Principle of Marketing Essay using SWOT Example

Principle of Marketing Essay using SWOT Example Principle of Marketing Essay using SWOT – Essay Example 1-Develop a SWOT for this new product. Make sure to have at least two items under each section. Strengths: Advantages from new design proprietary know-how First mover advantages Weaknesses: High business start-up costs Untested market demand Opportunities New product attracts investors who can boost your cash flow, production capacity, and marketing budget and so on. You can surprise competitors Threats Vulnerable to reactive attack by major competitors Emergence of substitute products 2. After you complete the SWOT, what two additional forms of research should you do, and why? a) Porter’s five forces analysis: This will help you analyze the kite-making industry so that you can be able to stake out a position that is more profitable and less vulnerable to attack from competitors (Porter, 2008). b) Value chain analysis: This helps the firm identify its core competencies and the activities in the value chain that it can do to create a sustainable competitive advantage either through cost advantage or differentiation. 3. Based on your SWOT, who might two target audiences be for your new kite? Advertising firms that use kites as moving billboards Traditional kite consumers 4. What would be two marketing objectives you develop for your plan? To build a customer database of at least 200,000 in the next 12 months. To achieve a return on investments (ROI) of at least 20 % 5. Define and explain the four elements of the marketing mix that you would suggest for this new product. Base your answers to 1, 2, 3, and 4 above. a) Product: The product is the tangible kite that will be offered for sale. Kites are generally multi-shaped and multi-colored thus we shall give a provision for mass customization of the kites based on customer taste. We shall accommodate for common shapes for small orders and be more flexible for larger orders so as to maximize on economies of scale. b) Price: This determines the products profit margins. We shall commence with a skimming price strategy so as to maximize on profit margins before competitors come up with substitute products. We shall give discounts for large purchases and for advertising firms so that they can increase the buzz about our product. c) Promotion: this determines how we shall spread the word about our product to increase consumer interest and eventual sales and market share. Our first strategy would be to issue discounts to advertising firms so that they use our kites as mobile billboards. We shall also participate in town fairs, festivals and set up spots around parks and beaches to gain both visibility and sales. d) Place: this determines where we shall make the kites and how we shall distribute them to the final consumer. In this case, we shall only have one manufacturing site and utilize the internet as a retail store. We shall partner with a courier service to deliver orders around the country. We shall not venture abroad in the first few months to reduce logistics costs. 6. Explain two ways you can evaluate the success of your plan (based on your objectives). After 12 months we will look at the number of customers we have in our database. If the number slightly exceeds 200,000 then we have succeeded. If the numbers have exceeded by 100,000 or more then we had done poor evaluations. If the number of customers is less than 200,000 then we have failed in our plan. We will use a similar criterion to the one above to evaluate our success based on the ROI. 7. It has been one year, and you are finally making a few dollars. You realize that an important part of your marketing plan is going to include corporate social responsibility. Keeping in mind your product, give at least two specific examples of what you can do, and two specific reasons why your company would benefit. a) Firstly, we will sponsor an event named â€Å"Keep kids outdoors†. This will be an outdoor summer festival for children where they will compete on designing, making and flying kites and other outdoor activities. This will benefit our company in three ways: (1) encouraging kids to play outside will increase the demand for our kites; (2) promoting a healthy lifestyle will increase our brand image in the minds of the purchasers who are mostly parents and guardians; and (3) the more healthy kids there are the bigger the market for our products. b) Secondly, we will start producing kites made of bio-degradable materials. The benefits of this will be: (1) we get lee-way to charge a premium price for our products, and (2) we improve our brand image as an eco-friendly brand. 8. It has been three years, and you are a success! You decide to expand beyond the US. Discuss two marketing issues you would need to address if you decide to sell your kite globally, and how you could avoid them. a) In marketing abroad the two major issues will be product and distribution. In product certain cultures abroad may abhor how we are currently packaging or presenting our products e.g. a culture may prohibit flying of black kites. To tackle this we will engage a marketing consultancy with a regional strength to give us guidance on the cultural norms of the new target market. b) On the other hand, distribution will also be a challenge because the costs of production and dispatch across the seas may be either too costly or take too long before the product arrives at the destination. However, since ours is still a proprietary technology we will partner with a local manufacturer who will be issued with pre-packed materials so that all that they do is to assemble the kite into the desired shape. 9. You become a huge success selling directly to consumers. You are approached by WindWing, an international kite manufacturer. They would like to purchase your kites to resell as part of their kite line. What will be the similarities and differences between selling to WindWing (an organizational buyer) and directly to the ultimate consumer? Name at least two similarities and two differences. Similarities: In both instances we have to provide excellent after sales service and customer support. They both require well-crafted, targeted marketing that will communicate our companies value-proposition eloquently. Differences In selling directly to consumers we simplify the buying process to a single step while in selling to WindWing the process may have several steps to accommodate for credit facilities, reverse-auctions and so on. In selling directly to customer we maximize on the value of the transaction since it may be one-time whereas in selling to WindWing we maximize on the value of the relationship so as to make it long-term. References Porter, M. E. (2008). The Five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review Online, R0801E, 1-18.