Thorpe Park marketing strategies

To: Tom Brown

Managing Director

From: Jamie Meikle Date: 24/7/04

Marketing Director

Terms of ref erence

I am writing this report to inform you about certain primary and secondary research I have done involving Thorpe Park. With this research I hope I can boost the parks annual turnover, customer satisfaction and popularity. In this report I will demonstrate how I have become of these results and how we can develop them.

Research

I have been able to do this by overviewing the Internet and looking in the magazines and newspapers that include Thorpe Park and any of its marketing structure for both primary and secondary results.

Here is the primary and secondary research I have done

Primary research- investigating Thorpe Parks marketing structure

I have carried out research on some of the most important segments of marketing, which the parks marketing staff have undertaken into consideration before now.

I have overviewed the television and sky advertising which I must say are very effective.

The leaflets and flyers that Thorpe Park produces and which can be acquired in the park also how it encourages entering customers to make a return visit to the park at a later date.

The billboard and poster fragment of there marketing will need looking at.

There Internet advertising strategy which is already well founded has been looked at.

On my visit to Thorpe Park I ask some of the quests what they could like to see new in Thorpe Park and how they would like to see it improved.

I looked at hotel accommodation near the park and how a Park hotel would greatly improve the parks local reach, the park popularity and customer satisfaction.

Secondary research- investigating Thorpe parks marketing structure

The secondary research which I have undertaking ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

The billboard and poster fragment of there marketing will need looking at.

There Internet advertising strategy which is already well founded has been looked at.

On my visit to Thorpe Park I ask some of the quests what they could like to see new in Thorpe Park and how they would like to see it improved.

I looked at hotel accommodation near the park and how a Park hotel would greatly improve the parks local reach, the park popularity and customer satisfaction.

Secondary research- investigating Thorpe parks marketing structure

The secondary research which I have undertaking has been on the parks rides and advertising from other theme parks such as, Lego lands adverting campaign as they are less than 30minutes drive from the park, this could be a threat.

I have constructed a SWOT analysis base on this research on the next page

Please take your time to look at this carefully as it contains important information.

Thorpe Park marketing strategies

Findings

I have made a lot of findings from my research and from my practical visits to Thorpe Park and made these results.

When I visited Thorpe Park I noticed many special offers on the public notice board like, buy one annual pass another half price. These are some good promotions, which will help the park keep its customer popularity high. Another thing that I notice was the large queuing area for the ticket purchasing and park access.

I tagged along to a student talk and listened to the speech the employee was making, it was very interesting and educational and it included lots of the business facts about Thorpe Park that made the students ask a lot of questions about the matter.

The rides in the park are well thought out and are absorbed in to the local theme and surrounding like colossus in the lost city area they blend together nicely this help set a smooth obedient surrounding.

The eating area serves very succulent food and some delicious drinks, as this is very good at keeping guests happy throughout the day and this can encourage repeat business.

The parks marketing strategy that I have overviewed has overall exceeded my exceptions-

The television advertising has encouraged me to come to the park several this and it ahs greatly influenced my friends in wanting to come for a day out in the park.

The strap line ‘twisted pleasure, gives the park a rather intense public understanding which can attract teenagers and young adults in the ages between 13-25 to the park

I haven’t found many billboards or posters advertising Thorpe Park this is there marketing weakness.

I have seen the strap line in many Top Street and teen magazines, which show that their target market is being reached.

Their Internet site has truly stated that they are in the lead, the layout is excellent and their background and font has all been included in the age range and market segment that we are trying to reach.

Here’s a preview of our

Web sits home page and

how the layout out with the

market segment.

As I explored the web site I

Found it hard to find a

park map, this was my

only difficultly with the

Web site.

Thorpe Park marketing strategies

Recommendations

Due to my findings it has come to my attention that some things need to be changed

With this section I will recommend you look make some decisions on course of actions for these changes.

1.The amount of benches, bins and lamps in the park need to be increased and more evenly spread out.

2. The price for the locker is a overpriced and should be reduced to a more practical amount like 50p

3.This recommendation could be very effective, keep a 2 week forefront on the weather by keeping in touch with the weather firms and when a bad spot of rain or wind is heading along advertise that for that day only a reduced ticket price is set and by doing this you can attract lots of customers what ever the weather conditions are.

4.Expand the advertising market to take in account things like billboard and poster advertising; more radio and cinema adverts and jingles do attract the age group we need. We can set the advertising times to cut costs and reach more of or target market.

5.The queue times throughout the park tend to be long even queuing to enter the park and to get tickets, so I suggest an extra row of ticket sellers and a extra line into the ticket collection point for faster entry to the park and a better customer satisfaction.

I also suggest that a better more efficient fast track ticked system was introduced and ran not only on peak times but also off peak times.

6.One small point I have to say about the web site is that I found it hard to find a park map and there is no link suggesting where it is, so I recommend that is change sooner rather than later.

7.This is a major point which I need to say is that the emergency vehicle EG. Fire truck and ambulance access route need improving, as it’s difficult for a vehicle of that size to easily move around to a specific site in the park. I recommend that the roads and paths are large enough for these vehicles to move around freely or a underground access routes are made to inshore public safety is met at all times.

8.I recommend that we keep a advertising promotion on all season along but adjust every month or so as these could then be used a flyers and used to advertise and promote a visit thus saving costs and achieving a greater section of the target market

I hope you can see these recommendations as major improvements for the park rather hassles; I look forward to hearing your thoughts towards them at in the near future.

Jamie Meikle

Marketing director.