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← Unit 4: The Marketing Plan

BMI3C · Unit 4 test review

The Marketing Plan: Test Review

Everything for the Unit 4 test on one page: the key facts from all 5 lessons, the mistakes that cost the most marks, and a practice test that points you back to the lessons you need.

Key facts

What a Marketing Plan Is For

  • A marketing plan's sections, in order: executive summary, situation analysis, SWOT analysis, SMART objectives, target market, marketing mix strategy, budget, implementation timeline, evaluation.
  • SWOT: strengths and weaknesses are internal (the business controls them); opportunities and threats are external (it does not).
  • SMART objectives are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
  • The executive summary is written last but placed first.
  • Market share:

Building a Consumer Profile

  • Process: segment the market, choose a target market, then build a consumer profile of a typical member.
  • A consumer profile has four layers: demographics (who), psychographics (why), behaviours (how they buy), and needs and pain points (what problem to solve).
  • A persona is a fictional person, but every detail must come from research data.
  • Every 4 Ps decision should be justified by something in the consumer profile.
  • Number of survey respondents with a trait:

Competitive Analysis

  • Direct competitors sell a similar product to the same market; indirect competitors sell a different product that meets the same need.
  • Compare competitors on price, quality, place, and promotion in a grid.
  • A positioning map plots competitors on two customer-valued attributes to reveal crowded areas and gaps.
  • A competitive advantage must be valued by customers, hard to copy, and sustainable.
  • Market share:

Putting the Final Plan Together

  • Break-even units always rounded up.
  • Profit at a volume
  • Conversion rate
  • Marketing ROI
  • Market share
  • A plan is financially sound when the sales forecast is comfortably above the break-even point.

Presenting, Implementing and Evaluating the Plan

  • Pitch structure: hook → opportunity → target customer → solution and positioning → marketing mix → numbers → implementation and KPIs → the ask.
  • One message per slide, written as an action title; large text, strong contrast, one template, honest charts that start at zero.
  • Chart choice: bar to compare categories, line for change over time, pie only for a few parts of a whole, table for exact values.
  • ;
  • Control levels: annual-plan (objectives), profitability (what makes money), efficiency (cost per result); watch leading and lagging indicators.
  • Contingency plan = trigger + prepared response + decision-maker and review date, often for best, expected and worst cases.

Where marks get lost

  • Listing a competitor's actions as a weakness — anything a competitor does is outside your business, so it belongs under threats, not weaknesses. (What a Marketing Plan Is For)
  • Writing objectives with no number or no deadline ("increase sales") — without both, the evaluation section has nothing to measure against. (What a Marketing Plan Is For)
  • Writing the executive summary first as a teaser introduction instead of last as a true summary of decisions already made. (What a Marketing Plan Is For)
  • Jumping straight to promotion ideas before identifying the target market — you cannot choose where to advertise until you know who you are trying to reach. (What a Marketing Plan Is For)
  • Treating the plan as finished once it is written and leaving out the evaluation section, so the business never learns what worked. (What a Marketing Plan Is For)
  • Saying the target market is "everyone" or "people who drink water" — a profile that broad cannot guide any decision. (Building a Consumer Profile)
  • Filling the persona with guesses or stereotypes instead of survey, interview, or sales data. (Building a Consumer Profile)
  • Confusing demographics with psychographics — "age 19" is demographic, but "cares about the environment" is psychographic. (Building a Consumer Profile)
  • Building a detailed persona and then choosing the 4 Ps without referring back to it, so the price or promotion does not fit the customer. (Building a Consumer Profile)
  • Reporting survey percentages without the sample size — "60% agreed" means much more from 400 respondents than from 10. (Building a Consumer Profile)
  • Only listing direct competitors and ignoring indirect ones, such as bottled water or café drinks, that compete for the same customer dollars. (Competitive Analysis)
  • Claiming "we have no competitors" — every product competes with something, even if it is the customer doing nothing. (Competitive Analysis)
  • Choosing "lowest price" as the competitive advantage when a larger competitor could easily cut its price further. (Competitive Analysis)
  • Assuming every empty space on a positioning map is an opportunity without checking that customers want it and it can be profitable. (Competitive Analysis)
  • Putting a competitor's strength in your own strengths box — competitor findings about them become threats (or opportunities), not your strengths. (Competitive Analysis)
  • Rounding break-even down (1,027.78 to 1,027) — the business would still be short of covering fixed costs, so always round up. (Putting the Final Plan Together)
  • Dividing fixed costs by the selling price instead of by the contribution margin (price minus variable cost), which makes break-even look far too low. (Putting the Final Plan Together)
  • Calculating ROI as revenue ÷ cost × 100 and forgetting to subtract the campaign cost first, which makes every campaign look 100 percentage points better than it is. (Putting the Final Plan Together)
  • Choosing KPIs that do not match the objectives — if the objective is market share, the evaluation must actually measure market share. (Putting the Final Plan Together)
  • Building a budget whose lines do not add up to the total, or a timeline with no dates or responsible people. (Putting the Final Plan Together)
  • Reading the slides word for word. Slides should hold one message and a visual; the speaker supplies the explanation. (Presenting, Implementing and Evaluating the Plan)
  • Using topic titles like "Pricing" instead of action titles that state the conclusion, such as "Our price sits 10% below the premium leader." (Presenting, Implementing and Evaluating the Plan)
  • Starting a bar chart's axis above zero, which makes small differences look huge and can mislead the audience. (Presenting, Implementing and Evaluating the Plan)
  • Calculating variance as target minus actual, then reporting a sales shortfall as a positive number. Use actual minus target so a shortfall is negative. (Presenting, Implementing and Evaluating the Plan)
  • Waiting until results are bad to invent a plan B. Contingency plans need triggers and responses decided before launch. (Presenting, Implementing and Evaluating the Plan)

Practice test

25 questions from across the unit. Each one shows the lesson it comes from.

  1. What a Marketing Plan Is For
    1
    A business's only delivery van is old and breaks down often. In a SWOT analysis, this is a...
  2. What a Marketing Plan Is For
    2
    A hypothetical snack company had sales of $126,000 in a regional market with total sales of $1,800,000. What is its market share, as a percentage?
    %
  3. What a Marketing Plan Is For
    3
    Match each marketing plan section to the question it answers.
    Situation analysis
    Target market
    Implementation timeline
    Evaluation
  4. What a Marketing Plan Is For
    4
    Why is the executive summary written after the rest of the marketing plan?
  5. What a Marketing Plan Is For
    5
    Which finding belongs in the opportunities box of a SWOT analysis?
  6. Building a Consumer Profile
    6
    Which detail in a consumer profile is psychographic?
  7. Building a Consumer Profile
    7
    In a survey of 450 people, 36% say their biggest frustration is that their headphones break within a year. How many respondents is that?
    people
  8. Building a Consumer Profile
    8
    Match each profile layer to an example detail.
    Demographics
    Psychographics
    Behaviours
    Pain point
  9. Building a Consumer Profile
    9
    What is the term for a specific problem or frustration a customer wants a product to solve?
  10. Building a Consumer Profile
    10
    Which statement about personas is correct?
  11. Competitive Analysis
    11
    For a business that sells movie theatre tickets, which is an indirect competitor?
  12. Competitive Analysis
    12
    In a market, Brand X holds 42% market share, Brand Y holds 27%, and Brand Z holds 19%. All other brands share what is left. What percentage of the market do all other brands hold together?
    %
  13. Competitive Analysis
    13
    Match each competitive analysis finding to the correct SWOT box for a hypothetical bakery.
    Our bakery is the only one in town with gluten-free bread
    Our shop is hard to find from the main road
    A new office building is opening next door
    A grocery chain is adding a fresh bakery section nearby
  14. Competitive Analysis
    14
    Put the steps of a competitive analysis in order.
    1. 1Choose a competitive advantage
    2. 2Plot them on a positioning map
    3. 3Add the findings to the SWOT analysis
    4. 4Identify direct and indirect competitors
    5. 5Gather information on each competitor
    6. 6Compare them in a 4 Ps grid
  15. Competitive Analysis
    15
    Which is the strongest competitive advantage for a small business?
  16. Putting the Final Plan Together
    16
    A hypothetical phone case business has fixed costs of $9,100. Each case sells for $40 and has a variable cost of $25. How many cases must it sell to break even?
    cases
  17. Putting the Final Plan Together
    17
    A campus sampling campaign cost $1,200 and brought in $4,500 of revenue. What is the marketing ROI, as a percentage?
    %
  18. Putting the Final Plan Together
    18
    Which change would LOWER a product's break-even point, if everything else stays the same?
  19. Putting the Final Plan Together
    19
    Match each KPI to the question it answers.
    Market share
    Conversion rate
    Marketing ROI
    Break-even point
  20. Putting the Final Plan Together
    20
    Using the Maple Ridge plan (price $30, variable cost $12, fixed costs $18,500), how many bottles would it need to sell to make a profit of exactly $12,100?
    bottles
  21. Presenting, Implementing and Evaluating the Plan
    21
    Put the sections of a marketing plan pitch in order.
    1. 1The ask
    2. 2Implementation and KPIs
    3. 3The numbers
    4. 4Hook
    5. 5Opportunity
    6. 6Target customer
    7. 7Solution and positioning
    8. 8Marketing mix
  22. Presenting, Implementing and Evaluating the Plan
    22
    A product sells for 40 dollars with a variable cost of 16 dollars and fixed costs of 30,000 dollars. A contingency plan would cut the price to 36 dollars. What is the new break-even point in units? Round up to a whole unit.
    units
  23. Presenting, Implementing and Evaluating the Plan
    23
    Which slide title is the strongest action title?
  24. Presenting, Implementing and Evaluating the Plan
    24
    Which is a complete contingency plan?
  25. Presenting, Implementing and Evaluating the Plan
    25
    What do you call the difference between an actual result and its target?

Endless drill

Fresh numbers every time, for the calculation questions in this unit.

Endless drillnew numbers every time

Generating a problem…

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