Product Marketing Strategy Nowadays - Coursework Example

Marketing Plan s Introduction Washing clothes and maintaining good hygiene is endeavouredby many people. However, majority of people in the 21st century are spending much of their time in the laundry than in the bathroom. This means that most people are valuing laundry services and products in equal measure. Coming up with a product marketing strategy is one of the most challenging aspects of marketing and launching a new product. A marketing professional starts by writing down the outline of his market plan that would assist him/her to organize the study, gather information as well as organizing the presentation (Homburg, Sabine & Harley, 2009). With the current advancements in technology, there is a growing demand for sophisticated laundry products by the consumers. The market is also changing thus making manufacturers to come up with products that exceed both the industry and customer expectations. The target markets for the laundry products are middle class and a portion of high-end consumers who want to have value for the money they spend. Specifically, these people look for laundry machines on the market that are admired are characterised by high for their functionality, high-end technology, energy efficiency, and aesthetic. The firm is going to launch the “laundry reloaded” product for this target population. The product is revolutionary to the appliance market since it will assist numerous people to do their laundry in a more efficient manner while maintaining all the services of a high-end laundry machine. The target market is technologically advanced, thus online marketing is a viewed as the best option in relation to reaching a wider market audience. Therefore, this would be attained through promotion pricing, placement, and product development. Marketing Strategy The marketing strategy increasingly involves the process of the placement of the four P’s: (product, placement, pricing, and promotion) (Laermer & Simmons, 2007. These four items are the pillars of the marketing mix and need to be considered in any marketing strategy. This marketing strategy will help gain an understanding of how we will position ourselves in the market offering. Moreover, it will show how laundry reloaded will be the right product in the right place, price and time. Product “Laundry reloaded” would be providing services in the most efficient manner. Majority of washing machines just eliminate significant water amounts from the laundry at the end of the wash cycle, but they do not completely dry it. Considering the fact that most customers need dried apparel, our new machine would go a step a further and dry the clothing. From what laundry reloaded provides, it is easy to say that it is easy to say that the customer is looking for an easier way to do their laundry. By using this product, customers will be relieved from worrying about transferring their washed clothes to the dryer. From the customer’s perspective, this laundry-reloaded product is highly convenient because it is compact, easy to use, and has the additional benefit of the laundry view text option. Additionally, this product is stylish and has a great design. Product Features Considering the stiff competition in the laundry market, the machine works as a 2 in 1 machine that acting both as a washer and dryer making it as a one step laundry unit. The laundry reloaded machine will be small so it can fit into an average size laundry room. It will be available in multiple colors such as white, silver, black, red, blue, and pink. The product has more appeal to sustainable consumers who want to save on their energy costs. Another appealing feature of the “laundry reloaded is the presence of the laundry view. Laundry view allows the user to check the status of machines in laundry room without ever having to be in the laundry room. This laundry view gives text alerts when the dryer is complete. This fits with all the techno-survy generations. Laundry reloaded will be marketed as an easy breezy laundry machines. Less work doing laundry means more time with family members and friends. This product is different from competitors because no other laundry appliance company is offering this two in one technology. Considering that the most common problem for most laundry machines is shrinkage of garments, the developed machine would have a feature for preshrinking the clothes in order to avoid this problem. Another common problem that has been alleviated by this new product is colour bleeding. Although most of the machines wash clothes with same colour to avoid this problem, in this case, ‘laundry reloaded would lessen this problem by adding cold water and providing repeated washings in a shorter time. Pricing By having the knowledge of how pricing is perceived in the target market, it is easy to come up with a pricing strategy. The target market is mainly the Baby-Boomers and generation X who want to have value for their money by purchasing quality products specifically between the ages of 35-58. These categories of consumers are easier to persuade to trade up to higher price points because they have more disposable income. The laundry product has been priced according to size and sophistication. Pricing is one of the main factors associated with the process of generation of revenue from a particular product. On average, a dryer lasts about 11 years if it is run once a day. The average washing machine costs about 700 dollars. The average clothes dryer is about 600 dollars. In total, the average cost for a washer and dryer is 1300 dollars. The laundry reloaded product would be approximately 1150 dollars because we want to keep the prices competitive with the other laundry machines on the market. Promotion In the case of laundry reloaded, the purpose of promotion is targeted at people who do much of laundry. The advent of the internet technology has significantly changed the way consumers behave. Therefore, the target audience will both be the physical store shoppers and online consumers. It has also offered with a better way of viewing services and products. As a result, it has assisted in creating a better relationship between the consumer and the marketer. As suggested by Singla and Kumar (2011), it has transformed them into more complicated, savvy, and well-informed buyers. Shaw (2012) argues that online marketing has proven to be the most successful as a result of its convenience and flexibility. Online networking sites will be used in the promotion of this product. They allow interconnectivity of individuals in a virtual social world through social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter, as well as through online forums and blogs. This form of promotion will let the targeted market know about the great advantages this machine will have over traditional washer and dryer machines. Advertisement would be done through electronic and print media on the benefits of using laundry reloaded product. Placement The placement of distribution has to be decided on the basis of consideration of the areas where the footfall of the target audience is maximum (Kotler & Keller, 2006). The placement of the product needs to reach out to people who are in the target audience. This means that the product needs to be easily available in places that are convenient for people who look for appliances. The product should be made available in appliance stores as well as big box stores like Costco. Other factors There are many factors to be considered that are outside the 4 p’s such as an open world environment of business and risks. The PEST (political, economic, social, technological) analysis helps to evaluate the influence of macro structures on doing business. Politically, the product will be sold to various stable nations in compliance with energy efficiency requirements in their respective nations of operation. The economic and social factors favours the sale of the ‘laundry reloaded’ since an estimated 30 million out of the 32 million Canadians belong to the middle with high affinity for quality products; the high prices of the product will not affect the market share. However, inculcating the change in scenario without taking a lot of pain is an effective part of smart and strategic marketing planning. Therefore, it is crucial to come up with a back up marketing plan in case of change in the marketplace. Sales forecast Assumption Sheet The price at which the “laundry reloaded” product would be preliminary launched in the market is $1150 for the 2 in 2 unit. The price has been decided in view of the prices of other appliances that are similar to keep it competitive in the market. Considering the elevated percentage of people who are looking for energy efficient and convenient appliances it is expected the company would sell a large number of laundry reloaded units in its first year. Assuming that it sells around 2000 units its first year and 2200 in its second year, the company is likely to gross sales of approximately 2.1 million dollars in its first year of operation. We will assume that laundry reloaded sales will rise at a rate of 8% starting from the second year onwards. We would also assume that the cost of goods sold is approximately 40%, operating expenses 20%, and fixed expenses 35% of the total revenue, thus resulting to profit margins of 60% of the total revenue. The company can attain its breakeven sales when its revenue is exactly equal to its costs. That is, the breakeven sales signify how many units of washer and dryers the company will have to sell to make up for its involved expenses. Thus, the breakeven point of business is when the net profit of the company is zero (Homburg, Sabine, & Harley, 2009). By varying the sales volume or the number of units sold per year, we find that the net profit of the company is zero when the business sells 1860 units of washer and dryers. Break even analysis Year 2013 Income Statement Selling price per unit $1,300 Number of units sold 1,450 Net sales $1,885,000 Cost of goods sold $754,000 Gross Profit $1,131,000 Operating expenses $780,000 Profit before tax $1,560,000 Financial View Pro forma Income Statement Years 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Income Statement Net Sales Cost of goods Net Operating Income Operating expenses Net profit Pro forma Cash Flow Statement Years 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Cash Flow Statement Beginning balance Cash inflow Cash outflow Pro forma Balance Sheet Years 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Balance Sheet Accounts Receivable Inventory Prepaid expenses Implementation and Evaluation After the implementation of the marketing strategy, it is very important to prioritise the efficiency of several strategies that are being utilised to continue out the marketing plan. Basing on a collective group of measures, marketing evaluation is completed by making use of marketing metrics. A measure of the conversion ratio needs to be taken into account with regard to evaluating the effectiveness of the various promotion mediums that have been utilised. The conversion ratio will focus on the approximated by the number of points of contacts to the number of customers who have been frequently purchasing the product after getting exposed to it through coming in contact with the physical promotion medium. In addition an evaluation was done on the effectiveness of the online marketing campaigns, that was performed by running the campaigns in a variety of social networking sites and the hit and click ratio of the particular program has to be evaluated. Lastly, the product success is ensured through extensive advertising and promotional strategies both on print and social media in order to gain a keen awareness of any changes that should be made on the product. References Homburg, C., Sabine, K., & Harley, K. (2009). Marketing Management - A Contemporary Perspective (1st ed.), London: Sage Publishers. Shaw, E. (2012). "Marketing strategy: From the origin of the concept to the development of a conceptual framework." Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, 4(1), 30–55. Laermer, R., & Simmons, M. 2007. Punk Marketing, New York: Harper Collins. Singla, B. B., & Kumar, P. 2011, E-shopping: A paradigm shift in buying behavior. International Journal of Research in IT, Management and Engineering, 1(2), 174-189. Kotler, P. and Keller, K. (2006), Marketing and Management, Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA Read More