Beechdean also monitors the market position, to see if they are any new products out. It also develops its plan by adding new products in the market.
This show that Beechdean want to develop its plan and take the business one step forward by teaming up with a big business like Cadburys to make better ice-cream. It also is going to add sundaes into the market and is trying to keep one step ahead of its competitors. It also looks at the competition and sees what they have done and will try to do the same thing.
- Communicating effectively with customers to satisfy their expectation
A successful way of communicating to the customers is vital for any organisation. It allows the organisation not only to communicate with its customers and please their expectation but also to build up their reputation. This will help others to form a judgement about what the organisation stand for and will influence their dealing with them.
Beechdean use their brand to show that they care for their customers and are very close with them. Beechdean bases its brand's fantasy on the farm. This shows a sense of personal care for the customer and shows that Beechdean tries to be close with their customers, where they can communicate with them to show that they can satisfy their expectations.
(“The Marketing Mix At Haagen-Dazs - and Beechdean Dairies”)-
Communications also plays a vital part for marketing purposes. The communication of products and services influences the process that promotes consumers to benefit of whatever is on offer. The tool used to communicate with customers to satisfy their expectations fall under ‘the promotional mix’. The promotional mix might include:
- advertisements
- public relations
- sponsorship
Beechdean dairies can’t advertise on television like their other competitors. They instead, advertise differently.
The business turns to guerrilla marketing to promote themselves. The public relationship between the business and the public are excellent and it also sponsors the motor race were it has two, which enable them to entertain their big customers, as well as getting their name known.
(“The Marketing Mix At Haagen-Dazs - and Beechdean Dairies”)-
This shows that they can advertise on a motor show were they sponsor it and they get closer with their customers.
They also get their business known in the newspapers by having good thing said to them,
(Observer magazine)- This builds their reputation and will bring in more customers to try out their products. This increases their sales.
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Dealing with constraints that may hamper marketing activities
Many organisations have problems that may be holding them back form doing a project. These constraints could be internal or external.
Internal Constraints
Internal constraints relate to the lack of funds of an organisation which may hamper a business’s marketing activities.
External constraints
External constraints involve a number of reasons within the business environment that limit business activities. These include (As indicated by Rob Darnsfield and Dave Needham):
- Consumers- if an organisation is not market- focused or if consumers are not interested in a product, and then it will be difficult to market.
- Competitors- it may be difficult to market a product for which a competitor already has an advantage.
- Economy- when consumers have falling incomes, it may be difficult to market a luxury product.
- The law- there may be a number of laws constrain the activities of a business and make it difficult for it to do well.
Beechdean doesn’t have the funds to advertise on television as their other competitors might have, which may be a disadvantage to them. Instead, they turn to guerrilla marketing to promote themselves. They do this by running two cars at motor race, which enables them to entertain their big customers, as well as getting their name known when these cars are shown on television. They also don’t sell their product in supermarkets even though it will be a huge leap for the company. They fear that growing too big too fast; will lose the factor which made the company special in the first place - the passion and commitment of its owners.
This constraint shows that Beechdean dairies cares for its business on selling luxury ice cream and it doesn’t want to lose the bond between its customers by growing to fast.
(“The Marketing Mix At Haagen-Dazs - and Beechdean Dairies”)-
This shows that Beechdean dairies will research and try to combat these constraints by turning the weakness into strengths and threats into opportunities.
To progress the marketing activity, you will need the support from the functional areas of the business. By developing and focusing upon the marketing objectives, the different departments will do different things but will still be working on the same objectives. Departmentalisation is the process by which certain activities or sections of an organisation are grouped logically and are assigned to managers. Departments are the most usual way in which organisations break down into different parts of the business to meet the customer needs. It is important that they work closely as each department interlinks with each other. These areas include:
- Human resources
- Customer service
- Finance
- Marketing
- Quality assurance department
- Administration and ICT
- Research and development
- Operations/ productions
The human resources department are responsible for recruitment and training staff across the organisation. The success of the recruitment and training staff process will determine that the right people are in the right position and are able to deal with customer situations within their careers.
The human resources management will also be involved in keeping employees focused upon the task of the business. This might include in keeping individuals motivated so they feel comfortable within their role.
In Beechdean dairies the human resources have to find the right employees for the right job. Once the new employees have been found, it is the Human resources responsibility to train and develop them to make sure they reach their full ability and are doing their jobs right. Beechdean dairies have workers in the farm that take care of the animals and have people making the ice cream. Their luxury ice cream that they make is made from natural ingredients and they take care on how they are making their ice cream as they want the customers to enjoy their ice cream.
This shows that the human resources are doing a good job as they make sure that the employees take care for the product so the meet the standards of the customers.
For any business, customers are the most important people and are the resource upon which an organisation depends on. Organisations are know becoming customer focused and are trying to meet the needs of the customers through the customer service. Customer service provides a foundation for an organisation to achieve its marketing objectives. The activities of those involved in customer service are part of the product on offer from an organisation.
Customer service will provide feed back to the marketing and production department to ensure them that the customer needs are met fully. The customer service will find out quality issues to report back to quality assurance who will report to production. The finance department will give the customer service a budget that will undertake a range of activities focused on customer needs.
Beechdean Dairies are mainly customer focused and are adding more value to their goods by focusing upon their relationship with the customers.
They run two cars at motor races, which enable them to entertain their big customers, as well as getting their name known.
(“The Marketing Mix At Haagen-Dazs - and Beechdean Dairies”)-
They also get to know their customers through theatres and special events. They also produce their products there and the customer service would ask the customers about the products. They will then give a feedback to the marketing and production function to ensure that the customer needs are being met.
Beechdean Dairies produces ice cream for the Buckingham Palace Garden Parties, the Chelsea Flower Show, Goodwood Festival of Speed and other such events.
This shows that Beechdean Dairies are getting more customer focused by running cars at motor races and producing ice cream at special events. This means that they are adding more value to the goods because by spending time with the customers, the customer service will be able to know the needs of the customers.
The finance department is responsible for producing finical records. It will also be responsible for co-ordinating plans across business organisations, including budgets and targets for achievements. In meeting customer needs they play a vital role in making sure that each department within the business has the resources to meet the needs of it customers. In order to do this the finance team will need to give the budgets to support the activities of each department. The money that is given to the marketing department will depend on the type of marketing activities a company will use. The amount of money that a company will use on marketing a product will depend on the amount of revenue the product will give.
Beechdean dairies have a limited budget to support the activities for each department. It therefore uses other methods to support its activities for each department. For example: the marketing department might not get enough money to support their activities like advertising so the business turns to guerrilla marketing to promote themselves.
(“The Marketing Mix At Haagen-Dazs - and Beechdean Dairies”)-
The marketing department is responsible for identifying and satisfying consumer requirements. It plays an important role in setting objectives that creates a foundation for an organisation’s business plan, which affects the entire organisation.
Marketing will have a budget to work with, and will work closely with the research and development to ensure that new product offers match customer needs and requirements. It must also work with the production and finance department. Marketing needs to work with the operations and productions to ensure the requirements of the customer are met. It needs to guarantee that the finance department will invest in activities that help to communicate products and services to customers.
For Beechdean marketing the product is very important. The marketing department promote the businesses products. Beechdean does this by guerrilla marketing.
They run two cars at motor races which allow them to entertain their big customers, as well as getting their name known. They also promote their products by giving sample to their customers. This is effective as it shows the business that customer needs for a product are being met.
(“The Marketing Mix At Haagen-Dazs - and Beechdean Dairies”)-
- Quality assurance department
The quality assurance department determine the demand for many goods and services as consumers often by quality rather than value. The department has a huge influence upon how well marketing objectives are met, by trying to ensure the quality of the product or services meet customer expectations. If the quality assurance department are not doing a good job and the quality of the product or service is not good than the reputation and how people think about the business will fall. This could pressure a business’s market position and make it lose out to its competitor.
Beechdean dairy’s quality assurance department are doing a good job in understanding customer needs as they are assuring that the goods and survives meet the quality of it customers.
(Observer magazine)
This shows that Beechdean dairies always produces good quality ice cream that meets the needs of it customers.
ICT (information and communication technology) have a massive impact on how well customer needs are met. If a problem was to occur than it may be difficult for the business to provide information or payment to the customer. E- Commerce and E-Business activities have a massive influence upon supplying goods and services for customers.
All the departments interlink with information technologies. For example, (as indicated by Rob Darnsfield and Dave Needham) they all may be accessing the same system and will be able to see what orders are on the order book and how it relates to operational needs over the few weeks. For the finance this might mean to store finical data about the business on the data base; for human resources this might mean employing more people; for operations it could mean greater variety and choice in meeting customer needs; and for quality assurance it might mean looking at producers that help operations produce larger batch runs with greater efficiency and with better quality.
This shows that they rely on each other and if one part of the functional areas is not doing their job it will affect the marketing objectives.
(Applied business for AS level page 12)
Beechdean uses ICT to show what range of products they sell to their customers. They show their product on the internet.
They also use ICT for communicating with other functional areas. This is important as they can communicate and interlink with each other with any problems.
Researching and developing products around an organisation must be focused upon customers if they are to be successful. They need a lot of support for the finance department to make sure that good quality development can take place. Researchers also need to work with operations to find out if the product can be made at a reasonable cost as well as meeting the needs of the customer.
Due to Beechdean dairies research and development, Beechdean have been able to set a new type of range in the market.
LUXURY ice-cream makers Beechdean Dairies are set to launch a new range on the market over the coming weeks. The Beechdean Bob range, featuring Bob the bull, includes the new Extreme tub, targeted mainly at tots to teenagers.
This shows that Beechdean are researching the market for new ideas to make their business more successful.
Operations/ productions involves in producing a good or service that meets the needs of the customer. Operations focus on the customers. They are there to ensure customer needs are met. They might have to ensure that goods are delivered on time or rescheduling production lines to provide for a better variety and choice. Operations need to be financed with a budget, to meet the marketing objectives of the business.
The operations/ production make sure that the product meets the standards of the customers.
The operations/ production of Beechdean make sure the standards of the customer are met by making the ice cream from natural ingredients. They think that working in a beautiful environment is important to as it will produce excellent ice cream.
An organisation will use the marketing mix in order to meet customer needs and ensure that the business is successful in the markets on which it serves. The marketing mix provides businesses a useful way of looking at the products. (According to Rob Darnsfield and Dave Needham) Organisations need to create a successful mix of:
- The right product (or service)
- Sold in the right place
- At the right price
- Using the most suitable promotion.
(Applied business for AS level page 33)
Product/packaging
The product is important in an organisation’s marketing mix. (According to Sally Dibb et al) in Applied business for AS level (Rob Darnsfield and Dave Needham) it indicates: a product is everything, both favourable and unfavourable, that received in an exchange.
Brands
Many mass-products are identical. This tends to produce a number of companies in creating a brand that is set apart products for the consumers. A brand is a name, a symbol or a design that is used to recognize a product and sets apart form its competitors.
Creating a brand is an important function of marketing to a business. People might buy the brand name as much as the product it self.
There are three different types of brand names.
- Manufacture brands. This brand links the producer with the product, and the producer will be involved in with the promotion of the product.
- Own label brands. This brand are owned and controlled by retailers.
- Generic brands. This brand exists at the lower end of the market with respect of the price and quality.
Organisations create a range of products which support the image of the brand.
In marketing ice cream, creating a brand is very much about creating a fantasy.
Beechdean dairies use the manufacturing brand. It produces its own luxury ice cream that supports the image of the brand.
Beechdean bases its brand's fantasy on the farm - a sense of freshness and personal care for the customer.
(“The Marketing Mix At Haagen-Dazs - and Beechdean Dairies”)
Product features
One of the features of marketing is to make sure that the products create the benefits that the consumers want. The product also has to offer more than those of it competitors.
Once the business understands the benefits that customers are looking for in the product, the business then can market its product, and promotion can be used to show the skill to create these benefits.
When the product is provided, there are advantages for customers through dimensions.
- Generic dimensions. These are the key benefits of an item. For example, luxury ice cream has to be made for natural ingredients.
- Sensual dimensions. These relate to the senses. These senses are mainly highlighted by advertising.
- Extended dimensions. These are additional benefits.
Beechdean dairies products use all three different dimensions.
With any group of products there is a different mix of items.
A products mix is a mix of all the business items. Any product mix can be described according to its width, length, depth and consistency. The width is the number of different products that a business has to offer, the length is the number of items on offer, the depth is the number of variants of each brand and the consistency is the close relationship between each product line.
Beechdean has different mix of items to offer to its customers.
- Scooping range
- Belgian waffles
- Dairy ice cream tube
- Beechdean Bob range
(according to the daily telegraph)
The Dairy ice cream comes in a tube. It has a lot of flavours available in different sizes.
Place
The place is the basic structure for customer needs. It allows manufactures and distributors to provide goods for customers at the right time, in the place.
Physical distribution must balance the need for customer service against the need to minimise costs. Designing a physical distribution system involves trading off costs against service or inputs against outputs.
Input involves distribution costs. It is important to know what each cost is and control each costs in order to minimise waste. This involves an analysis of labour time, transport time, and other factors that are spent on each product.
Output involves in the value of services provided for it customers. Distribution can provide a benefit in meeting customer needs. Business need to know, how they are going to use distribution.
Sale channels
There are different types of sale channel linking the producer to the market. Direct selling does not involve the use of intermediary, however indirect selling methods does. It uses through one or more channels of distribution were the goods are transferred form producer to the end user.
Intermediaries such as wholesalers stock a wide range of goods to sell on to other organisations such as retailers. They get the stock from manufactures. The retailer like the supermarkets would then sell it on to customers.
Without intermediaries the manufacture would have to carry out to supply their product to the supplier themselves. This however, would make the manufactures have more costs and would take more time to supply the products as they will have to do a set of paperwork for each product they have supplied to each retailer. It will also waste time in journeys as the manufactures would have to supply each retailer.
An advantage for an organisation for using an intermediary like a wholesaler is that an intermediary can cut costs and the process of distribution down. By reducing the process of distribution the company can concentrate on its other objectives.
Businesses are investigating new channels of distribution, like telephone or internet. These approaches to distribution are a major opportunity to meet customer needs with a changing physical environment.
Beechdean is only a regional based company. This means, that they only distribute their products in High Wycombe.
ASDA
HOLMERS FARM WAY
HIGH WYCOMBE
BUCKSA
HP12 4NU
Tel: 01494 532077
COUNTRY STORE
MAIN ROAD
WALTERS ASH
HIGH WYCOMBE
BUCKS
HP14 4TH
Tel: 01494 562140
HAZLEMERE FOOD HALL
PARK PARADE
HAZLEMERE
HIGH WYCOMBE
BUCKS
HP15 7AA
Tel: 01494 717080
RETAIL 500ML CLIENTS
These are some of Beechdean clients. It shows that Beechdean only manufactures its products to retailers in High Wycombe.
They also produce their products for theatres and special events.
Beechdean Dairies produces ice cream for the Buckingham Palace Garden Parties, The Chelsea Flower Show, Goodwood Festival of Speed and other such events.
Pricing and the techniques of pricing
The price in marketing mix varies. Price makes money come into the business. Other factors of the marketing mix are cost. For consumers with limited budgets, price is a key purchasing factor.
For a business, the first pricing task is to create an overall goal for the organisation. Once the pricing objectives have been established, organisations need to set up a suitable pricing model. There are five types of pricing:
Penetration pricing
Penetration pricing is suitable when the seller knows that there are many competitors within the market. Penetration pricing allows a business to analyse the market and set the price of the product at a lower price in order to gain a market share away from the other competitors. A low price will therefore attract consumers to a product. This is mainly used when a new product is introduced into the market.
Penetration pricing is particularly used for products were they can be made very cheaply. It is also common when there is a possibility of competition.
Skimming
Skimming involves in setting a high price in order to get big returns from those consumers that are willing to buy the new product. Once the business has got customers buying the product it will lower its price to get a new group of customers buying the product. By doing this the business losses risks of under pricing the product.
Cost-plus pricing
The process of cost- plus pricing can be best showed in large organisations where economics of scale can be spread over a considerable range of output. Unit costs, for organisation will fall at first as the overheads are speared over a larger output. Therefore, it is simple to add a fixed margin to the unit cost.
Cost plus pricing has risks as if the price is set too high, sales may fall short of expectations and if the price is set to low, than revenue will be limited. However, the greatest risk of cost plus pricing is that it is a production-orientated approach to the market.
Value and price
Value is important part for exchanging. In the long term, the success of the business will be on their ability to provide for its customers with value for money through the exchange process.
Some customers want to pay low prices for good quality whereas some buyers want high quality and are willing to pay more for it. Businesses now provide customers with a better value package, for the same price.
It is important to price the product to the nature of the market price. This however may lose the business customers as the price is too high for the value of the product or lose the business customs for charging to low as customer may feel the product may not be high for value.
Competition- based pricing
If a product is faced by direct competition, then it will face other similar products. This will hold back pricing decisions so that the price setting will need to be kept as close as your competitor’s price. However, when a product is faced by indirect competition then there will be a range to the price. A business might fell to charge its customers at a lower price as they see the product as a bargain.
Some organisations also try to reduce competition and make their products better than their rivals. This will allow them to push up prices and make larger profits. The level of competition affects the price. This business in such markets is called price takers. When there are no competition the sell can charge high prices. They are called price makers. The business can’t charge more than a consumer is willing to pay for that product as consumer can spend its money on another product.
(asked for Beechdean price of ice cream and compare it to HaagenDasz)
Promotion
Promotion includes the techniques that businesses use to communicate with organisations. The business sends in the communication process and the consumer receives. The business can send through oral, visual, verbal and written message to show the customer its products or services. This process is called encoding. The business needs to be careful about its target audience. Once it knows the target audience, it is important for the business to use different promotional activities.
Advertising
Advertising is used in the market place so the organisation can achieve its objectives. When advertising the business mainly aims at a target audience so it can influence the people that it is targeting.
Advertising messages can be sent through a lot of form of media. This can be done by:
- TV
- Poster
- Billboards
- Flyers
- Transport
- Press.
It should also draw attention of the business’s products which will encourage customer to buy the product. This can be done by having advertising objectives.
- Promoting goods and services
- Developing the image of the organisation
- Bring in new customers.
Advertising is often put under one of the three headings.
- Informative advertising
- Persuasive advertising
- Reinforcement advertising
When you start to an advertise campaign you need a plan. This plan will indicate the budget of the campaign which will meet the advertising objectives. In order to meet this objects, businesses us DAGMAR (defining advertising goals for measured advertising results).
(Scan pictures from book)
There are different types of advertising they are:
- Printed media
- Broadcast media
- Direct mail
- Public relations.
- Printed media
Printed media is advertising in newspapers and magazines, both local and national. They allow advertisers to post adverts in newspapers and magazines so millions of people can see the product that you are advertising. To have a successful advert, advertisers use the formula AIDA. This will make the advert more successful and more chance of making people want to look at the advert in the magazines or newspaper.
- Broadcast media
Broadcast media includes commercial on television and radio. Television advertising is effective as 98 per cent of household have them and there are over 20 millions programmes. This however can cost a lot of money to advertise on television and the business needs to get the advert right as the business will lose a lot of money if it goes wrong. The messages are also short-lived.
- Direct mail
Direct mail is giving adverts through the post. By using direct mail a business can make a relationship with its customers. This is effective as it can show the products that the business has to offer to its customer.
- Public relations
Public relations are important to organisations. They want to establish and build relationships with the public. The purpose is therefore to make an organisation more popular.
Public relations is a long term as it may take a long time for a business to improve the way people think about its products. There are different types of public relations activities:
- Charity work
- Visits and open days
- Sponsorship
- Corporate video types
- Product changes
Sales promotion
Sales promotion is used to encourage the customer to buy the product. The activities are used in short term. Businesses use this to increase sales, help to sell their products, take action against competitor and an effective choice than advertising.
Sales promotion make customers react quickly in buying the products, however advertising takes longer it develops the product and the brand. Many sales promotions are undertaken in response to activities of the competitors to make sure the business remains competitive. Sales promotion can be speared into two areas.
- promotions helping with sales of product
- promotions helping the trade in selling to last customer
There are many types of sale promotions:
Competitions
- Price reductions and special offers
- Promotional gifts
- Premium offers
- Charity promotions.
Beechdean dairies don’t have the funds to advertise on television. They turn to guerrilla marketing to promote themselves and their product. They run two cars at motor a race, which enables them to entertain their big customers, as well as getting their name known.
This show the promotion of Beechdean dairies.
(“The Marketing Mix At Haagen-Dazs - and Beechdean Dairies”)-
- show miss
