MKT500 Assignment 3 Part C Marketing Plan

MKT500 Assignment 3 Part C Marketing Plan

MKT500 Assignment 3 Part C Marketing Plan

Branding, Pricing and Distribution strategy

Branding strategy

My company’s vision is to lead in the organic bakery business, despite the fact that it will face a stiff competition from its opponents. It aims at expansion as its long-term goal, with a large number of employees. To motivate them, each employee will receive a decent paycheck better than the employees of my opponents will. An effective branding strategy, therefore, will help my company, the Africano-American Organic Bakery (AAOB), to achieve that goal.

In my view, the success of any company depends on its marketing management, which refers to the application, tracking and review of a company’s marketing resources and activities. Marketing management co-ordinates the activities and functions involved in the distribution of a company’s products and services. According to an article, I read, titled Stolen, an American marketing author, consultant, and professor, Philip Kotler, defines marketing management as the analysis, planning, implementation and control of programs designed to bring about desired exchanges with target markets to achieve organizational goals and objectives. As indicated in the article, marketing management relies heavily on designing a company’s offering in terms of the target markets needs and desires and using effective pricing, communication and distribution to inform, motivate and service the market. It is concerned with the chalking out of a specific programme, after a thorough analysis and forecasting of the market situations and the ultimate execution of these plans to achieve the objectives of the company. Furthermore, a company’s sales plan largely rests on the requirements and motives of its target consumers. To achieve this objective, the company has to pay much attention to the right pricing, effective advertising, and sales promotion, distribution and stimulating the consumers through excellent services.

 My company’s marketing management will be empowered with a branding strategy that will permit its partners on boosting and utilizing the correct marketing skills for promotion of its products. Brand strategy is a long-term plan for the development of a successful brand in other to accomplish certain goals, according to Iacobucci, D. (2014). With an effective branding strategy which will increase my investment in the company, my company will hire the service of two popular female tennis champions, Serena Williams and her sister, Venus Williams, to be its brand ambassadors, in leading the campaign to catch the attention of potential customers, influencing them to buy my company’s organic bakery products. I believe their persuasive campaign efforts will sway many consumers to buy our products, hence increasing sales and profit margins of the company.

Additionally, my company, the AAOB, understands that an all-around characterized brand strategy affects each part of the business and has an immediate association with shoppers’ needs, feelings, and its opponents. The AAOB, as mentioned above, will actualize a marketing mechanism that will permit its partners on boosting and utilizing the correct strategies for promotion. This marketing mechanism will give my company a lift to enable it to stand tall among its competitors. My marketing mechanism is a comprehensive approach to establish not only an effective relationship with its target audience, but to continue that bond with the sole aim of profit-making for the company on one hand, and on the other, the satisfactory fulfilment of the needs and wants of my company’s customers. It is important to mention that my marketing strategy will consider a marketing framework in order to achieve its goals and objectives. This marketing framework consists of the five C’s, STP, and the four P’s. The five C’s represent: customer, company context, collaboration and competitors. STP refers to segmentation, targeting, and positioning. The four P’s are product, price, place, and promotion, according to Iacobacci, D. (2014). These components of the marketing framework, which operates independently, will be monitored, as they will help lay a solid foundation for the company. Remember, the first of the five C’s refers to customers. Like all other companies, my company’s success is in part contingent upon keeping its customers satisfied and this therefore involves identifying who and where my customers are, what there likes and dislikes are, what do they want, in relation to my product, and also, identifying how many company will pay an impressive role in fulfilling their needs.

Pricing strategy

Pricing is not just about money-making. It is as important as any of the other Ps in terms of sending signals to customers, competitors, and collaborators regarding the positioning and image of the company’s brand. It is worth being thoughtful, therefore, about pricing. From a marketing perspective, pricing should be about the customer. Determining the price of a company’s products, therefore, there are several ways to accomplish it, according to Iacobucci, D. (2014). The company must be aware of the price that its consumers are willing to pay for its product (s), how they perceive prices and price changes, and whether or not consumers will happily accept the prices charged. For example, if one organic bakery costs ten dollars, most consumers would not buy the product. They would perceive the cost of ten dollars as too high, and to them, the organic bread is not perceived as a good value. On the other hand, if the price placed on the organic bread is one dollar, many consumers will question the quality of the organic bakery product based on such a low price.

Demand for a company’s product tends to decrease with an increase in price of the product. If the price is reduced, the demand for it will surely increase. Remember, pricing is the easiest variable of the four P’s to adjust. Pricing the product low, medium, or high is one common method for typical pricing strategies used by companies. If a company charges a low price for its product, the company usually is just able to cover production and distribution costs, with a small amount of profit made. To charge a high price for a product, the company must be aware of how much a consumer is willing to pay in other for the company to set the price near this mark. A company can charge a medium price in comparison to the prices its opponents charge for the product and add on a profit margin.

Prices of a product also tend to vary over the life cycle of the product and across different segments. The price for a product is easiest to change and, in my view, is the most important of the four Ps since it is the easiest to measure how a price is assessed by a consumer.

 The three Cs of marketing which include customer, competitor, and company may also impact a company’s price determination of its product. Being aware of how of how customers perceive the value of a company’s product determines a high price point. The price is determined by taking into consideration the customers’ willingness to pay minus a markdown. Knowing what a company’s competitors charge for the product will result in a medium-priced product. Additionally, the costs incurred by a company for producing a product will help determine a low-priced product. A markup is added to the cost a company incurs for creating the product. Elasticity or price sensitivity also plays a vital role in price determination of a product. In economics, price sensitivity is commonly measured using the price elasticity of demand. For example, some consumers are not willing to spend even a single dime for a gallon of gasoline, especially if a lower-priced gas station is nearby. So, by definition, price elasticity is the degree to which the price of a product impacts consumers’ purchasing behaviors is referred to as price elasticity, according to Iacobucci, D. (2014). The price sensitivity of a product varies with the level of importance consumers attach on price relative to other purchasing criteria. For example, customers seeking high quality products are less price sensitive than other consumers who may place premium on it. Remember, the law of demand and supply states that a relative price increase leads to a fall in quantity demanded, if all other market factors remain constant. High elasticity means consumers are more willing to buy a product even after a price increase. Inelastic demand means a slight increase in price may significantly lower demand.

Some examples of elastic products are cars, televisions, furniture, jewelry, to mention a few. They are said to be luxuries. People can live without them since elastic goods have many substitutes. So, non-essential goods and luxuries are more often thought to be elastic since such products are not routinely purchased and hence, consumers are more sensitive to the high prices that are charged by companies that produce or sells them. Inelastic goods are essentials. A change in their prices leads to an insignificant change in their demand. Examples of goods considered inelastic are essential goods. They include my company’s bakery bread, toilet paper, and vegetables. Consumers will still buy these essential goods despite an increase in their prices.

As per the research, minimal cost organic items will probably be repurchased, however, a high-value strategy could demonstrate more compelling in empowering cross-obtaining crosswise over wide ranges. Low pricing will help in rehash buys because low-cost strategies are uncommon for organic items and this will help in expanding the business. High pricing is most basic among organic sustenance. It separates makers and demonstrated effective in advancing cross-buying among an extensive variety of items. Therefore, I would opt for skimming pricing strategy, which is selling the product at the high price (Culliney, K. 2014).

Distribution strategy

The distribution strategy for AAOB will be very effective in making sure that my bakery product reaches all of its consumers directly, with its freshness intact. The company will also use another distribution strategy which will include producer, wholesaler, retailer, and consumer, whenever necessary.

Furthermore, the AAOB will also create a website, where customers can buy the bakery products online. And there will be no delivery charges within 5 km after that nominal amount will be charged. The benefit of online purchasing is that customers will be able to add their reviews which can be used by AAOB to make the product greatly acceptable. Secondly, the reviews will help the other customers to visualize the brand image of the product. (Ahmad, 2010)

Major competitors

There are numerous organic bakeries among the competitors’ list of AAOB. They are Franz Bakery, Rudi’s Bakery, Alpine Valley Bread, etc. Franz bakery offers various organic products like bagel, whole wheat bread, stuffing mix, muffins, buns, toasts, donuts, cookies, etc. The strengths of Franz bakery is

1. Product: Whether you offer bread, cupcakes or wedding cakes, the significant quality of a bakery is the consistency and nature of its items. Franz bakery offers a variety of organic food products.
2. Social Media Marketing Efforts: Franz bakery makes use of social media marketing and online selling for the product. They have maintained a website which has beautifully oriented each and everything the company deals with.
3. Pay package: Franz bakery offers one of the best pay packages, which attracts the best bakers towards the organization.

Among the strengths, there are certain weaknesses faced by the Franz Bakery

1. Staffing: The employees working with the Franz Bakery are not happy with the organization culture. This results in a high employee turnover as the best bakers in the industry leaves the organization very soon.
2. Long and rigid working hours: The long working hours is also one of the reasons for high employee turnover. They prefer the organization which has flexible working hours.

Differentiation strategy in context to Franz Bakery

Organizations utilize an assortment of strategies to accomplish their objectives, yet all business strategies can be categorized as one of four generic administration strategies. Operating AAOB requires the use of cost leadership in initial days. It implies a strategy includes being the most minim         al cost supplier of your items. For a cake bakery, this includes accomplishing economies of scale. To accomplish economies of scale, there is a need to create a high volume of cakes. This will permit you to expand specialist efficiency through division of work and spare cash by obtaining ingredients in bigger amounts, giving you a more noteworthy capacity to offer your items at a focused cost.

Differentiation is a non-price strategy. Rather than picking up clients by offering them the most minimal value, you will pull in them with value-added highlights. In a bakery business, the company can do this by expanding the nature of the bakery products; for example, AAOB may decide to just utilize premium ingredients or create exceptional formulas. The company can likewise separate through included services, for example, tweaked bread requests or conveyance benefit choices. Essential bread commonly earns low benefits. The key is to make the bread and bakery items not the same as the different bakery, especially those sold in Wal-Mart and close-by grocery stores. It is critical to separate the bakery items from key contenders, one method for which is using herbs and different flavorings. AAOB ought to incorporate Apple Scrapple, Tomato Herb and Cheese, Whole Wheat Cinnamon Chip, and seasonal Pumpkin Swirl bread – no basic white bread here. This strategy will permit AAOB to position its bakery uniquely in contrast to the huge chains and supermarkets, permitting them to charge premium costs for their items.

Company’s intention is to be a leader or follower

AAOB’s intention is to become a market leader. This is the reason why they have decided to add more products in their menu. The cost leadership strategy will help them to gain market share by offering same quality product offered by competitors at lowest prices. Later on, product differentiation will help to add certain qualities not offered by their competitors. This will be again beneficial to them to have more customer base for their new product.

Social media tools

Associating with the clients used to be an extremely intrusive process. The company should send direct mail, interfere with them with advertisements, and by and large pester them just to stand out enough to be noticed. Online networking has totally changed that. Presently, AAOB can hyper-focus on their statistic and draw in with them with only a couple clicks. There are two types of web-based social networking that a business can use to develop their gathering of people, leads, and above all, deals — organic web-based social networking and paid web-based social networking.

The social media that I would like to use of AAOB are Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Facebook has a growing fan following among various people throughout the world. Almost 80 percent of the world’s population uses social media Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or much more. Influencer campaigns are web-based social networking campaigns where a social influencer (somebody with an expansive group of onlookers) is paid to advance the item or administration to their gathering of people. This strategy will permit AAOB to associate with individuals who may not know about their item by utilizing the relationship that the influencer as of now has with that individual. Facebook, alongside the majority of the other social channels on the web, gathers client information. They recognize what the majority of their client’s interests are, the place they live, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. We can utilize the majority of that information to focus on correct statistic and just show them promotions. This is helpful for two reasons: it keeps the publicizing spending low and builds the odds the individual survey the advertisement will click it. (“Social Media Marketing”, n.d.)

Integrated Marketing Communication

The fundamental objective of making IMC strategy is creating short-term money related returns and in addition building brand esteem. The American Association of Advertising Agencies gives a meaning of IMC as “a complete arrangement that assesses the key parts of an assortment of communication teaches and joins these orders to give clearness, consistency and greatest communication impact.” The primary thought of IMC is to create an impeccable experience for clients utilizing diverse parts of marketing blend. All marketing communication channels cooperate, instead of in confinement, to construct brand’s center picture and messaging. Essay NRS 493 Capstone Topic Summary

Target Audience

It means to recognize target group of onlookers’ activity goals and to begin a procedure of choosing the intended interest group. The essential thought of this plan is to focus not on the clients and their representation, but rather on their image devotion and brand mindfulness, and construct marketing communications considering how regularly individuals buy an item while pulling in the new client through rebates framework. This plan is valuable, however together with that exploration will consider division factors for customer markets. With learning of conduct graphic, geographic, demographic and psychographic attributes of the client, the particular focus at which to put endeavors will be characterized.

Competition analysis

Detailed contender analysis is a critical instrument for the association to acknowledge and underscore its upper hand in contrast with different organizations, and to make benefit of it. This incorporates analysis of contenders like Franz Bakery, Rudi’s Bakery, Alpine Valley Bread, and so on.

Environmental scanning and analysis

Environmental scanning and analysis imply systematic gathering and translation of data concerning interior and outer elements that may impact marketing and execution of the organization. An internal review is about learning circumstance inside association, though outside review concentrates outer condition. Strengths support organization’s capacity to achieve objectives. Work is performed on the premise of diversifying. The organization has a built-up item and brand with high brand-name acknowledgment. AAOB arrangements to build up the accompanying key opportunities:

1. Higher interest for one of a kind and superb items.
2. The rapid development of the business in the growth oriented zones.
3. Varied item run. Current AAOB item comprises of 14 unique items. It will grow the length of the organization gets more clients.

These days, buyers are overpowered by the enormous measure of on the web and offline commercials. On the off chance that marketing message is not significant to customer needs, it effortlessly can be neglected or, even disregarded. IMC discusses brand’s informing client through an assortment of communication channels to make brand mindfulness. Buyers have a tendency to associate with brands through online journals and computerized interfaces; in this way, IMC is more cost successful tool. Organizations can see the execution and accomplishment of campaigns and communication strategies all in all, not as divided parts.