When we are promoting our product and business while we are at the trade fair in White Rose we will put up posters around the White Rose building and also have members of our business to hand out pamphlets to people who are there. This is to make sure that the shoppers at White Rose are aware of our business as posters can be easily ignored if there are a lot of people about or even deliberately. White rose also has an indoor radio for the shoppers. We may ask them if they could tell the customers at White Rose about us being there and what we are selling. This will also be promoting the White Rose itself. The market size will be different from that at school because people come from all different locations in and around Leeds to shop at White Rose so we will not know who and where are customers are from. But in order to promote our product and business for the White Rose Centre we could put up posters in school and around where each of us live, like in shop windows, door to door leaflets and lampposts. The posters will tell people that we are at White Rose on a certain date and what we are going to be selling. We will tell our friends and families about the trade fair at White Rose, they will tell their friends and therefore many people will come to see what we are doing.
Our time-scale for the promotion of the White Rose trade fair is getting limited. We have to make sure that all our products are made a week before the trade fair. If some are damaged we will have to make more. The leaflets, posters, lettering and the questionnaires are also to be ready a week before. It will take time to do all these but if every member in the group takes a few candles home to make as well as making some in class, then the product deadline can be easily met. The lettering is something that we have already produced from the last trade fair so these will not need doing. The leaflets might take some time to do, as they will have information about our product and business. The posters and questionnaires are to be simple. These can be done easily.
The budget for our promotional activities won’t cost us much as we are going to be printing the leaflets and posters at home. If it does cost us then we will budget for it to cost us no more than £10. Maybe at school it won’t cost us anything but if we want eye-catching posters for the White Rose then we will have them made professionally, this will probably be expensive. We are also thinking about having an advert in the Batley News in the week we are going to be at the White Rose. But if the price is more than we have budgeted then we will have to forget about promoting our business and product in the newspaper.
The main resources needed for the promotional activities for our business is access to loads of paper, a computer and printer. Most people in our group have access to all 3 at home so it will not be a problem when making the poster or leaflet. We will use the special offer promotion when we have come to the end of the trading season for our business but we will not use it before then, as this is another way of promoting our business.
The promotional activities that we will use in our business, to promote our product as well as our business do have advantages that are good for our business but also disadvantages which we will need to work on. The advantages and disadvantages for our promotional activities are:
Other promotional activities with the advantages and disadvantages that are used by other multi million-businesses/small businesses that we may find expensive for our business are stated below. These types of promotion will not be good for our business:
The budget for our business is about £55 as we have 10 people in our business. This came from each individual who contributed £5.50 each. For our prototype each of us contributed £2.50, which was in July 2002. For our real products we contributed a further £3.00 in September last year. We used about £30 of our budget on all sorts of candles like long candles, tea lights and tea light holders from Ikea, beaded candles and other individual candles. The remaining £25 was used for the metal bases, flowers, cellophane, superglue and other materials.
The prices we are going to charge for our candles depend on how much each individual cost and then we will agree on a price which will be appropriate and will help us to make a profit. As we have a range of different candles the profit on each product will differ.
From September to December we were running “Name the teddy” and “guess how many sweets” competition in order to raise the £80 for our entrance fee. Whilst running the competitions we were also promoting our business. The prizes for the competitions were brought from our budget. The amount we will spend on promoting our business through the promotion campaign will be about £10; this will come from our business budget.
In June last year after a lot of group discussions and possible constraints on products that we were going to make, we decided to make candles as our chosen products. We made our first prototypes in July. We had a long candle on a base with flowers round it, a tea light holder with a tea light and a diamond candle on a base as our prototypes.
In September we started making our candles for our first trade fair which was at Granary Warf on the 14th December. We had about 10 weeks to make all the products and the lettering for the trade fair. During this period, we started getting customers wanting to buy our products. We did not want to sell them at the beginning but then we saw that many students from school may not be able to attend the Granary Warf trade fair. We decided to sell some of our candles but we did not tell many people about it, as we did not want to run out of stock for our first trade fair. Our first proper sales were at granary Warf, but we did not do well as we hoped.
In order to sell our products off before Christmas we had a sale in school on Tuesday 17th December in the main hall at lunch. We did quite good and made about £40. We still had some stock left but on January 29th and 30th we had another sale in school. At all these sales we were promoting our business and telling customers where we will be selling next and when. After this we have our last trade fair, which is at the White Rose on Sunday 9th march. We want to do as well as possible and then hope to have a clearance sale at school to sell everything off, as we will then have stopped trading. To do well we are going to promote our product and business in school and the White Rose as much as we can, telling people where we are selling and when. We are also going to make our product to the best standard as we have 5 weeks to make them along with our promotion materials such as posters, pamphlets and leaflets and questionnaires for the stall. We are spending lesson time, which is 2 hours per week, lunch times and also taking our products home to make.
The resources that are needed for our promotional campaign along with the materials for our products are people, skills, computers and printers, flowers, metal bases, glue gun and glue, long candles, tea light candles, tea light holders, cellophane, acetate, scissors, sellotape, double sided sticky tape, ribbon, iron nails, glitter, sequins, beads, ready made candles, paper and time. All these will help us make our product and also promote our business as fully as we can.
Two examples of the materials that we are going to use as part of our promotional campaign are leaflets and handouts. The posters will be distributed around our school and the White Rose when we are there and the handouts will be given to as many people at the White Rose as we can. We need to make sure that our promotional materials follow the things below. If it doesn’t then our promotion campaign will not be that successful.
Attract attention – eye-catching-colourful, interesting, not wordy-needs to be clear,
simple and punchy.
Interest – will they want to know more about the product and company?
Desire – will it make people want it?
Action – will they buy it-e.g. buy it now while stock lasts.
AIDA is a tool that can be used when businesses advertise their business and product or service. We need to use this rule of AIDA when advertising our product. Our promotional materials are below.
Posters
The purpose of the posters is to promote our product as well as our business at school and at the White Rose as fully as we can. If we have eye-catching posters then it will help to get many people to come to our stall. Even if people come to our stall and not buy then we will know that our posters are eye-catching enough for them to come to our stall and see our products. The features that the posters will have on them are our business name, logo and our slogan. We will then give customers brief information of what we are selling, where and when. We may also include pictures of our products. Will we try to make sure that the lettering is bold to make the poster stand out. It will be in colour so that it looks attractive. The impact the posters will have on the customers is that if they think that our product on the poster looks good then they may want to come see our whole range. If they come to our stall from seeing our poster but do not buy anything we will know that are posters have maximum impact in making customers come to our stall.
Handouts
The purpose of these handouts is to give customers a clear idea of what exactly we are selling as a business, where and when. The features that will be on the handouts are the name of our business, the logo and slogan. These are possibly going to be in colour to make people want to read them. We will also give some information about what we are selling, where and when. We will have to keep the information to a minimum, as too much could make people not want to read it and throw it away. The handouts will probably be about A6 in size so that it looks small and makes people want to read it. I think that giving out handouts will have a big impact on customers. This is because they have something to refer to and also probably remember the person giving them the handout, especially if they were greeted polity by them or even if the person had a catchy rhyme about their product. If they didn’t see the posters that were put up because it was too crowded then the handouts is a good way of promoting our product and business.
The promotional activities we will choose for our business is posters and handouts. I think this is suitable because our candles are appealing to everyone of all ages. When we are at the White Rose our posters will be effective because there will be all sorts of people shopping there. We will be reaching out to everyone and our market range is to reach out to people of all ages.
We will be selling most of our products at school after each trade fair so we will know who are customers are. This way we could attract more customers to come to our stall. Posters will be seen by most people around school as we will place them on most doors so they will keep seeing them and we will also be going to put posters in registers so that they are constantly reminded and come to our stall and see what we have to offer. When we are telling people in school we are reaching a target audience and we are reaching out to potential customers as this includes the staff.
Posters are good for visualising. Handouts are also effective. They have a huge effect because if the customer seems interested then they are likely to visit our stall but if a customer ignores us then they may not come to our stall. This way we can tell who are customers are. Posters can be easily missed so handouts are the second best way to get people to be familiar with our product and business. Giving out handouts lets the customer know about the product and business and they are also likely to remember the person that gave it to them if they are greeted politely. This way we can attract as many customers as we are able to. Making posters and handouts will also save us money for our promotional activities. So we wont be overspending but still getting the message across. We will also be providing information to our customers about our product and business, which can be found in our leaflet which will be based on our stall. Or a customer can simply ask a member of our business at the stall or the person giving out handouts anything about our product and business that they may wish to know. Both posters and handouts give the right amount of information to a customer about our product and business. If we make the handouts long with so much writing on them then they will be ignored. We will only be giving the information we think is relevant. We were also going to advertise our product and business in the local newspaper but we found out that it would cost us £56 and this would take away all the profit that we would make. Even though loads would read it they are not likely to come into school to buy our product. Even if people are passing we need to make our point of sale in this case the stall as attractive and eye-catching as we can make it so that people are likely to come and see what we are offering.
All promotional activities are affected by constraints. Legislation protects consumers from misleading claims about products. The main acts are:
- The trading standards office
- The advertising standards authority
- The independent television commission/radio authority
- Trade descriptions act 1968
- Sales and supply of goods act 1968
- Sales of goods and services act 1982
- Consumer protection act 1987
- Sales of goods act 1979
The main principles of each act are stated below and also how it affects the promotional activities.
The trading standards office
Local authorities run the trading standards department. Their role is to investigate complaints about misleading affair, prices, weights and measures and consumer credit.
It affects our promotional activities because if our advertisement is misleading/we trade in a different way to other traders then we could loose money and get a bad reputation.
The advertising standards authority
This is set up to monitor advertising in the UK. It makes sure that advertises confirm to the British code of advertising and sales promotion practise. It must:
- Be legal
- Be honest and truthful
- Decent
- Not cause offence
If we were going to advertise nationally and didn’t follow the British code of advertising then they can withdraw our advert.
The independent television commission/radio authority
This body controls advertising on television and radio. Examples of the types of rules that they apply include:
Actors cannot be used in commercial breaks, which occur during the program in which they appear. It wouldn’t necessary affect our business promotion at this stage, as we find TV advertising too expensive for our business.
Trade descriptions act 1968
This makes it illegal for a business to provide false or misleading descriptions of their products, services, accommodation and facilities. When we are promoting our product we cannot use misleading images to make the product look different to what it is. If we do then we are going to get a bad reputation and we will also be losing loads of our customers.
Sales and supply of goods act 1968
The goods sold must meet 3 criteria’s that must be:
- Of merchantable quality
- Fit for the propose
- As described
If we don’t meet these criteria’s then we wont get many customers and have loads of complaints instead.
Sales of goods and services act 1982
The services must be of merchantable quality and at reasonable rates. It also gives the customers the same rights as buying goods. This doesn’t affect our business, as we are not offering a service. But a good example of this act is: A 4* hotel should be of that standard, if it is not, the consumer can sue for breach of the act.
Consumer protection act 1987
This act ensures that firms are liable for any damages, which their goods might cause to consumers. Under the act is also an offence to mislead consumers as to the price of goods, services, facilities or accommodation or to mislead consumers over sale price and claim exaggerated price reductions. This will affect us if our candles are not safe to burn, as there is no base to it or if the tea light holders are cracked.
Sales of goods act 1987
Consumers have the right to partial rejection of goods. Example: a buyer may accept 10 bottles of wine from a case and reject 2 if they do not meet the description.
Overall none of our promotional materials are offensive to anyone. This includes our language and any possible pictures on our promotional materials. If it was offensive then we are not likely to get many customers and we will get a bad business reputation.
To see if our promotional campaign has been fully implemented we can hand out questionnaires at our stall and ask our customers to fill them in, this way we can see who came to our stall because of our posters and handouts and who came because there was a big crowd. If they don’t want to fill in the questionnaires then we can ask them how they got to know about our stall. This way we could get specific answers and then we could monitor these results. We could also monitor to see if our promotion campaign was a success by seeing from our questionnaires or face-to-face questions how many people came to our stall from seeing our promotional materials and who came because there was a big crowd. We will also need to see within our promotional campaign if we met our promotional objectives. If we did then maybe that could be why our promotional campaign was a success. If we didn’t success or do as well as we could have done then maybe we didn’t meet our promotional objectives. When we have finished monitoring our results of how people came to know about our stall and we are drawing up charts and graphs and it shows that most people from having seen/handed our promotional materials then we will know that we got the message across if we got people to come to our stall because there was a crowd then we didn’t fully get the message across as we could have.
Our product will be aimed at all ages so the message we are trying to get across will be simple and catchy. It will not be offensive or complicated so that is not hard to understand. When asking people at our stall we could ask them what promotional material they saw that they came to our stall. This way we can see what promotional material was a success and which was not and we will know what to do next time. Our posters and handouts will be intended to influence our customers, as they will be eye-catching, snappy and short. It will also have a picture of our products to get more customers to come to our stall. It will be in persuasive language on both the posters and handouts to make people want to buy our products.
On our promotional campaign all the necessary information will be included like our business name and slogan, what are product is, where and when we are selling, picture of our product and persuasive language. All the information we give is correct and it is easy to understand, as it is straightforward and clear. Some customers may visibly respond to our information this way we know that our promotional campaign was successful. Before promoting our business and product we sold quite less but after promoting we sold quite a lot. The evidence to support this is that when we were selling in school the 1st time we didn’t promote, as we were short on time. But when we promoted our business and product for our second sale in school we got quite a lot of customers and sold many candles. To increase sales we could promote our product a bit more and also be more persuasive to customers at the stall. The reason that some people may not buy our product is because they may not be interested in our product or they may have something similar already. Analysing the questionnaire results and face-to-face questions we will know which part of our promotional campaign we could improve so that we can increase sales.
Conclusion
I have found out from doing this assignment that the promotion of a business and product is one of the most important things. Without this the business may not survive. There are all sorts of things that need to be considered when planning the promotional activities. You need to make sure that you have chosen the right promotional materials and you also need to follow the legal and ethnical laws when you are promoting. You need to consider where your most customers are and then promote in that specific area. You also need to think about the time and resources that are available to you. This can vary for each business. You will also need to find out in some way if your promotional activities have been a success or not so you know what to do and what not to do next time.