Assessment Task 2
A marketing plan is a comprehensive document or blueprint that outlines a company's advertising and marketing efforts for the coming year. It describes business activities involved in accomplishing specific marketing objectives within a set time frame.
Houzit is a chain of homewares stores in Brisbane that specialise in bathroom fittings, bedroom fittings, mirrors and decorative items. They currently have 15 stores spread across the greater Brisbane area, with all stores being managed and coordinated from their head office in Milton.
I have recently been appointed as the marketing manager and must now review the organisation and devise marketing strategies that will move Houzit towards its strategic goals.
The CEO has also asked you to consider some marketing opportunities that may assist Houzit in reaching its goals, and provide him with brief summary evaluating two alternatives, including the benefits and risks associated with each option, and making a recommendation for the opportunity most likely to produce results.
Houzit is close to entering its fifth year of operation; offering a wide range of home-ware items on easy-to-manage payment terms and supplies a three year guarantee on every item sold.
The typical target customers have the following characteristics:
sophisticated people who are house proud
shoppers who will drive to an easy-to-access store
customers who require payment plans to spread their commitment over an extended period
renovators and new home builders
20–50 year olds.
Houzit recognises the following trends and focuses its efforts on them.
Quality – Preference for high quality items is increasing as customers are learning to appreciate differences in quality.
Unique items – Customers want homewares that stand out from mass-produced, low quality items.
Selection – People are demanding a larger selection of choices, they are no longer accepting a limited selection of homewares.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Opportunities:
Threats:
Before you start making changes, it's a good idea to make sure you have a full understanding of the factors affecting your business success.
These may include your current business practices, market trends or changes to the wider environment in which you operate.
Tools which can help you assess your business's situation include:
Set clear goals
Business goals can be as broad or as specific as you want them to be. Writing down your goals clearly will make it easier for you to achieve them. Make sure your goals are:
Once you have written down your goals, you should prioritise them to decide which ones to focus on first.
There is a big push by governments on the issue of sustainability. This focuses mostly on environmental issues of waste management and energy conservation. Houzit stores have been deliberately designed in the past to be bright and comfortable places to shop. This means a significant cost in electricity usage to run the lights and the air-conditioners. With the new regulations we are going to have to find ways to still provide customers with what they want without the high electricity usage.
Strategies for improving employee performance:
Activities |
Costing |
Accountability and responsibilities |
KPls |
Hire a professional person who knows franchising procedures |
$1000 |
Manager HR Manager Marketing |
Sales Customer Satisfaction |
Recruit a manager to do the training for the franchisees |
$1000 |
Manager HR Manager Marketing |
Sales Customer Satisfaction |
Activities |
Costing |
Accountability and responsibilities |
KPls |
Advertisement on TV |
$20000 |
Manager HR Manager Marketing |
Sales Customer Satisfaction |
Magazine advertising in Beautiful House |
$10000 |
Manager HR Manager Marketing |
Sales Customer Satisfaction |
Catalogs |
$5000 |
Manager HR Manager Marketing |
Sales Customer Satisfaction |
Online advertising |
$1000 |
Manager HR Manager Marketing |
Sales Customer Satisfaction |
Reasoning for choosing these tactics
Outline the process for reviewing performance.
We will compare the estimated expected performance with the actual performance using KPIs and targets. The variances will be recorded and reported.
Product
Our products enable our customers to experience support, gather ideas and options, and accomplish their decorating goals. They will be able to create a look that is truly unique to their home. They will not be able to do this in the same way through any other resource.
Price
Product pricing is based on offering high value to our customers compared to most price points in the market. Value is determined based on the best quality available, convenience, and timeliness in acquiring the product. We will consistently be below the price points offered through interior designers and consistently above prices offered through the warehouse/seconds retail stores, but we will offer better quality and selection.
Promotion
The most successful advertising and promotion has been through the following:
Advertising |
Communication through mass media, the firm will usually pay for this type of communication. |
Public Relations |
Developing a positive relationship between the organisation and the media and the public. Good public relationships involves not only creating favourable publicity through the media but also involves minimising the impact of negative situations. |
Sales Promotion |
Promotions designed to create a short term increase in sales. Examples of sales promotion include money off coupons, discount codes and "flash sales". |
Personal Selling |
Sales interaction between the firm's representative and a consumer on a one to one basis. |
Direct Mail (post and e-mail) |
This involves sending marketing to a named individual or organisation. Firms often buy lists of names, e-mails and postal addresses for this purpose. This can be highly effective when the direct mail recipients are within the firm's target market. |
Internet Marketing |
Placing adverts on internet pages through programmes such as Google's AdWords. |
Social Media |
Firms place daily messages on social media such as Facebook and Twitter to keep customers interested in their organisation. They may even run promotions, flash sales and discounts just for their social media readers. |
Sponsorship |
An organisation or event is paid to use your branding and logos. Sponsorship is commonly used in sporting events; player's clothing and stadiums will be covered in the firm's branding and even the tournament may be named after the firm. Although effective sponsorship requires a large audience you may get smaller firms interested in local business sponsoring small events in their area e.g. school fairs. |
Promotion Through The Product Life Cycle
As products move through the four stages of the product life cycle different promotional strategies should be employed at these stages to ensure the healthy success and life of the product.
Promotion strategies that can be employed at each stage of the Product Life Cycle are as follows:
When a product is new the organisation's objective will be to inform the target audience of its entry. Television, radio, magazine, coupons etc may be used to push the product through the introduction stage of the life cycle. Push and Pull Strategies will be used at this crucial stage.
As the product becomes accepted by the target market (at this stage of the life cycle) the organisation will employ strategy to increase brand awareness and customer loyalty.
At this stage of the life cycle the product will be experiencing increased competition and will need persuasive tactics to encourage consumers to choose their product over their rivals. Any differential advantage/benefit will be need to be clearly communicated to the target audience.
As the product reaches the decline stage of its life cycle, all the organisation can do is use strategy to remind consumers about the product in a bid to slow the inevitable.
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