Marketing Communications Plan - Essay Example

 MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PLAN Introduction Successful brands in the modern era rely heavily on the promotional activities and the marketing campaigning. According to Fill (2011), in order to retain a competitive position in the highly competitive business sector, business organisations need to make sure the brand popularity remains intact and the customers are attracted towards the brand name. Considering the statement, the report investigates possible marketing communication plan in contemporary business environment that could provide brands a competitive advantage over the competitors. The report agenda includes communication objectives, marketing communication strategies, integrated promotional mix, scheduling and implementation and evaluation. Premiere Inn is the concerned brand in the current context. Finally, it will assess effective marketing communications plan for Premiere Inn. 1.0 Context Analysis After intensive market analysis, it has been found that following locations are the most lucrative prospect for Premier Inn: Manchester (Piccadilly) Birmingham (City Centre-New Street) Edinburg (Central) London (Kensington) These four locations are among the top tourist spots in the country currently and generate significant revenue from tourism activities. Considering the statement of Fill (2013), the choice of location can be pivotal for marketing campaign. However, targeting popular tourist destination could mean more costly marketing campaigns. Despite the considerable amount of initial capital investment, the return on investment is expected to be greater that can be complemented with a sustainable business development prospect. Premier Inn is suggested to target two specific customer segments: Target segment 1: The primary target segment is the small families that often opt for short holiday trips. Recently, an increase in the frequency of domestic holidays has been observed. The majority of the families across the UK currently prefer short trips for two to three night stay to enjoy comfort (Steven, 2008). Another interesting fact is that, such demography is interested in club card scheme to enjoy membership facilities for a long span of time. Tourists under this category prefer communicating over digital media like email, social media and through travel agents. Target segment 2: Another target segment for Premier Inn can be the young entrepreneurs in the UK who have newly registered business in the country. The small business owners in the UK travel frequently across the country for business purpose and book hotels for one or two nights (Badot and Cova, 2008). The demography is comprised of both male and female aged between 25-55 years. As far as the behaviour trend is concerned, this type of people prioritise convenience, ambience and cost involving the hospitality services and opt for membership schemes with the travel agencies. Tourists under this segment prefer communication over messenger and email. Competitor environment When it comes to the UK hospitality industry, there is oligopoly in the budget hotel segment. Premier Inn being one of the preferred brands among the target customer segment is currently facing strong competition from several popular nationwide chains such as Holiday Inn, Ibis Hotel and Travelodge. According to Barry and Weinstein (2009), in order to achieve a competitive edge over the rivals, innovation is crucial. In the hospitality industry, marketing communication is assumed to be an important parameter in order to enhance brand image and attract potential customer segment. Hence, Premier Inn needs to revise the existing marketing communication strategies so that the preferred customer segments like families and business owners can be targeted. 2.0 Communications Objectives The communication objectives for Premier Inn need to be based on the core values that the organisation prioritises. These core values are ‘inform’, ‘persuade’ and ‘remind’. Inform: To make the target customers aware of the brand To identify potential market with the help of appropriate communication channels To penetrate the budget hotel segment through public awareness campaign and improving brand preference up to 20% by the end of the first year Persuade: To develop creative positioning strategy to convince the target audience to avail the services To attract new customers with innovative offers like discounts, competitive price and money-back guarantee Remind: To make the target audience aware of the presence of the hotel through several communication channels To motivate the target audience to take actions 3.0 Marketing Communications Strategy: The communication strategy of Premier Inn needs to promote the three major objectives as highlighted above. Beane and Ennis (2007) argued that a major reason behind the failure of a particular marketing plan is the communication gap between the brand and the target audience. The brand can consider following communication strategies for promoting the three core values; ‘inform’, ‘persuade’ and ‘remind’. The core value ‘inform’ can be promoted through leveraging the brand itself, the available facilities and business services. However, since the budget hotel segment in the UK has become more competitive currently, Premier Inn needs to emphasise on effective marketing channels to convey the messages. Berger, Sorensen and Rasmussen (2010) strongly agree that brands need to identify the preferred mode of communication of the customers and target those medium only. In this context, the brand can follow a blend of physical media and digital media. Conventional media such as billboard, newspaper, magazine and television advertisement can be used for message promotion, while digital media such as social media and email can be used to reach out to a wider population. The tagline ‘get a great night’s sleep or get your money back with our Good Night Guarantee’ can be promoted to persuade the target audience. In addition to that, competitive service packages can be promoted to attract the potential customers. As cited by Darley, Blankson, and Luethge (2010), customers would first search the internet to compare similar services. Therefore, the official website of Premier Inn needs to be informative enough that would promote the tagline and attractive packages in the homepage. On the other hand, social media, direct email and pay-per-click are other effective methods of promoting the tagline and packages and attract the customers. In order to ‘remind’ customers about the services, social interaction could play a crucial role. Nowadays, people are connected to social media sites 24×7 and like to keep themselves updated with the latest happenings (Dobni and Zinkhan, 2010). Therefore, promoting info-graphic contents over the social media and engaging the target audience can help Premier Inn reminding the brand values continuously. 4.0 Integrated Promotional Mix: Promotion is considered as one of the most vital components of the marketing mix. According to Duncan and Moriarty (2008), for increasing the awareness among the customers, the companies are required to prepare effective promotional strategies. In most of the cases, the initiatives of the firms get unnoticed due to poor promotional strategies. Premier Inn also needs to concentrate on designing the promotional mix in a proper way that can attract maximum number of potential consumers. However, in this context, Fernandes and Proenca (2008) argued that the promotional strategy of a company primarily depends on its target group of consumers. The different promotional mix for Premier Inn has been discussed as under: Personal Selling: Personal selling is treated as one of the most expensive form of promotion. Fuchs and Diamantopoulos (2010) identified personal selling as a one-to-one communication channel between the seller and the potential customers. Through the personal selling, the companies can make a direct contact with the prospective customers. Premier Inn can implement this strategy through personal meeting or direct e-mails. However, according to the survey, these sorts of approaches can be rarely used by the potential customers of Premier Inn. Procuring the personal information of the consumers can be considered as a difficult task for the firm. Therefore, personal selling may not be treated as a good option for Premier Inn to attract the target group of consumers. Advertising: Advertising is a form of non-personal promotional strategy. Beane and Ennis (2007) mentioned that advertising is most widely used promotional tools across the global companies. In advertisement, the companies pay charges to the different media outlets to promote ideas, goods or services. Advertising can be treated as one way communication to the prospective customers. Premier Inn can use viable advertising programs to attract its customers. The advertising campaign of Premier Inn can help the brand to reach to wide range of population. The company can provide advertisements through television, social media, newspaper or magazine, billboards or search engines (pay per click advertisements). It has been found that the most frequently used mode of media for advertisement is the television media. For the households, television media can be used effectively. On the other hand, social media advertisements can be effective for new generation customers. Premier Inn has targeted the young aged people who are more convenient with the social media. In addition, advertisements through social media may incur less amount of cost for the company. The company can also provide advertisements in the local newspapers or the weekly magazines. On the other hand, the bill board advertisements can be provided in the busy streets that can grab the attention of most of the customers. Premier Inn can also pay the search engines like Google or Yahoo for the pay per click advertisements. However, it is costlier compared to other forms of advertisements. Direct marketing: Direct marketing can be effective when a company intends to provide advertisements for a specific group of customers rather than focusing on the mass media. As mentioned by Barry and Weinstein (2009), direct marketing enables the companies to generate sales leads for the sales representatives. Direct marketing helps a company to communicate the information regarding the special offers, new products and services or other enquiries of the customers through a one way communication process. Direct mail or e-mail can be used for the purpose of direct marketing. Premier Inn can acquire the information of the customers and send direct mails to provide information. Sales Promotion: Sales promotion can be treated as a tool to influence the purchasing behaviour of the customers. Fill (2011) identified sales promotion as a short term method of the companies to stimulate the purchasing decision of the potential customers. Coupons, or point of purchase displays are the equipment of sales promotion. Premier Inn can provide special coupons during the off seasons to offer discounted prices for the rooms. Moreover, Premier Inn can also distribute the coupons in the shopping malls to attract young generation customers. Public Relations: Public relation activities are also designed to motivate the target group of consumers. In this regards, Barry and Weinstein (2009) cited that public relation campaigns are made for uplifting the brand image of the company. Through the public relation activities, the customers get to know the products, services and policies of the company. Apart from that, the company can provide net earnings, total revenue or customer base to its customers. Premier Inn can also use public relation tactics to attract the customers. The company can publish weekly magazines that contain the relevant facts and figure of the brand. The growth factors of the company and its present customer base or other performance related information can help the brand to improve brand image. Moreover, the performance of the company may influence the customers to visit Premier Inn. 5.0 Scheduling and Implementation In order to implement the promotional strategies effectively, Premier Inn needs to schedule the steps in a synchronised way. Firstly, the company needs to conduct a market survey for 1 week to understand the perception of the customers. In addition, the survey may also guide the company to select the target group of customers. Based on the survey result, Premier Inn can invest funds in different promotional strategies. Secondly, the company also needs to prepare a budget to decide the investments in the different promotional tools. Premier Inn needs 1 month time to procure funds for the promotions. Designing the promotional tools can take further 1 month time. The brand can take another 2 weeks to implement the promotional tools in a proper way. Thus, it can be assumed that Premier Inn needs appropriately 90 days to implement the promotional strategies. 6.0 Evaluation, Control and Feedback Proper assessment of the marketing strategy is important to determine the future scope of development. According to Beane and Ennis (2007), the companies are required to understand the effectiveness of a particular marketing strategy and its impact on the business performance. Premier Inn also needs to evaluate the performance of the proposed promotional strategy. The promotional strategy of the company has incurred a certain amount of cost. Therefore, evaluation of the strategy is important from the business perspectives. Moreover, the evaluation of the promotional strategy may also identify the areas that are not proving desired output. It can help the managers to control the cost of promotions. The following strategies can be implemented by Premier Inn to evaluate the performance of the adverting tools: Feedback from the focus groups: Premier Inn needs to seek feedback from the focus group of customers to understand the impact of the promotional strategies. In this context, Fill (2013) cited that the reaction of the consumers is vital to assess the effectiveness of a marketing policy. Premier Inn can provide a feedback form to customers visiting the hotel. In the feedback form, the company can ask questions like the best mode of communication preferred by the customers. It can help the company to concentrate more on the communication channel that is providing the best possible outcome. In addition, based on the feedback of the customers, the company can take the decision regarding disinvestment in a particular promotional tool that is being least preferred by the customers. Conducting pre-test advisement process Premier Inn can conduct a pre-test advertisement process to ensure success through the promotional strategies. Barry and Weinstein (2009) stressed on the fact that in order to get success, the company needs to put a unique theme to the targeted customers through the promotional tools. Thus, Premier Inn needs to design its advertisements in such a manner that it replicates a centralised and uniform theme in all the platforms. An exclusive and catchy statement can be conveyed though all its advertisements to communicate the unique selling proposition (USP) of the company. Communicate through the social media platforms: Premier Inn can communicate with the customers through the social media platforms. As mentioned by Fill (2011), in the present age, social media platforms are the most widely used tools by the companies to communicate with the customers. With the help of social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, Premier Inn can understand the insight of the customers. The comments shared by the customers in the social media pages needs to be evaluated effectively by the company to improve its promotional strategies. Moreover, the suitable suggestions of the customers can also be considered for improving the promotional tools. Conclusion The report began with the purpose of designing effective promotional strategies for Premier Inn. In the report, a detailed step by step approach has been shown to implement the promotional strategies. In the first stage, Premier Inn has conducted a market analysis to select the location and understand the macro and micro environment. The report exposed that main idea of promotions is to notify, convince and remind the customers about the products and services of a brand. The integrated promotional mix for Premier Inn has also been mentioned in the study. Based on the report, it has been found that media advertisements can be the most effective promotional tool for Premier Inn. The study ended with the recommendations such as considering the feedback of the customers for improving the promotional strategies. The company like Premier Inn can communicate with the customers through the social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. In addition, the study also suggested that conducting a pre test advertisement can bring success to the communication system of a company. Reference List Badot, O. and Cova, B., 2008. The myopia of new marketing panaceas: the case for rebuilding our discipline, Journal of Marketing Management , 24(1–2), pp.205–19. Barry, J and Weinstein, A., 2009. Business psychographics revisited: from segmentation theory to successful marketing practice, Journal of Marketing Management, 25 (3–4), pp.315–40. Beane, T.P. and Ennis, D.M., 2007. Market segmentation: a review, European Journal of Marketing, 21(5), pp.20–42. 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London: Pearson Fuchs, C. and Diamantopoulos, A., 2010. Evaluating the effectiveness of brandpositioning strategies from a consumer perspective, European Journal of Marketing, 44(11), pp.1763–86. Steven, P., 2008. Destination marketing: an integrated marketing communication approach. London: Butterworth-Heinemann Read More