THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTHAMPTON

Faculty of Business and Law

Undergraduate Assignment Brief

This document contains important information about your assignment. Please read the information below. Your assignment is at the end of this document.

MODULE TITLE:                 Digital Marketing               

Assessment Task

Write a report for the Owner/Manager of your selected company which makes recommendations for the future marketing of the business. You should make the case for using digital marketing techniques but may also consider offline communications especially if they are working together with the digital tools.

To make realistic recommendations you should think about the size of the business – which would in turn indicate the resources at their disposal and the likely technical expertise they have.

·         Present your work in a manner suitable for the report – You should include title page, contents page and an executive summary, as well as using a business writing style.

·         Use an appropriate structure for your report – a story which will make sense to your reader.

·         You should include references to suitable academic texts and use Harvard Referencing throughout. You should also include other credible sources of industry information.

·         Include a clear explanation of digital marketing is and how it can benefit businesses including your chosen company (you are not expected to argue ‘for’ and ‘against’ using digital methods).

General Guidance

For this assignment you should demonstrate your knowledge of digital marketing as applied to a typical medium sized organisation. You are required to analyse digital communication needs and to make recommendations justified by reference to theory covered in THIS module.

You are free to choose your own company to be the subject of your report. You are strongly advised to work within the following criteria:

·         Select a company of reasonable scale so they could be expected to have the resources to design and implement your digital strategies – i.e. having marketing, customer services and IT departments with several people in them.

·         The company must be real and based in the UK.

·         Identify a company that you think could make more of the digital marketing opportunities available – if you select a company which excels at digital communication and relationship building it may be difficult for you to make recommendations.

Word Limits (where appropriate)

The word limit for this assignment is 2500 words

Where the submission exceeds the stipulated word limit by more than 10%, the submission will only be marked up to and including the additional 10%. Anything over this will not be included in the final grade for the assessment item. Abstracts, bibliographies, reference lists, appendices and footnotes are excluded from any word limit requirements.

Assessment Learning Outcomes

Your assessment will be marked according to the extent to which you have met the learning outcomes described below. You should therefore endeavour in your assignment to meet these outcomes as fully as you can.

·          Define and demonstrate an understanding of e-marketing theory

• Recognise and be able to recommend digital technologies and e-marketing practises for developing Customer Relationship Management strategies and reaching new potential customers

• Appreciate the impact of social media marketing and justify the marketing opportunities it presents

• Analyse, critique and evaluate examples of digital marketing from a ‘real’ world context

• Apply digital marketing theories, concepts and models to e-marketing examples implemented using digital technologies

• Critique various companies’ website designs and formulate comparisons to review best practise for traffic building.

• Propose and evaluate academic and practitioner commentaries including arguments identified by e-marketing

• Identify and utilise sources of information including digital technology sources to demonstrate understanding and application of theory

• Present information, ideas and viewpoints in respect to digital marketing effectively in a portfolio of evidence. Apply concepts, theories and models to business practice clearly and cogently and justify stated viewpoints.

Assessment Grading Criteria

This assignment is assessed on a marking rubric, an example of which is shown below. You can see the relative weighting of each criteria down the side, and the evaluation which broadly relates to A, B, C, F, G along the top. Each submission will have its own criteria which will be made available to you – this is an indicative rubric.

You will receive your rubric grades as part of your feedback.

Assessment Submission

To submit your assignment, please upload your assignment electronically via TurnItIn. You will receive an email confirmation and the system will record the date and time you submit. In the unlikely event of work getting lost, the receipts will show that work has been submitted. Without a receipt there is no evidence to show that the work has been undertaken, and you may be given a “G” grade. All submissions must be by 11:59pm of the deadline day.

The deadline for submitting this assessment is 23:59 on the deadline day (UK local time).

Assessment Support/Feedforward

Guidance on how to complete the task will be given in class and can also be submitted/viewed in the Frequently Asked Questions section in the AS1 area on NILE (viewed on the tab ‘Assessments’).

Important note on academic integrity

It is important that your work is your own work and does not contain unattributed material from books, journals, the internet or other sources.

Violating the universities policy on academic integrity can have serious implications for you including failing the assignment, failing the module and expulsion from the university.

Your work will be subject to Turnitin anti-plagiarism detection software.  Turnitin checks student work for textual matches against books, journals, internet sources and the work of other students both at Northampton and other universities. 

Further information on assessments and academic integrity can be found on:

SkillsHub: http://skillshub.northampton.ac.uk 

N.B. Work emailed directly to your tutor will not be marked.

Late submission of work

If an item of assessment is submitted late and an extension has not been granted, the following will apply:

·                Within one week of the original deadline – work will be marked and returned with full feedback, and awarded a maximum bare pass grade of D-.

·                More than one week from original deadline – maximum grade achievable LG  (L indicating late).

Extensions

The University of Northampton’s general policy with regard to extensions is to be supportive of students who have genuine difficulties, but not against pressures of work that could have reasonably been anticipated.  Please refer to the Undergraduate Handbook for advice on extensions.  There are NO extensions for resits.

Feedback and Grades

Your grade and overall summary feedback will be available in GradeCentre on the Feedback and Grades due date mentioned above.

Mitigating Circumstances

For guidance on Mitigating circumstances please go to https://www.northampton.ac.uk/about-us/governance-and-management/university-policies-procedures-and-regulations/ where under Student Issues you will find detailed guidance on the policy as well as guidance and the form for making an application.

Please note, however, that an application to defer an assessment on the grounds of mitigating circumstances should normally be made in advance of the submission deadline or examination date.