A Marketing Plan for BW Leisure Trust - Essay Example

?A Marketing plan for BW Leisure Trust Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Business Mission 3 Marketing Objective 4 Marketing Strategy 5 Implication 5 Control 6 References 7 Introduction BW Leisure Trust is nothing but a registered charity that is established with the purpose of running the sports related assets that belong to a local council/authority located in UK. The charity aims to become a self-funded organization so that it does not need local tax payers’ money. Over the last two years, number of people who use the facilities of this trust has grown significantly. However, competition has also risen from the other leisure facility providing centres and private gyms. Like any other commercial organization, BWLT also requires a proper marketing plan in order to become independent of tax payers’ money and to stay ahead of its rivals. A proper marketing plan that includes five major aspects such as ‘situational analysis’, ‘marketing objective’, ‘marketing strategy’, ‘implication’ and ‘control’ is presented in this paper. Each of these aspects is suitably analyzed in the context of BWLT in the following sections of this paper. Business Mission The principle mission of BWLT is operating the sporting assets in such a way that benefits the facility users and becoming a self-sufficient profit making organization within the next seven years. Situational Analysis Situational analysis is all about analyzing the internal as well as external environment of an organization. Strategic management tools like Porter’s five forces model and SWOT are useful for such analysis. Porter’s five forces i.e. buyers’ bargaining power, suppliers’ power, threat of substitutes, rivalry among competitors and threat of new comers can be analyzed in the context of BWLT (Ahlstrom & Bruton, 2009) In case of BWLT, users of the facilities have strong bargaining power as they can choose any other facilities according to their requirements. Suppliers of various equipments are likely to have medium to low bargaining power as there are number of entities that are in this business. Rivalry among the players is expected to be more intense in the coming days and threat from a newcomer is medium as significant volume of capital is must to start such a business. SWOT Analysis The major strength of BWLT is that its usefulness has been proved to the local people over the past few years. Furthermore, various schemes that are already introduced by it are found to be quite popular among the users. Major weakness of this charity trust is the fact that it is still dependent on the tax payers’ money. In addition to that there are very few marketing related activities. The trust has almost no online presence which is a major drawback for an organization that desires to be self-funded in the coming years. Major opportunity that this trust can capitalize on is the fact that it can now target the entire population of UK. Other leisure facility providing centres and private gyms that can be considered as its competitors are likely to be the main threat for BWLT’s business. Marketing Objective Marketing objectives ought to be SMART i.e. it should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time bound (Walker, 2006). The primary marketing objective in case of BWLT is to enhance the involvement of the users of the facilities. Involvement of users is likely to be reflected by the increase in usage of the facilities and this in turn would reflect in the total sales volume. It is aimed that the business of BWLT will increase by 30% in the coming year. Furthermore, another main objective is to enhance the brand equity of BWLT and this can be measured while dealing with the both suppliers and customers. Each of these objectives is SMART in nature. Marketing Strategy Marketing strategy for BWLT can be developed by using tools like Ansoff Matrix. As per this matrix the trust will have four options i.e. market penetration, market development, product development and diversification (Mercer, 1996). In order to achieve its main objective, BWLT should focus on ‘market penetration’. In other words, it has to attract more customers with the help of its existing facilities. If there are seven years to become self-sufficient, then the first two years may be spent on ‘market penetration’. Thereafter, the trust will need to give emphasis on other two options i.e. ‘product development’ as well as ‘market development’. In that process, it may bring in new facilities for the existing members. It may introduce new innovative schemes to attract more customers. As a part of ‘market development’ exercise it can start a new centre at a different location. Since, now, the trust is not allowed to limit its service to the locals only, it is very important to open up new facilities in different regions of the country. This is expected to boost the revenue of it and hence its overall business mission is likely to look easier to achieve. Implication The marketing mix in the context of an organization is likely to be influenced by the marketing strategies that are adopted by it. BWLT may be considered as a service providing organization and hence, marketing mix is consisted of 7 P’s i.e. product, place, price, promotion, process, people and physical evidence. BWLT has the opportunity to introduce new facilities that can be used for attracting new members. Promotion is likely to be the key in the next few years as the trust would target not only its local people but also all other citizens of UK. In order to reach the population that is outside BWLT’s locality it needs to undertake extensive promotional campaign by using both print as well as electronic media. It is likely to be using the internet in the best possible way. Process of new registration, payment and renewal of membership will go online very soon. As the very first step, a new website will be developed for BWLT. People will be able to access all the important information from this website apart from being new member and make online payments through it. In order to promote the trust and facilities, online presence will be improved by getting into various social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Since the trust maintains some physical properties like sporting assets, special attention will be given to the ‘physical evidence’ aspect. Control Success of a marketing plan is very much dependent on how it is executed. A special team will be formed and it will look after the implementation of the entire plan. This team will work under the leadership of the marketing head of the trust. This team will be responsible for all the expenditures that will be associated with the execution of the marketing activities. It will have the authority to take decisions regarding choosing a new supplier or vendor for promoting the trust and its facilities. References Ahlstrom, D. & Bruton, G. D. (2009), International Management: Strategy and Culture in the Emerging World, Cengage Learning Mercer, D. (1996), Marketing, Wiley-Blackwell Walker, (2006), Marketing Strategy 5E, Tata McGraw-Hill Education Read More