Week 8 Assignment – Offensive Marketing Plan.
Week 8 Assignment – Offensive Marketing Plan.
Read the case study, Stopping Outshopping [PDF] (also found in Chapter 32 of your textbook). Then, use the Internet or Strayer library to research similar marketing strategies in the health care industry.
Assignment Instructions
Your task is to create an offensive marketing plan for Scarlet Hospital. The competition has already created a marketing plan that advertises in your area, so your marketing plan should reflect that.
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Chapter 39 in Health Care Marketing outlines Philip Kotler’s Marketing Plan. Read through this to understand what you will need to include in your plan.
You may want to watch some of the videos found in the LinkedIn Learning course, Writing a Marketing Plan, to get specifics on the different parts of a plan.
You may also want to review the article 8 Important Steps to Successfully Implement Your Marketing Plan.
Your plan should be 4–6 pages and include the following eight sections:
An Executive Summary and Table of Contents that summarizes the key points of the marketing plan including any recommendations and strategies and has an itemized table of contents for the plan that make each of the sections easy to find.
An explanation of the Current Marketing Situation that determines whether Scarlet Hospital is ready to fully compete aggressively based on market research, and existing marketing plan.
An Opportunity and Issue Analysis that assesses the existing marketing plan, while making recommendations on the direction Scarlet Hospital should follow. It should also include a review of the Scarlet hospital strategy for assessing the potential for a change or enhancement to generate revenue.
Objectives for an offensive marketing plan using techniques like market penetration, market development and product development.
A Market Strategy that proposes a one-page offensive strategy (such as communication, branding, or innovation) that Scarlet Hospital should deploy in order to turn the table on opposing health care providers and improve its competitive marketing position.
An outline of Action Programs that can be put in place by Scarlet Hospital to protect its market share and thus decrease the chance of losing patients to other institutions. Action programs should also reflect an awareness of the current events that contribute to the risk of losing patients to other institutions.
Financial Projections that allow Scarlet Hospital to determine if any financial reinforcement is needed for the offensive marketing strategy.
Implementation Controls that include a review of the marketing team’s plan, communication and project timeline to ensure those pieces contribute to the success of the marketing strategy being implemented.
Use 3 sources to support your writing. Choose sources that are credible, relevant, and appropriate. Cite each source listed on your source slide at least one time within your assignment. For help with research, writing, and citation, access the library or review library guides. These sources can be the last page of the plan
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours. Week 8 Assignment – Offensive Marketing Plan.
Week 8 Assignment – Offensive Marketing Plan.