In this project I am going to produce a marketing campaign for a small retail business

For my secondary research, I am going to carry out a questionnaire.

MARKETING RESEARCH

PLAN

The definition of Market Research is, the process of gaining information about customers, competitors and market trends through collecting Primary or Secondary data.

In this task, I am going to carry out a marketing research plan to find out;

• What customers want
• What my competitors are doing
• How successful marketing plans have been.

Primary Data is information, which has been gathered for a specific purpose through direct investigations such as observations, surveys and through experiment.

Secondary Data is information, which already exists such as, accounts and sales records, government statistics, newspaper articles or reports from advertising agencies.

There are two well-known market research methods namely:

1.  Desk Research (Secondary Research) – This research uses existing sources of                  

     Information to research the market.

E.g.

• Company sales reports          
• Government statistics
• Trade Association Publications
• Market Research carried out in the past

Advantages:

• It is less expensive
• Quicker to carry out because the information is already available.

2. Field Research (Primary Research) – This is research, which involves obtaining new information about the market by asking people.

The main methods of collecting Primary Data include:

• Questionnaire – A list of questions are to be answered by respondents and it is designed to give information about consumers and their tastes.
• Test marketing - Is a limited introduction of a product or service to test public reaction for a full market strategy. Giving the public a small sample of what is to be offered is a form of test marketing.
• Consumer Panels – This type of research is quite expensive as, an interviewer has to be employed to interview customers.

Advantages:

• The information is more accurate

Disadvantages:

• It costs more money
• It takes more time to collect the information than with Desk Research

To find out what potential customers want, I am going to draw up a Questionnaire because I feel that it is an easy way to collect data and it is accurate.

Below is an example of what my questionnaire is going to look like.

                                         QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Which age group do you fall in? (Please tick one box)

 

      10 – 20     21 – 30     31-40     41+

 

2. Which of the following products do you mostly buy? (Please tick one box)

Quick meals     newspapers and magazines     sweets     ice cream

 

3. How much do you think is a reasonable price to ask for that specific product? (Please state answer)

4. Where do you buy your bread, milk and other house necessities? (Please tick one box)

     Safeway     Sainsburys     Somerfield     Asda     Tesco     (Please tick one box)  

5. What attracts you to that particular shop?  (Please tick one box)

Variety of products     quality products     friendly service      

6. Which local newspapers do you read? (Please tick one box)

The leader     Friday-ad     Harold     Argus     Seaford Cazette

 

   

7. Where do you usually find out about new shops?  (Please tick one box)

Newspapers     Internet     Magazines     Shop windows     People

Thank you very much for taking the time in answering my questionnaire.

Before I am going to let people fill in my questionnaires, I first chose a sample that would work best.

In my case I am going to use:

• Convenience sampling - chooses the individuals that are easiest to reach or sampling that is done easy. Convenience sampling does not represent the entire population.
• Stratified sampling - a sample obtained by the process of dividing a population into categories representing distinctive characteristics and then selecting a random sample from each category.

After I have collected the data, I analysed the outcome on graphs.

MARKETING CAMPAIGN

OBEJECTIVES

I am first of all going to explain what Marketing Objectives are and then I am going to explain the likely Marketing Objectives of my Marketing Campaign Plan

I am going to give the definition for each of the following words:

Marketing, Marketing Objectives and the Marketing Mix.

Marketing:  The management process which is responsible for identifying

       Potentially profitable products and then selling them to customers.

Marketing Objectives:  Before embarking on any marketing activity, the marketing department must decide on their aims and objectives.

An objective is how an aim could be achieved.

Marketing Mix:  The Marketing Mix is the term used to describe the various

Marketing activities of a firm.  

These are referred to as the 4 P’s.

The 4 P’s stand for:

• Product – goods made or services provided by businesses.

• Price – A price where the demand for a product equals its supply.

• Promotion – communication between business and customer, making the customer aware that the product is for sale, telling or explaining to them what the product is.

• Place – Where a business is situated. e.g. Safeway is situated in the residential area.

There are four marketing Objectives that I am going to use for my marketing campaign. 

• Advertising:  To create goodwill in a competitive and changing environment.
• Sales Promotion:  To maintain/improve levels of sales in a short term.
• Promotion:  To minimise the bad effects that a change might have on the market. 
• Market Research:  To change existing or develop new products/services to meet customers needs.

PRODUCTS

I am going to outline the products/services that my business will be offering and then explain how I will differentiate my products/services from my competitors.

Shoprite is not going to be anything grand and smart, it is just going to be a plan and simple supermarket, as it isn’t going to have a huge selection of different brands (an named product which customers see as being different from other products) and products.  All Shoprite will be mainly selling is household necessities, a few newspapers and a small selection of sweets.

There is only one way in which I can think of making Shoprite any different from the competitors and that is that:

• Shoprite is going to be located on the outskirts of Seaford (in residential areas) so that people can buy their house necessities e.g. bread and milk.

Product differentiation means:

Making one product different from another, for instance through the quality of a product, its design, packaging or advertising.

There is no doubt that Shoprite will have good quality products because I will never be able to get it over my heart if I knew that I ripped off my own customers!

PRICE

In this task I am going to explain:

The factors that affect the choice of pricing strategy, the different pricing strategies available to businesses and which pricing strategies my business will use and why.

A business must decide on how they are going to price its products, in making this decision it must consider:

• What profit it wants to make.
• What your competition is charging for their products
• What your customers are prepared to pay for your products.

There are several pricing strategies, which are available to businesses:

• Cost-plus – fixing a price by adding a certain percentage profit margin to the cost of a product.
• Penetration – setting a low price initially to attract more customers.
• Skimming – selling a low product or service at a deliberately high price, this is for high quality/unique goods.
• Competition – a price based on what your competitors are charging.
• Price discrimination – selling the same product or services for different prices to different segments of the market.
• Non-prices competition – strategies other than prices which are used to attract customers.

For my business to have a good start, I need to think about what pricing strategy  Shoprite will use.

I thought by starting off, it would be good if my first strategy is competition as I feel that it would be good if I start off by asking the prices which my competitors ask for their products.

PLACE

This task is about:

• The location of my business.
• The transport, which my business is going to use.

Shoprite is going to be a small supermarket so it will be located on the outskirts of Seaford (preferably in the valley dip area) because I reckon that people would rather quickly buy there house necessities at a shop which is near their home than drive down town.

Channels of distribution

For a product to sell, it has to be at the right place, at the right time.  There is a channel of distribution between the customer and the manufacturer of a product.

The channel of distribution that Shoprite will be using is:

• Through wholesalers because Shoprite is a small shop and can’t buy directly from the manufacturer because my orders are to small so, I will be buying my products through wholesalers.

There are a variety of different types of transport that are available.

• Road:  It is quite expensive and more flexible than any other form of transport.
• Rail:  Goods, which are carried in bulk for long distances are more, suited for rail transport.
• Air:  It tends to be used to transport items that require fast delivery or which are highly perishable.  
• Sea:  There are many forms of sea transport which includes: Cargo liners, tankers and container ships.  Although it is slow compared to other forms of transport, ships can move bulky items and is more cost effective.

Two other methods of transport that aren’t very popular are Canals and Pipelines.

Shoprite will use road transport it is the only type of transport that I will need and it is very flexible and I wouldn’t need to move a lot of bulky items.

 

PROMOTION

                                     

This task is about promotion techniques and the ways to help raise awareness of business products or services and encourage consumers to buy them.

There are a few definitions of promotion:

• Communication or the main aim between a business and customer.
• Making the customer aware that the product is for sale.
• Tell or explain to the customers what the product is or how it works.
• To make the customers aware of how the product will serve the customers needs.
• To persuade the customers to buy the products for the first time or again.

Shoprite will use the promotion techniques that are listed below:

• Public Relations – it is “free” advertising.  Press releases are sent to for example newspapers and magazines to announce new products or company activities that may help to promote a company and its products.

• Advertising – it is a form of non-personal communication with customers.  An advertising message may be informative (provide customers with information) or persuasive (influence or persuade customers) advertising.

• Sales Promotion: (vouchers)

There are seven types of advertising which are listed below:

MARKETING COSTS:

Newspaper:

Magazines:

Radio:

Television:

Cinema:

Other forms of Marketing and Advertising costs:

CONTENTS

1. Introduction to project
2. Mind map
3. Overall Research Plan
4. Business Objectives
5. External Environment
6. SWOT Analysis
7. Marketing Campaign Objectives
8. Marketing Research (theory)
9. Research Plan
10. Questionnaire
11. Questionnaire Analysis
12. Product
13. Collage of product ideas
14. Floor Plan
15. Price
16. Table of Competitors Prices
17. Place
18. Map
19. Promotion
20. Promotional Campaign Planner
21. Advertisement/Leaflet
22. Marketing Constraints
23. Conclusion
24. Evaluation

     25. Sources of Knowledge