific about the questions or issues that Sonic needs to resolve using marketing research. Where can you find suitable secondary data about total demand for PDAs over the next two years? Identify at least two sources (online or off-line), describe what you plan to draw from each source, and indicate how the data would be useful for Sonic’s marketing planning. Recommend three specific marketing metrics for Sonic to apply in determining marketing effectiveness and efficiency. Enter this information in the marketing plan you’ve been writing to document your responses.