Marketing Plan of the Australian Ballet Company - Case Study Example

Marketing Plan This is the marketing plan of The Australian Ballet. Statement of the Marketing Goal Goal statement: we would like to market the Australian ballet company to an extent that we will be viewed as one of the leading dance company in Australia by both the artistic directors and the globe In order to measure the attainment of our goal, Australian ballet and other prominent ballet companies in the country will be surveyed by the ballet company directors after which the company will be ranked amongst other companies based on the overall artistic superiority. MARKETING OBJECTIVES FOR THE PROJECT A. Overall Objective To move ballet ahead to international front and still continues to maintain its good reputation of producing some of the finest dancers in the world. B. Primary Objectives To strive for artistic excellence in Australia and other parts of the world. In particular, Europe, Asia and the United States To provide outstanding aesthetic experience To increase patron members and sponsorship C. Sub-objectives To increase Australian Ballet’s capacity by attracting a larger number of dancers and audience To increase the acceptance of ballet dance as a performing art Honor the history of Australian ballet dance To honor ballet dance by preserving the reliable and the original choreography To present high quality and innovative dancing activities To provide the audience with the kind of experience in theatre in an environment where they can also enjoy professional dance To serve as the focal point for ballet dance TARGET MARKET SEGMENTS We will be selling primarily to adults and young dancers but other groups of people will also be targeted e.g. the children, teenagers and the elderly. We will be targeting our customers by; Focusing on the loyalty of the audience by ensuring that the young dancers who attend Australian ballet school receive excellent support in dancing Geographic areas of target will be Australia and other regions of the world among them being; Asia, Europe, Japan, United Kingdom, the United States, and England The target of our sale will be people from all age groups and various nationalities Our target industry will be the entertainment industry MARKETING STRATEGIES According to Indexmundi.com, the population of Australia was about 21.6 million in July 2011. Out of this population, about 18.3% were noted to be 14 years and below while those aged between 15 and 64 years were noted to form 67.7% of the total population and the rest (14%) were older than 65 years old. Considering the population of Australia alone, we are positive that we have sufficient number of potential audiences. According to marketing theory, it is important to have the knowledge base about potential clients in order to take advantage of strengths and deal with weaknesses (Maclaran et al, 2009). Our potential audiences can be classified into three main groups. Children and teenagers: this group of potential audience will be composed of children under the age of eighteen. Our plan will be to offer them special ballet dances that would encourage them to join ballet school and eventually become part of the Australian ballet community. Young adults: this target group audience will be composed of college students and young adults. In regard to the census information of mid 2011, this groups forms a large percentage of the total population hence providing them with ballet dances that represent their age and exhibit modernity will help in attracting this group of audience to become part of the Australian ballet Adults: this potential audience group will be made up of adults over the age of 25. Australian ballet is a tradition that has been part of the Australian people for a long time. This group of audience will be attracted by the inclusion of traditional or classical ballet in our presentations. Our market analysis for potential audience can be summarized in a pie chart as shown below. Evidently from the chart above, our market is boundless. Everyone can be able to enjoy our ballet dances regardless of age or gender. It is our duty to offer the people with our services and encourage them to develop interest in Australian ballet. Target Market Segment Strategy For our company to take advantage of competition and attract a large percentage of audiences for a long time, we will consider conditions that are necessary for sustainable competitive advantage. Bharadwaj and others (1993) note that the product should have value, it should be unique, and not easily imitated by competitors. Therefore, our dances will be unique because it will be the only ballet that exhibits Australian tradition and thus it will require competitors to have immense knowledge and experience in Australian ballet to imitate it. In particular, we will target audiences in groups. Target Group 1: For the young children and the teenagers, we will have to include fun in our ballet dances. We can reach this target audience through institutions of learning. In these institutions of learning, we will encourage the introduction of social programs that support ballet dances e.g. ballet dance classes Target Group B: for the young adults especially those in collages, ballet dance competitions can be introduced in the specific institutions to bring the group closer to the dance. We hope that through this strategy, the young adults will develop interest in ballet and thus will form part of our audience eventually. Target Group C: adults have usually supported ballet in Australia because it is a tradition associated with the country. One of the ways that we will use to attract this group of audience would be to offer ballet dance packages e.g. for those wedding, ballet dancers from Australian ballet company can dance as part of the entertainment. The other way to attract the audience of this age group would be to present ballet in clubs and in other social gatherings. Service Provision Analysis For an estimate of five decades, the Australian Ballet has been one the art companies that has depicted the flagship of the country hence it has continued to define the face of ballet in Australia. There are two main factors that would facilitate for the increase in patron numbers and sponsorship. 1. Branding: in order to attract more patron members and sponsors, we would brand the logos and the impressions of the sponsors in all our activities. In addition, we would make sure that we expose the sponsors in the media because it would increase the impressions of the sponsors and in turn trigger loyalty. We will brand them in the media e.g. through video screen advertising and banners In our website, we will add the logos and the messages of advertisement of the sponsors to trigger exposure We would place the logo of the sponsors in our reward cards When sending emails or mobile texts to customers, automatic messages will include the logos or impressions of the sponsors. To give the sponsors an additional publication, the receipts given during concerts will have a direct print of the sponsors 2. Sales: we will work influencing the purchase decision of our audience by offering special promotions e.g. offering products of the sponsors to audience at a lower rate than the accrual retail price. This will benefit not only the sponsors, but the company as well because it increases the sales of the sponsors and will augment the loyalty of our audience. For a long time, the Australian ballet has been using the audience and the subscribers in determining the patrons. The audience and subscribers will be encouraged using the internet, concerts, and trade fairs to persuade people to become patrons of the company (The Australian Ballet, 2010). The patrons will take the positions at their own will hence we will have to offer high quality services to our audiences and subscribers at all times so as to attract a high number of patrons to assist in the purchase of consumes to be used by the dancers. COMPETITION Nationally, Australian ballet is a representation of excellence in ballet because; it is presented in a warm and friendly way. The company is a representation of contemporary repertoire that has been developed by Australian and prominent international choreographers. Therefore, basically, Australian ballet does not face competition from ballet companies but it faces competition from family or individual activities that people would prefer to engage- in during leisure time. Some of the competing activities are; - sports, orchestra, jazz/ tap and other dances, operas, visit to museums/ recreation facilities/ art centers, and learning foreign languages Internationally, our competitors: other prominent ballet companies The international ballet companies that are largely competing with us are; English National Ballet American Ballet Theatre Houston Ballet (United States) Royal Ballet (United Kingdom) MAIN STRATEGIES Considering the competitive nature that Australian ballet is facing, we plan to offer packages that would attract more audience. Apart from offering warm and friendly ballet dances that express the unique Australian traditional ballet, we will include the latest trends and up –to- date dancing styles in the presentation of our concerts. This will help us keep up with the changing trends and thus capture the attention of people across regions. Using Ansoff’s Matrix, we will implement four marketing strategies (Cox & Schleier, 2010, p.504). Market Penetration In order to reach out to our clients, our marketing plan will involve the production satisfactory services to an extent that our clients will have the desire to continue attending our ballet concerts and more so, they will market us to those they meet. To further increase the number of audience, we will be offering incentives of discount awards for our clients who provide referrals to us. At the same time, in order to penetrate the market, we will be marketing entertainment. Our competitors may have other benefits that attract audience in Australia and in their respective countries, but we will be focusing on entertainment. We face the challenge of attracting audiences who have never attended a ballet concert before, and therefore, by using fun as a marketing strategy, we will penetrate the market because people would want to find out what is going on. According to Johns (1999), to penetrate into the market of the service industry, emotional or hedonic dimension should be considered which in the case of our service entertainment is. The other marketing strategies that we will use to penetrate the market include increasing the level of our advertising. That is, we will increase our adverts so that our services would be available to a wide range of people through yellow pages, coupons, newspapers, radio, internet, flyers, signs in various regions in and out of the country, and even discount books. Market Development To develop our market, we will have to undertake a thorough research on our product. In this research, we will seek to find out the percentage of our potential audience and the strengths and weaknesses of our competitors. This will enable us approximate our sales and at the same time, it will help us use the strengths and weaknesses of our competitors to our advantage. To develop our international market, we will have to identify our markets in the international front especially in Asia, Europe, America and the UK. We will also engage in contact management whereby we well ensure that we have constant and professional contact with international clients as well as potential clients. Service/program Development In developing our services both nationally and internationally, we will have to get sufficient information about the best quality, quantity and type of services that our audiences will desire. In particular, we will have promotions; i.e. attending trade fairs nationally and internationally so as to access all the kinds of information about the ballet and other entertainment services that are available. Diversification To diversify our services, we will have specials or offers. They will be used to attract different kinds of people to the Australian ballet locally and internationally. We will offer a wide range of ballet routines that will bring satisfaction to our audiences of all age groups and nationalities. The other method that we will use in improving the diversification of our services would include the implementation of market mix. In other words, we will focus on issues that would help in diversifying our services to a variance of audience e.g. Image: we would like to have a customer- oriented image. Australian ballet has largely built on loyalty- “loyalty to audiences, loyalty of audiences, loyalty of Australians who take pride in the company’s achievements, loyalty of patrons … and the loyalty of sponsors” (Radbourne, p.66- 67). Features: the Australian ballet will depict traditional ballet dances with inclusion of modern trends and up-to date dancing styles Audience services; to a large extent, the company will be focused on providing ballet dances that have been edited to facilitate for the provision of high quality entertainment. The services will be communicated to audiences and potential audiences through advertisements PROMOTIONAL TOOLS There are various promotional tools that will be used in marketing our services locally and internationally. We would like to drive our clients from their alternative activities and draw them closer to Australian ballet. In the main, the promotional tools that will be used include; Newsletters: according to MarketingFind Inc. (2005), this kind of promotional tool is cheap but it is effective because it builds a relationship with the clients. Regular provision of newsletters and the option to unsubscribe will encourage more people to have the will to become part of the Australian ballet. Press releases: when there is important or good information to be shared, we will use press release. Particularly, we will be using fax, mails and emails. This will facilitate for direct contact with our audience. Sponsorships: this will help in developing a greater effect on the clients about the brand name of our ballet company. We will have specific massages sent to specific locations in way of communicating to our clients about our services. Trade fairs: to increase the level of awareness about our services, we will encourage our staff to attend trade fairs at local and international fronts. This promotional tool is effective in marketing our services because it will help in introducing our services to new clients through direct access (Dwyer, 1987). This is because; the potential audiences will have the chance to obtain primary information about our services. Weitz & Jap (1995) assert that; clients can be accessed through distribution channels hence trade fairs would serve as one of our distribution channels. In addition, this promotional tool is an effective tool for our company because it will help us gather information about the modern trends in the industry and more information about our competitors. Launch activities: every time we introduce new services in our company, this is the toll we will be using to inform our clients and potential clients about them. MarketingFind Inc. (2005) points out that, by using launch activities, entertainment is generated and more so, a report is created between the company and the clients. Therefore, this toll will be significant in bringing us closer to our clients and in turn, it will help us attract larger clientele. Online promotional tools: the specific tools that would be used will include; book-marking, online chats and give away products. These tools will be fundamental in getting in touch with international audiences. We will be able to communicate with audiences and potential audiences across the globe and this interaction will help in marketing our services (Dwyer, 1987). MONITORING TECHNIQUES A. Progress Reports: evaluation of the progress on the distribution of our services locally and internationally will be done. This will provide information about how wide our products have been distributed and in addition, it will offer information about the degree of exposure of our product B. Timeline: in monitoring the progress of our company, monitoring program will be undertaken annually. Information about the achievements and the setbacks of the company will be checked annually hence it will be of significance in developing and implementing strategies to address the barriers that would be existing. C. Outcome Measurements: it will involve the measurement of the awareness level of our services. The other measurements would be; the behaviors, the attitudes, and the environmental barriers that our company is facing in the process of marketing and distributing services. BUDGET This is the estimated budget for one year (after the marketing plan has been implemented) ITEM AMOUNT ($ in 1000) Dancer’s salary 240 Compensation for the instructor 360 Advertising 540 Taxes 150 Communication e.g. telephone 60 Other expenses 220 1570 Basically, the company will used a approximate amount of $1, 570, 000 as the expenses for the year after the marketing plan has been implemented. REFERENCES Bharadwaj, S. G., Varardarajan, P. R. & Fahy, J. (1993). Sustainable Competitive Advantage in Service Industries: A Conceptual Model and Research Propositions’. Journal of Marketing, 57, p.83-99 Cox, F. J. & Schleier, J. (2010). Theory of Constraints Handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill Prof Med/Tech Dwyer, F. R., Johnston, K. & Chadwick, E. (1987). Developing Buyer-Seller Relationships. Journal of Marketing, 51, p.11-27 Nick J, (1999) "What is this thing called service?” European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 33(9/10), pp.958 - 974 Indexmundi.com (July 2011). Australian Demographics Profile 2011. Accessed September 27, 2011, from http://www.indexmundi.com/australia/demographics_profile.html Maclaran, P. et al (2009). The SAGE handbook of marketing theory. New York: SAGE Publications Ltd MarketingFind Inc. (2005). Web Marketing Promotional Tools and Techniques. Accessed, September 27, 2011, from, http://www.marketingfind.com/articles/web_marketing_promotional_tools_and_techniq es.html Radbourne, J. (n.d.). The Australian Ballet- a Spirit of Its Own. International Journal of Arts Management. P.62-70 http://zonecours.hec.ca/documents/H2009-1 1868471.07Radbourne.pdf The Australian Ballet. (2010). The Australian Ballet. Accessed September 27, 2011, from, http://www.australianballet.com.au Weitz, B. A. & Jap, S. (1995). Relationship Marketing and Distribution Channels’. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Vol. 23, p.306- 320 Read More