Guides: Marketing: MARK 3013: Marketing Practicum

1. Assessment One: Report/Marketing Plan

This guide was created to help you find information for Assessment 1: Report/Marketing Plan

See your Course Outline and LearnOnline page for a detailed description of your assignment question.

2. Plan your search

Key questions you will need to know to help you search for information

1. Is your company Australian or international?

2. Is the company private, public or non profit?

3. What industry does the company belong to?

4. What information do you need about the company or industry? Annual reports, financial data, industry profile, market research or news media?

Tip: Visit your brand's website and spend time exploring. Look for things like 'about us', 'our story', 'our company' to find out more about your brand.

Plan your search - More help
For more help in planning your search take a look at the 'Plan your Search' page in the Marketing guide.

SWOT Analysis is a model that analyses an organisation's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to create the foundation of a marketing strategy.

Have a look at these sites for help with conducting a SWOT analysis:

SWOT analysis guide (University of California)
A guide to using SWOT analysis from Univeristy of California Santa Barbara
SWOT analysis video
A short (4:39 min.) video from AssistKD which introduces the concept of the SWOT analysis and looks at how it influences understanding of the strategic position of an organisation.

A PESTLE (or PEST) analysis examines factors assessing the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental landscape around your company or industry.

Use PESTLE when analysing the external environment, particularly the macro-environment. Look for trends in the macro-environment specifically to expose potential opportunities and threats.

Try these sites for more information on conducting PESTLE analysis:

PEST analysis
An explanation of PEST analysis from QuickMBA
PESTLE analysis
A short (2:23 min.) video from AssistKD which offers an overview of PESTLE analysis

4. Company and industry information

Have a look at our online guide to finding Company and industry information.

This guide will help you search the web and our databases to find company and industry information, financial information, annual reports and country information.

Tip: The databases below are a good starting point. Head to the Company and Industry Information guide to find tips, tricks, and more useful databases.

IBIS World
Contains reports on the top 2000 companies in Australia as well as reports on industries in Australia.
D&B Hoovers
Includes access to industry and market research reports, both Australian and Global. Also includes SWOT Analysis reports for the top 5,000 global companies.

5. Market Research

WARC

WARC is an in-depth marketing and advertising resource with research, reports, case studies and insights into brands and consumers.

An easy to use, fun to explore and highly recommended resource.

Tip: Try a general search first, for example for VOK, try searching for wine or alcohol. You can then filter your search with the option on the left side including region and date range

How to explore consumer insights for an industry

1. Select Topics search for beverages within results

2. Select Consumer & Audiences

3. Select your consumer demographic

4) Type your industry in the 'Search within'

Passport GMID

Passport GMID is a global market research database providing company and industry information, sales trends, marketing developments and market strategies.

Below is an example of a search for a country report for internet retailing in Australia. This type of report can give a good analysis on the industry as well as providing information on key competitors in the market.

Business Source Ultimate helps you locate scholarly and industry information covering all business topics.

This is an example of an Advanced Search using Business Source Ultimate.

You can limit your search by date range and source type (Market Research Reports, Industry Profiles, etc.) from the box on the left hand side of the results screen.

6. Study Help

Now that you have your information it is time to get started writing your marketing plan.

Study Help is a useful tool packed with resources to help with your assignments and studies so please visit and explore.

Report Writing
Resources and tips for report writing.
Assignment Writing
Resources and tips for assignment planning and writing.

7. Referencing Support

Need help referencing? Follow the roadmap!

Referencing Roadmap (Harvard)
Help with the Harvard UniSA referencing style. Find in text-citations and reference examples, from different sources such as articles, books & chapters, websites, and more.

Other referencing support tools:

Referencing forum

Referencing forum
Discuss referencing, exchange advice and post questions and answers about referencing (facilitated by Student Engagement Unit).

Referencing software (EndNote)

What do you do with all those references you have found?

Use a bibliographic management software to store, organise and cite your references. The Library supports the bibliographic management tool EndNote. There are also many free systems available.