Marketing Plan for Startup Business - Essay Example

Marketing Plan for Startup Business Green Tsunami is a drink manufacturing industry that focuses on the production of healthy non-carbonated, non-alcoholic drinks. Green Tsunami belongs to Global Liquid Refreshment Beverages Industry. The company is new in the market and has just set up in the city, Jacksonville, which is located in North Carolina, a county in the United States of America. The company is also an associate of Southern Hospitality, Irish Heritage & Fountain Shop. Green tsunami is a natural drink that gives its consumers very nourishing mineral and vitamins that are purely natural hence, the drink will tend to attract more customers as time goes by (Storey, 2010). The drink combines extracts from bananas, spinach, mangoes, kale and coconuts. There is no trace of artificial flavors in the drink. The players of the non-alcoholic, non-carbonated industry consist of bottlers, distributors, and producers. Da River Café Beverages produces drinks that are intended to make the health of the consumer better and, therefore, consists of smoothie, energy drinks, and juices. This paper will highlight the marketing plan for Da River Café Beverages. Keywords; beverage, Da River Café Beverages, marketing plan. Sales Strategy & Marketing Plan. Since a tsunami is a new product in the market, there is a need first to gain experience from a real customer just adjacent to the company. It is because of this that the first six months of the company’s production will focus only on selling to the population in Jacksonville city that is located in North Carolina. Jacksonville city is small and has a population density as compared to other parts of North Carolina. Jacksonville city has an estimated population of about 69, 079 as of 2013, whereas the entire North Carolinas population was 9,848,917. The population of Jacksonville is decreasing at the rate of 1.5% as that of North Carolina is increasing at the rate of 3.3%. As compared to North Carolina, Jacksonville city consists of older people as 76.6% of the population is aged over 18 years. It is the 76.6% if the population that the Tsunami is targeting. Another interesting piece of statistic is that 92.2% of the population went to high school. This percentage of the population is considered enlightened of the importance of natural drinks, and hence they are a potential consumer (Harvey, 2015). In addition, 85.4% of the population is above the poverty line and due to the expensive nature of natural drinks, they are considered potential customers. However, it is worth noting that Jacksonville’s population has very few visitors, and this can be taken to mean that it is protected from external influence. Competition Assessment. The main competitors for the Da River Café Beverages are Coca-Cola Company, DR Pepper Snapple, and Nestle Waters, which occupy 34%, 24.3%, 11% and 10.25% of the consumer products respectively. All the above beverage companies offer carbonated drinks that do not provide good health as much as the Tsunami offers. However, there are very high chances that there are other small non-carbonate, non-alcohol beverage producing companies within Jacksonville that are going to give very stiff completion to the Tsunami. However, by selling Tsunami at a unit price, it is expected that Da River Café Beverages will prevail over all competitors. It is because of this that the drink is expected to grow steadily in popularity. This will be expected to happen because of the higher education level of Jacksonville as compared to that of the entire United States. There is a general trend to beverage consumers to move away from carbonated drinks and towards healthier options. The basis for the completion will be on the percentage of the respective drinks that the town consumes per unit time. This will have to be estimated, and the information gathered from primary beverage distributors and stores. Effective competition is compared with the rate of growing popularity of the drink in every thirty days. The potential future competitors will be huge carbonated beverage companies like Coca-Cola. The main barriers for the business venture are that the beverage companies that are already in existence may have very loyal customers or have mastered ways of producing natural drinks at very low costs. Message to be conveyed to the consumer. The five Fs will not be forgotten. The consumers are reminded of the importance of the soft drink and why they should by it. The functions of the soft drink to the consumers could include things like revitalizing the body, quench thirst, and even rehydrating the body. For rehydration, it will be in more demand because some people would prefer to drink something that is fortified with minerals and vitamins rather drink carbonated drinks. In addition, in places where there are shortages of pure bottled water, some potential buyers would consider buying the Tsunami to quench their thirst and with time, such consumers end up being satisfied. The consumers should also be informed of the standard price of the drink. This will help stop issues of retailers selling the drink at high prices for more profits. The complaints and compliments of the consumer should be heard and responded to if necessary. The owners of the firm should plan and think of where they intend the business firm to be in the future. The drink should have things that distinguish it from other drinks such as; business name, slogan, product design, logo, packaging and mode of dressing of employees. The management should consider a positioning strategy that is not too expensive and should also be easy to control and manipulate (Urban, 1993). The company should sell its products at a lower market price or even the same market price as it gives great attention to matters of: price, packaging, service quality, quality of product (Zeithaml, 1990). Marketing vehicle. Due to the volatile nature of the soft drink, and any form of delays by the retailers may lead to the spoiling of the natural drinks, there is a need to sell the beverage directly to the consumer. Also, the beverage will have to be transported using special kinds of tracks that have coolers. This will prevent the beverage from spoiling before it reaches the consumer or expire while it is still on the market shelf. The drink is not sold in supermarkets because of the stiff competition that is always there in supermarkets and malls as products are arranged adjacent to each other. However, the company intends in specializing its personnel and eliminate other costs apart from those arising due to marketing, and production of quality products. Hence, the company will have to contract distributors who will be moving around with the marketing personnel sometimes. The marketing staff will be collecting consumer feedback or other forms of data that will be necessary. Free samples will sometimes be given to attract new customers who are cautious about spending their money in trying out something new. There will be a website that will be put up to enlighten more people about the brand and why it is the best option. Also, the website would be used to receive queries and comments from concerned and satisfied consumers. Such feedback is critical in making decisions about the future of the product. Newsletters would be sent to email addresses of customers to inform them of new information such as new products, prices and promotional offers that may be available to the consumer. The newsletters would be sent to the customer’s email address every two weeks. Nonetheless, so that the company picks up the first interest of the consumer, it will offer the products in a stylish package and even offer free delivery of the products to the customer. This will be so even as the product is being sold at the same market price as other similar products or even lower. Such a practice is called lean startup (Blank, 2013). Normally it is the quality of the product that tends to differentiate a company’s product from that of its rivals. Hence, while using lean startup, it would remain priceless to ensure that the quality of the product is not compromised. In addition, every customer complaint should be taken with outermost attention as every single customer’s opinion counts at this state. This is because a single dissatisfied customer would bad mouth the company, and it is estimated that a single dissatisfied customer “badmouths” the company to ten other potential customer. The same is true for the opposite. During this stage, employee behavior should be at its best, and any misconduct should be rewarded appropriately as per the company’s regulation. At this early stage customer behavior pertaining the company’s products should always be under scrutiny so that the marketing team can know how to respond appropriately. References Blank, S. (2013). Why the lean start-up changes everything. Harvard Business Review, 63-72. Harvey, C. (2015, May 3). Whats Ahead for Beverages – 2014. Retrieved from The Futures Report: http://www.marketresearch.com/Beverage-Marketing-Corporation-v1293/Futures-Ahead-Beverages-8667231/ Storey, M. (2010). The shifting beverage landscape. Physiology & Behavior, 10-14. Urban, G. L. (1993). Design and marketing of new products. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Zeithaml, V. A. (1990). Balancing customer perceptions and expectations. In S. a. Schuster, Delivering quality service. Read More