Details of the assignment for MBA Marketing Assignment
Instructions:
Market segmentation is a powerful tool in the armoury of marketing strategists. It becomes even more potent weapon when it is combined with marketing research.
You are required to prepare an individual essay of 2,000 words (+/- 10%), which critically analysis in both theory and practice the role market segmentation (including targeting and positioning) and marketing research (various major forms of marketing research) play in strategic marketing. Please link the theory to a real company of your choice located in Oman or in the Middle East.
a) A critical analysis of marketing theory concerning market segmentation and the key concepts in marketing research. (50%)
b) A critical review of how your chosen company could employ marketing research to develop effective market segmentation, targeting and position with its customers in the real world. (40%)
c) Coherency, style and referencing (10%)
You are required to use a minimum of 15 academic references from peer-reviewed journals. Please use Harvard style of referencing. Furthermore, referencing should demonstrate consistency, both in text and in the reference list.
Use most up-to-date references (published in the last 4 years)
You are required to use at least 15 academic references and use Harvard referencing.
Part A – Market Segmentation (worth 50%)
- Choose a company (you can make one up sensibly)
- A little bit of background to the company
- What is segmentation – brief definition plus the importance of segmentation for companies – including evidence from literature (journal articles, books, etc.)
- Discuss the various methods of segmentation; again bring evidence from literature to support your assertions/arguments
- How does your chosen company segment its market currently?
- Evaluate different segmentation approaches and see if your company should adopt them, and if not, why not?
All the above, in red, should be underpinned with theory (references)
- Provide a summary/short conclusion. Tell the reader what you are doing next, i.e. Marketing Research
Part B – Marketing research worth 40%)
- Discuss your proposed research approach – what type of research design (exploratory, descriptive, or causal – or a mixture of two or more approaches) you feel would be appropriate.
- Discuss descriptive research if you want to understand consumers’ attitudes for developing segments.
- Discuss exploratory, qualitative, research if you want to understand consumers’ feelings and motivations
Add one or two references from marketing research literature.
- Discuss your proposed targets (customers of the company)
- Discuss how you intend to select respondents for your research (sampling issues: talk about random or non-random sampling methods briefly and suggest how you should select the respondents).
- Talk about sample size and its implications
Add a reference about sampling here from marketing research literature.
- Discuss your proposed questionnaire you want to use to gather data on customers
- What kind of scales you are going to use to ask attitudinal, behaviour and demographic questions?
Add a reference about questionnaire design here from marketing research literature.
- Discuss, briefly the important issues of validity and reliability here. Add a reference about validity and reliability here from marketing research literature.
Part C – Coherency and referencing (10%)
Please note: You are NOT required to do any research or data collection. You are simply required to propose what you would do and how you would do it if it was a real study.
The details above provide you a very comprehensive framework for doing your assignment.