ECOM-340 Internet Marketing – Course Project on “Antique and Collections trade website”, A+ Tutorials

Course Project: E-Commerce Marketing Plan

Purpose

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Guidelines

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Grading Rubrics

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Due Dates

 Purpose

The purpose of the Course Project is to demonstrate mastery of Terminal Course Objectives by developing a marketing plan for an E-commerce website.

The E-commerce website that you select for the Marketing Plan can be a real company or one that you create for the purpose of the assignment. This can be a business-to-consumer company, or a business-to-business company. You may select any industry of personal interest, as long as the primary business of the company is selling products or services online.

For an existing company or for one that you create, make the assumption that you have a budget sufficient enough to recommend whatever marketing programs you deem appropriate to reaching your target audience.

 Guidelines

IMPORTANT: Remember that a Marketing Plan is not a business plan. You do not need to explain how to create a company or an E-commerce website. You do not need to raise capital or make sales projections. Instead, assume that you have a functioning E-commerce site that requires an annual Marketing Plan to sustain your existing business and to expand for the future.

The E-Commerce Marketing Plan

The main focus of this plan is to describe how you will market your e-commerce business to prospects and to customers. While certain principles apply to all E-commerce marketing, tailor your marketing plan to your unique target audience. For example, you would use different online marketing techniques to reach college students than you would to reach older adults preparing for retirement. Your Marketing Plan should provide specific examples of how you can reach your target audience by describing techniques that you can use to achieve these key strategic objectives:

• Reach and acquire new customers.
• Provide superior service to existing customers.
• Encourage regular site visits and additional sales.
• Brand your company.

Explain how your company might use many of these or other specific online marketing techniques in order to accomplish the key objectives listed above:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Paid Keyword Search Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing
• Reciprocal Links
• E-mail Marketing
• Online Advertising
• Social Networking
• Blogs
• Widgets

 Grading Rubrics

Your project will be evaluated according to the stated assignment criteria as noted below, and to the degree that your E-Commerce Marketing Plan demonstrates mastery of TCOs and E-commerce best practices, as discussed in our course. Make sure you include both strategic principles and specific tactical examples of online marketing techniques that will improve the customer experience and build customer lifetime value.

While the contents of an E-commerce Marketing Plan are unique to each company, here is the suggested outline for your Course Project. Your outline might differ slightly depending on your chosen company, but should cover these key areas (the percentages by each one show the relative importance of each section):

%

Category	Points	Description
Course Project Topic (Week 1)	10	3	Submit the name of the company or product you selected for your e-Commerce Marketing Plan using the form found in Doc Sharing
One-page Outline (Week 3)	20	6	Submit a detailed outline for our e-Commerce Marketing Plan
Project First Draft (Week 5)	40	13	Submit a draft of your e-Commerce Marketing Plan.  A Draft is an almost done paper.

    

Final Marketing Plan (Week 7)

..

Submit Final Copy of your e-Commerce Marketing Plan.

Executive

Summary

 

  25

  8

A brief description of your eBusiness with a short summary of your marketing niche and Unique Selling Proposition.

Market Summary/Target Audience(s)

 

100

 31

A description of the main market you serve and the details of the target markets that you plan to reach (demographics, psychographics, lifestyles, unique characteristics, trends, etc.)

Specific Marketing Strategies

 100

 31

The heart of your plan, showing how you will use specific online marketing techniques (as noted above) to successfully market your E-Commerce business.

Summary  25  8

Finally, your plan should incorporate a wrap-up of your ideas by summarizing key thoughts, goals, strategy, and implementation. How you plan to meet timing objectives should also be summarized at this time. Also, recommendations as to future enhancements and additions can be part of this last section.

Total

 320

100

A quality paper will meet or exceed all of the above requirements.

 

  Due Dates

• Week 1, you must submit the name of the company or product that you are selecting using the form found in Doc Sharing.
• During Week 3, submit a one-page outline about your marketing plan.
• During Week 5, submit a draft of your e-Commerce Marketing Plan.
• Week 7, Your Final Marketing Plan is due.

Submit your assignment to the Dropbox located on the silver tab at the top of this page. For instructions on how to use the Dropbox, read these

Step-by-Step Instructions

or watch this

Dropbox Tutorial

.

See Syllabus/”Due Dates for Assignments & Exams” for due date information.

Download a copy of the above information from Doc Sharing.