Poor marketing strategies at Bedaya center - Research Paper Example

TOPIC AREA: Bedaya centre offers social networking, career development and entrepreneurship services to anyone who seeks for guidance and counselingfor growth and success. For students at any stage of the studies, Bedaya is a good means to plan their career, it provides counseling and advice whenever needed; and for entrepreneurs it helps to start a business and provide consultancy at any stage of the business life cycle. This study will primarily focus on the marketing function of the Bedaya centre, to build a strong a place in the market a company needs to develop a strong set of marketing strategies.

Marketing strategies help the company not only in analyzing customers’ needs but it also helps the company to position the product rightly in consumers mind and promotes the product or service offered. Bedaya centre’s marketing strategies are ineffective and are incapable of capturing the target market attention. This study will define the product and will help the reader to find out areas where the lacking exists. PROBLEM DEFINITION: Bedaya centre has a clear vision which clearly states that it helps individuals to discover more about themselves and available career options, but unfortunately marketing strategies are not aligned with the vision of the company.

Effectiveness of marketing strategy decides a company’s position in the market; any lacking in the marketing strategy can reduce the effectiveness of service and can slow down the pace of growth and development. Bedaya’s mismatch of marketing strategy and company’s vision is affecting the overall image of the company. Bedaya also needs to focus more on students preference on courses offered, the duration of the courses can be one the reason as short time period courses are more preferred among students; flexibility of hours can also be an effective approach as time flexibility creates ease for them to manage educational and vocational studies.

Promotional strategies are also not effective to the acceptable level; Bedaya needs to adopt affective internet branding strategies to position the product rightly in the customers’ minds. Bedaya needs to add more information about the company and services offered on the internet. Only the use of social networks doesn’t determine the effectiveness of branding strategies but the content also matters. It is important for any organization to clearly define its marketing objectives and strive to fulfill the needs and demands of the customers.

For this purpose, the organization should have well formulated marketing strategy. In today’s competitive environment it is important for the organizations to establish clear competitive edge over competitors in the market. One important element which helps the organization in coming up with comparative advantage is marketing and promotional strategies. Especially the service organizations should come up with proper marketing and promotional strategies in order to target and retain more customers.

PROBLEM STATEMENT: “Inefficient and poor marketing strategies are affecting the image, growth, and market share of the company; marketing strategies are not aligned with the vision of the company, identification and revision of marketing strategies can improve the situation” RESEARCH QUESTIONS: The research questions which will be addressed in the research study are as follow: 1. How Bedaya evaluates the effectiveness of branding strategies? 2. What is the level of awareness of the services offered and about the company among target market? 3. What are the pricing strategies and how much they affect the decision of target market to become the part of the counseling program? 4. Does the marketing staff is capable enough to develop a strong relationship with customers? 5. What are the adopted research methods of the company? 6. Does the company provide enough information about the services offered on the internet?

LITERATURE LIST: The research study will be based on the extensive literature review. Some of the literature which will be used in order to come up with appropriate and comprehensive theoretical or conceptual framework is as follow: Thackeray, R., Neiger, B., and Hanson, C. (2007). ‘Developing a Promotional Strategy: important questions for social marketing.’ Health Promotion Practice, 8(4), 332-336. Zenker, S. & Martin, N. (2011). ‘Measuring success in place marketing and branding,’ Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 7: 32-41.

Kotler, P. (2009). Marketing Management. Pearson: Prentice-Hall. Kotler, P., and Keller, K. (2009). A Framework for Marketing Management. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Gronroos, C. (2007). ‘Service Management and Marketing.’ European Journal of Marketing, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 3-31. Berry, L. (2002). ‘Relationship marketing of services perspectives from 1983 to 2000.’ Journal of Relationship Marketing, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 59-77. Zeithaml, V., and Bitner, M. (2003). Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across The Firm.

Boston: McGrew Hill.