Marketing Cmmunications Plan - Essay Example

Running head: Marketing plans Marketing Communications Plan WAQAS Ijaz Ahmed Abstract The London 2012 Olympics would bring along a multitude of diverse opportunities for small scale businesses to flourish, in this paper we have suggested a campaign to apprise such businesses of this fact, to raise the awareness of such opportunities to these firms. Small scale companies need a lot of guidance to avail from the opportunities a huge exodus of people might bring in, it provides them with an opportunity to represent themselves internationally but of course they cannot risk being vulnerable at a time like this either in front of all those people, hence we are launching a campaign to make them aware of the benefits and provide guidance as regards to how they might fully avail them Marketing Communications Plan London has been announced the host of 2012 Olympics for the 3rd time, Its the only city in history whose ever had the honor this often. The Olympics is an event that is cherished by all and has the largest fan base and draws an amazingly huge crowd; which offers a wide variety of business opportunities availing which would required careful and strategic planning and promotional schemes to make people aware of the fact that the event holds within it invaluable opportunities for business and profit. We are suggesting a few ideas in the form of our marketing communication plan which are as follows: we would put up posters every where and hand out leaflets containing our telephone number and web-address and also advertise on the TV and on internet, we would try to promote our website, giving links to it on famous websites such as www.yahoo.com and www.msn.com and others. People with houses and businesses around the areas that would be affected by the London 2012 Olympics are no doubt not in complete darkness and probably do have a hint of what business opportunities might come their way when Olympics comes to their neighborhood but once people have established their firms and businesses, getting them to conform according to the need of the times can be at times a tedious but worthwhile task to undertake. Hence we felt that there is a dire need to put a promotional plan into action to persuade people to gear up for the games. One problem we face is that people might perceive these profit opportunities to be of a short-term nature, most businesses are of the opinion that these opportunities would arise during the games and would go away when the Olympics is over and leaves town, so changing the whole nature of their operations to be perfect for the business needs of few days is an idea not very appealing to both the small scale as well as the extremely well developed businesses, especially the well developed ones. People are comfortable making minor alterations but when it comes to total restructuring people are quite iffy over it. So we feel that there is a need to project the fact that firstly the event doesn't merely bring short-term benefits but rather an opportunity to form ties and long term contacts, it provides them with the opportunity of projecting their business and companies all over the world, a chance to represent them selves and secondly even if you consider only the massive short-term sale, only for the duration of the games, of their goods or services, the imminent profit revenue that they would be able to generate even during these days is big enough to be taken seriously and any hassle that they would have to go through to get ready for the event just like the city authorities are trying to make London ready for the games, none of their efforts would go unrewarded. Studying the market is no easy task, people would obviously come from all corners of the world so naturally all tastes should be taken into consideration as opposed to the normal day to day needs of a London based population, businesses might have gotten used to serving, they might argue that England and London are already diverse enough and that they already have people from all parts of the world and living in such environment for the past 50 years at least they don't feel they need any further alterations to their system and they might argue that they're already perfect for a diverse multicultural environment, that it is nothing new for them, that might be true to some extent but not in its entirety, the concept is flawed if you consider the fact that granted London has been home to people of diverse back grounds for many years but the fact is only those people make it to London who the authorities think might integrate into the system with little effort and in a number of years time they do in fact become an integral part of the city as well as the country to such an extent that the difference is almost nonexistent. These people develop the same needs as the oldest living civilizations that were here, every one speaks the national language even. In a nutshell the every day scene in London isn't remotely how its going to be during the games. Hence we need to promote the importance of making the necessary alterations no matter how small or big they might be because this is not the kind of thing that happens on an every day or even an annual or a regular basis. London has been made the host for the 3rd time now so one may wonder if this would happen again in the next 100 or more years to come and the advantages this would bring cannot be overstated. As stated before people are going to come from all parts of the world and since London has such a diverse demography, ethnically speaking, that could be used to our advantage, since there are people already living in London who're fluent in English and for example Chinese, Urdu or French; it couldn't hurt for each firm, both small and large scale to have some staff around who could deal with the international customers that would no doubt like dropping in while they sojourn there for the games, we need to concentrate on French, Chinese, German, Turkish and Arabic in particular since they are most widely spoken, looking for a multilingual staff would not be a problem at all in London and hiring them would of course have a multitude of short and long term benefits for the firms during the Olympics. Posters is a good way of getting people's attention but it would take more than that for people to actually think about it, hence flyers and advertising on internet and television is also very essential. Using aesthetic designs on flyers and bill boards and posters might help in capturing the attention of the desired business companies but we have to make small scale businesses actually feel that they would benefit from the Olympic games and be able to respond to their queries and have a system to be able to stay in touch with them through email or toll free telephone numbers for example, we need to be able to provide the nature of customers they might expect., have statistics of the estimated number of individuals from various parts of the world that England might be receiving and also have information at hand to provide them about different cultures, and the kind of services or goods they might be interested in, and we also should have a list of important business men or representatives of big businesses who are planning to come to London for the Olympics so our local businesses can make the necessary preparations they want to make in order to cast the kind of image they would like the respective firm to have of them. These are very important issues for small scale businesses and it is up to our campaigning to make them take the first step because once they come that far they can pave their way out on their own with little effort because in the beginning small scale firms get a "being left out of the equation" kind of feeling and that can discourage them from aiming high for instance getting the attention of a really competitive firm. This is not as easy as it may seem at first, encouraging small scale businesses to try to participate in something like that is not an easy task, surely at their first glance on our material they would not be motivated too much because the problem with such average business firms is that they have limited financial resources, some may not even have enough to be able to carry out the necessary alterations in their firm but are quite happy with the way things are and since they haven't got any room for the factor of risk involved in almost every step that you're to take ever, not all small scale businesses are that limited as regards to money but still the factor of risk involved is some thing that such firms have a hard time getting over, these firms would gladly carry out minor alteration to make advantage of the small term benefits but would need major persuasion to be able to take drastic measures and actually get them to spend real money on steps they might need to benefit from a situation fully. These companies need to be assured that they would in fact profit from the steps that they take, if a firm is sure of an investment, this would be like an investment as they would spend money on preparing for the dynamic market that the exodus in the Olympics would bring along and they would reap the advantages as a result, if a firm is sure of an investment it wouldn't mind undertaking a monetary risk no matter how big it might be, businesses in London, small scale or large are mostly established enough to be able to loan some funds from the government as well provided they come up to certain terms set by the government. But for these companies to be able to make such an undertaking we need to assure them that the scenario they are in poses no threat and profit is guaranteed 100 percent, there are a number of steps that might be taken to carry that out, surveys of the past Olympics presented to them as regards to how business has flourished in the past during Olympics, testaments from firms that used to be small scale once like the sort of companies we are dealing with now, firms who used to be average but after solid investment during the Olympics season have now become competitive, we need to provide proof of our claims only then can we expect the companies to respond and communicate with us, the frequency of advertising is also a question, we would have to work to make our idea ubiquitous so along with a large number of posters and billboards we would have to also advertise on a rather frequent basis and on channels that have a high viewing rate, this would not come cheap but this would be our investment bid to get the small scale businesses to treat our ideas and suggestions with seriousness. Though it is not very logical but this is the way market is these days, no matter how great and strong an idea is people just wouldn't buy it in the raw form, it cannot score recognition unless it is aired on expensive channels and advertised in famous newspapers and magazines and is written on flyers that are aesthetic and appealing to look at. So these are the necessary expenses not just us but every one these days just has to undertake to get heard, to get his/her idea even noticed. Small scale firms might also feel intimidated by the requirements they have to come up to in order to be eligible for loans from the government hence it should also be part of our campaigning to provide guidance to such firms in this regard and help them in obtaining such funds. The Olympics would provide firms with more attention they could ever ask for if they can get their brand promoted during the games then they would not have to worry about advertising ever again but just as any good idea cannot expect to be acknowledged unless it comes in an attractive package, firms need to take care of the packaging when providing their goods and services and small firms aren't very accustomed with this kind of a thing, so for a successful campaigning for the London 2012 Olympics would also have to provide guidance in regards to representation of their businesses because competition would no doubt be high and consumers would have a wide range of options to choose from and each firm should be competitive looking and be able to catch the attention of a passerby, of course at the same time the need for these firms to boost up the quality of their goods or services to as high as they can possibly take it needs to be stressed too. Many firms keeping in mind the short term benefits simply put up a great show and varnish their firms to the fullest and of course these days what appeals to the eye does manage to be given at least a chance so these firms might be able to reap some benefits but if they don't provide quality service and just serve mediocre goods in beautiful packages that could render them with profits at the end of the season because of the huge amounts of people who had taken the risk of giving them a first chance but this way they not only miss out on the opportunity of promoting their brand on an international scale but actually manage to win popularity in the negative sense which can bring disastrous results, hence the need for bringing services and goods up to par cannot be over emphasized. We need to apprise these firms of the international standards and the kind of goods and services they might be expected to deliver, we need to set a bunch mark up for them so that they can work their way towards it. An equally bigger market would develop online during the Olympics season on the internet, so having an online existence again of an attractive and aesthetic nature and one that would provide customers with all the necessary information that they may need to gain a preliminary view of their goods or services. In order for them to gain popularity another trick they could employ is to make their website interesting to browse, web surfing has become a wide spread hobby and using graphics and interesting designs a lot of people can be persuaded into giving you the first chance you need to express yourself. Most small scale businesses don't even have an online existence hence our campaign also needs to stress the importance of having a web address and again also provide guidance as to how they can use graphics to enhance the popularity of their website and in turn increase the popularity of their product or service, also we need to stress the importance of marketing online, we need to make the firms aware of the importance of taking orders online, especially hotel businesses should have pictures of their suites put up online and should provide an option for online reservation, we need to stress all this as well and also again provide guidance as to how these firms might establish them selves online like this. Costumers don't like to go through any hassle, browsing about a firm over the internet gives them some pre hand information and if they find the kind of product that they are looking for and they are satisfied looking at it online, chances are they would not bother to look further and would try it. This way a firm with an attractive website can have a strong competitive edge over the others, this is just the sort of thing small scale businesses need, hence this should definitely be included in our campaign. References http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Summer_Olympic_venues http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060130/text/60130w14.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/low/other_sports/olympics_2012/4748077.stm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_2012_Olympics http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/business/4653491.stm Read More