The Marketing Plan (optional company your pick) Research Paper

The Marketing Plan (optional company your pick) - Research Paper Example 1- 6). McDonalds primarily targets children and young adults for its products. This as a result identifies three major categories of the company’s audience. The first category is parents who take their children to restaurants. Another category consists of grown up children and youths who visit the stores on their own. Adults on tight work arrangements also form part of the company’s target population (McDonalds, p. 3). McDonalds’ pricing strategy is based on continuous research that identifies customers’ perceived value of its products. The company, as a result, builds its image and develops loyalty and utility among its customers. This is then used to determine prices at which customers are willing to pay for the products. Though the food industry is competitive, the company does not adopt pure price reduction because of it has marketing disadvantages (McDonalds, p. 5). The company is majorly a retail enterprise and focuses its distribution channels to its outlets. Strategic location of its outlets is therefore the main element of its product distribution (McDonalds, p. 1). McDonalds adopts a diversified approach to promoting its products. Its promotional initiatives include advertisements, â€Å"sales promotions, point of sales display, merchandising, direct mail, telemarketing and loyalty schemes† among others (McDonalds, p. 5). Advertising also employs different media forms that include print media in posters and magazines, audio media such as radio stations, and audiovisual media (McDonalds, p. 5). McDonalds major marketing strengths include its brand imaging and research based marketing strategies. Its major weakness is lack of innovation that leads to monotony in its product mix (McDonalds, p. 3). Wallace and Forte explains that a good market plan is economical, precise, â€Å"simple and easily understood, informative and customer oriented†