To Tweet or Not to Tweet: That Is the Question - Essay Example

? 6 February Betterbrekkie manager Betterbrekkie marketing manager Re: managinga twitter presence for betterbrekkie breakfast Overview Having reviewed the organization marketing situation, it is clear that the product is brand new among it intended clients. Developing and managing a twitter presence for the product will help popularize the products and other products line an immense deal. As a result, breakfast cereal bar should have a twitter presence as part of the marketing mix. Current issues The current situation is that the product in question is yet to be launched. As such, the issue at hand is that the product is unknown to the market. This necessitates for massive campaign to make clients aware of the product. Since cereal bar is a new product being introduced into a flooded market, the company requires identifying the specific market niche that will value the new offering adequately to buy it in the long term. Another issue is that the company expects the product to have a 20 percent market share during the first year of its launch. One way to increase market share is through share of preference achieved through pricing, product and promotional changes. The company can also use the share of voice market driver, which entails increasing promotional and advertising expenditures. The company can also use the aspect of distribution to increase market share by ensuring it has an intensive distribution channels (Reidenbach, 2009, p 41) . Betterbrekkie Company can change its marketing mix variables (price, product, promotion and place) so as to cope with the competition. The company can offer its product at relatively lower price than the competitors. The features of the product can be improved from time to time to offer more value to customers. New channels of distribution may be added, as well as increasing advertisement and promotional expenditures to increase market share and keep up with competition (Business sense, 2012, para 4; Lamb, Hair and Carl McDaniel, 2011, p 490). Another issue of concern is how to segment the market. This entails a critical analysis of the market in order to come up with SWOT analysis for betterbrekkie product line, as well as the PESTEL and the porter five forces. SWOT analysis Strengths The product line of betterbrekkie products is healthy, which matches the growing concern on the need for healthy meals by consumers. Betterbrekkie products concentrate on offering organic and healthy foods, which are mostly ignored by fast foods. This can be the major source of the value proposition by the company to increase sales and market share. Weaknesses The company has weaknesses in that it does not have a global presence. Additionally, the products are relatively new and therefore unpopular. Opportunities The company has the opportunity in that it can enlarge its branches to different continents as it grows in size. Another opportunity is the growing concern on healthy diets by consumers, which the company is offering to the market. This can be a source of competitive advantage. The company can also use twitter account and other online facilities to market and popularize its products to prospective consumers. Threats The major threat is the intense competition from established food joints like McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King, which has a global presence and an established brand name. Pestle analysis Political The government has brought strict rules to food sellers to offer information to consumers on whether the food items contain genetically modified ingredients. The GM labeling rule came into force in 2004. Additionally, the political decisions in the UK are largely influenced by marketers’ decisions. The goods and services tax in the fast food market has seen a massive increase in regulation in the recent times. Betterbrekkie has to adopt better and follow regulations stipulated by the food standard agency. Economic The cost of setting up a food joint is fairly low, which makes it easier to enter the market. The market is always growing, and a growing market is vital for the restaurant and fast foods industry. Social The company has to pay close attention to the needs of the UK society. Since the UK populace has busy lifestyles, healthy foods will offer convenient service; therefore, betterbrekkie can make itself a part of the UK lifestyle. There is also an increasing concern for health eating as people have become health conscious, betterbrekkie ought to use this opportunity to offer healthy foods to the masses. Technological The restaurant and fast food industry is a developing industry, and technology has played a vital role for the continuing success. Betterbrekkie has to keep up with the fast pace of the changing technology to keep itself in competition. Other technology can include computerized order taking and online marketing and promotions of new products and offers on twitter and other social platforms. Environmental There is growing concern on environmental sustainability in UK and across the globe. Betterbrekkie should endeavor to carry out business in the best environmentally responsive way possible. This will improve its brand name among consumers and authorities as it will be seen as socially responsible. Porter five forces The availability of many fast foods which are offering differentiated products offers a broad range of choices to consumers. Therefore, the bargaining power of buyers is high. The power is heightened by the verity that the cost of switching from one food joint to the other is quite insignificant. Supplier power The bargaining power of employees as suppliers is high due to the presence of the minimum wage law in the UK. Additionally, the wide variety of competing food joints makes the suppliers of foodstuffs to be extremely high. Threats of new entrants The substitutes for betterbrekkie product line comprise of other types of foods like ready to eat meals and home cooked meals. This makes the threat of substitutes extremely high. Rivalry within the industry There is powerful rivalry in the restaurant industry in which betterbrekkie wishes to venture in. Well established market players like subway, McDonald’s, burger king, KFC and other small joints pose a serious rival to betterbrekkie products. As such, threats of rivalry for existing customers are high in the foods industry (Gillin and Schwartzman, 2010, p 78). Advantages of developing and managing a twitter presence Twitter is speedily becoming one of the powerful and principal online community and a marketing tool for businesses. As a firm with a new product, twitter will profoundly yield the following advantages to the betterbrekkie products line. Twitter will help the company communicate with the customers across the globe. Twitter is a powerful tool of communication for obtaining feedback from clients. When the business posts news regarding its products, customers will always offer feedback. The comments from the account will tell the direction the company is headed, especially on the new product. If the customers will find it appealing, they will say it and if they do not like the product, they will express their opinions. If the feedback highlights some weaknesses on a certain brand, the company will be in a position to make the necessary improvements (Treadaway and Smith, 2010, p 172; Dzhingarov, 2012, para 1). If the company keeps a running search on its business name on twitter, the management will be in a position to establish what customers and prospective customers are conversing; whether positive or negative regarding its products. The management will be aware of how the products are perceived and then make decisions if it wishes to respond. The company can gain more insight with regards to its products by engaging in conversations. For instance, the marketing manager can ask questions to the company’s twitter followers. Allan; the director of corporate communications of the CME Group in Chicago says that customer’s feedback is the most valuable benefit of having a twitter presence (Gillin and Schwartzman, 2010, p 22) Another advantage of managing a twitter account for betterbrekkie product line is learning from other players in the industry. Twitter offers a company an excellent platform to find out what other organizations in the same industry are doing. Further, betterbrekkie can also engage in the conversation of what is going on in the industry. This will offer insights to the company on what changes and trends the industry is going through. By having a twitter account, betterbrekkie can follow industry and learn several aspects of how they operate and other new practices that it can embrace. Developing and managing a twitter account is also beneficial for promotion purposes. New products, product improvements and product development are valuable topics to tweet about. Betterbrekkie can use its twitter account to make customers aware of the various offers and promotion such as when it is offering happy hours. Developing and maintaining a twitter account is easy as it will integrate and optimize the linkage between other social media accounts that the company runs. Twitter feed offers the most up-to-date about the offerings; by sharing this information across all the company media accounts like Facebook and LinkedIn, the company saves time whilst keeping its accounts updated to avoid stagnation. Any page connected to the company’s twitter feed automatically updates once the twitter account is updated. This speedily spreads promotion and marketing information with the least strain on the company’s time and other resources (Culbertson, 2011, para 3). In addition, betterbrekkie can use twitter as a customer service tool and thus enhance its reputation. Several companies are starting to embrace twitter as a tool for customer service, and are enthusiastic and all set to respond to clients concerns. Whole Foods Company embraced twitter as its primary tool for customer service to answer to customers with queries regarding products availability at various food stores, diet information and holiday hours (Liebowitz, 2011, p 65). Betterbrekkie can also benefit from twitter by setting up niche accounts as one of the innovative aspects. This could entail having an account for each of its products, for example an account for the new product breakfast cereal bar @betterbrekkie. This will enable betterbrekkie company target niche clients of different food categories. Demerits of developing and managing a twitter presence Though twitter may be helpful for popularizing a company’s products, there are several shortcomings that come along with it. Nejati asserts that twitter and micro-blogging arenas are under-researched, and that industry views on twitter may not be helpful. The reason is that twitter is still in its infancy (Nejati and Nejati, 2011, p 300), and that there is an enormous untapped potential and unknown mistake as well. Nejati further notes that mishandling of twitter and other social media may have significant unconstructive impacts, which could yield irreparable or valuable damage. Other failure situations include abusive tweets, which justify the inappropriateness of twitter as a marketing tool. Another shortcoming of twitter that is contrary to the common belief is that twitter is not free. When twitter is used a marketing researching tool, there are several requirements for management. These are; time and commitment to build up relationships, finance, people and management buy-in. These requirements may be easy for leading organizations like Dell and IBM, but complex for small and medium enterprises to abide by. By 2010, only seventeen percent of UK firms were using twitter as a marketing tool, and few were persuaded of its tactical feasibility. This implies that twitter should not be the sole marketing tool for a company. Recommendations Following the several benefits that arise from technology, researching the market is easier and cost effective, especially using social media. Recent data indicates that there are about 15.5 UK adults on Twitter; therefore, tapping into their lifestyle is a few clacks of a mouse away. By following posts and tweets, one can unearth what is trending and what is the consumers’ perspective on a certain product. Twitter will also enable the company to establish areas in which its competitors have presence, the kind of comments they receive, as well as the opportunities they miss. The company can thus come up with a graph of any noticeable trends and start building its market tactics around them. This will also help the firm predict future trends in the market. The recommendation is therefore to develop and manage a twitter presence for the company’s product line. Another recommendation is to have the company promote its products through traditional channels like in newspapers, radios and televisions to cater for the market niche unreachable by twitter. Traditional media can compliment twitter in order to reach all intended market niche. The two recommendations can be implemented together at the time of launching the product on March to ensure the product receives the intended publicity. Bibliography: Alexander Voets. (2010) How to Reduce Costs and Increase Market Share Through Rationalization of the Design Process of Products. Munich: GRIN Verlag. Boris Dzhingarov. (2012) CRM benefits of having a twitter account. Accessed on 21 January 2013 from: http://www.business2community.com/twitter/crm-benefits-of-having-a- twitter-account-0303273. Business sense. (2012) How to Get Ahead Of Your Competitors. Accessed on 21 January 2013 from: http://www.nw-businesssense.com/topics-and-briefings/sep-12-how-to-increase- your-market-share.html. Charles W. Lamb, Joseph F. Hair and Carl McDaniel. (2011) Essentials of Marketing. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Chris Treadaway and Mari Smith. (2010) Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day. 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