ICT keep track of what all the functional areas are doing within the company and see if they are sticking to there budget and if the employees are doing there job to the best of there ability.
It is important for all organisations to have all these functional areas working together effectively to ensure they are one step ahead of any competition and that they are getting the most customers which results in a bigger profit. ICT has a big impact on how customer needs are met that’s why ICT is critical for a business to have and plus every functional area is linked to ICT.
If Nokia wanted to design a new phone that’s better than all other phones first of all they will have to go to the finance department to see what there budget is and from that they would give the task to the production team to design the product this also includes the human resources department because they need to see if they have the right employees and the training for them so they can design and create a new phone. This is just an example of how functional areas support the business as a whole.
The Marketing Mix
The marketing mix provides businesses of useful ways to look at the marketing of products. The mix consists of product/service, place, price and promotion.
It is all about seeing what the consumers want most and once they have found out its all about how the product should look and how much it should cost and also the brand name on it like if Apple ipod release a new mp3 they have to see how they can improve their product from the last time they released one and see if consumers will buy it and how much they are willing to pay for it. When ipod have got the new product the next step for them is to advertise/ promote the product. For ipod it is very easy to promote a new product because people already know they are going to get a good product because of the name and brand but if it didn’t have a good background they might have to design a catchy name so people will remember it and eye catching packaging to just make it stand out more so it will sell more.
Product: the product is the most important part in the marketing mix. The brand of the product is important because customers like a good name on the product or even a catchy slogan or it can even be a piece a music that will make the customer remember the product. So the brand includes all the characteristics of the product that’s going to be sold. The product features are the features for the product that they have to consider to meet all the consumer needs. So for product features they have to find out what the consumer wants for example if a company were designing a new phone they would have to consider these features:
- Camera
- Video recording
- Sound recording
- WAP
- Games
- Real Tone
- MP3 Player etc.
When they have designed the phone that the consumer wants they have to put it in production and start promoting the new phone. Product Item is the specific model, brand or size of the product that the company sells for example 500ml bottle of Sunny D. Product line is the characteristics that are almost the same for example a litre of milk and a two litre of milk. Product mix is the organisations product line and it is also described by the width, length, depth and the consistency.
Pricing: the price is the only element of the marketing mix that directly generates the amount of income the organisation will get. Pricing can be critical because if the customer knows they can get the same kind of product for less they would go elsewhere which the organisation does not want so they have to plan there strategy to be better than there competitors. Here are some pricing strategies that a company can use:
Penetration pricing is when the organisation knows there’s a lot of competitors and will release their product at a very cheap price and then that will have an effect on the competitor’s sales.
Skimming is when an organisation has a new product to launch and there aren’t a lot of competitors so they launch it at a high price and make money and slowly decrease the price to get a new group of customers.
Promotion: this is the way the organisation communicates with the customers and other organisations. Here are some ways the organisation promotes products or services:
Advertising the products on the television or radio are effective ways of advertising for customers but can also cost a lot of money, this is called Broadcast media. There is also direct mail, which goes straight to the customer straight away and it is also personally addressed so the organisation can build a relationship with the customer. Organisations also have sale promotions to attract the customers straight away and make there sales go high like a BOGOF deal which is buy one get one free. Printed media is the largest group of media in the UK. The group includes newspapers and magazines both local and national. So organisations can direct advertising to the right people by putting the advertisement in the right part of a magazine or newspaper but it all depends on the product and what age group they are aiming for. Public Relations are how the organisation effects the external environment. The organisation looks for ways to build relationships with the community and if they are able to achieve this they might get more customers and that would result in a higher amount of sales.
Place: the place provides the basic structure for the organisation to meet the customer needs and satisfaction. The place needs to be accessible for all types of customers and the organisation might even want to deliver to the customers that cant go because they have a disability so they will attain more customers that way. Some of the things the organisation has to consider to have in their place are inventory when a company wants to maximise on customer service will have the highest inventory costs but they will also be meeting customer needs. The next one is warehousing they need to know how many warehouses they should have and the location is also very important. Load size is the next important bit because they need to think what the customer want and how much the load would cost to get the goods there. Finally the communications are important to establish an effective information processing and invoicing system.
How these aspects relate to Northampton Saints RFC
The next stage is to provide an overview of your chosen business.
General paragraph about the Saints as a business – look at the website again to talk about what product and services they offer.
You need to
establish the following points:
• Current marketing objectives.
(see Kayoeigh Beale)
• Current product-portfolio of their selected business.
See web site
• Current marketing mix.
The 4 Ps – how do they work at saints? Try to do this on your own then ask me where you get stuck
• How the selected businesses departments work together in supporting marketing
activity.
Write an introduction into your chosen business which includes all the above points.
This will provide an additional opportunity for you to demonstrate the depth of your
knowledge and understanding.
At this stage you are advised to introduce your selected new product or service for a drop in café stating how this fits in with the selected businesses current marketing objectives and product portfolio.
See shared area for info about saints objectives - DO THIS BY THIS WEEK FRIDAY
Northampton Saints
Promotional objectives:
- Their main objective is to ‘get bums on seats’.
- They want to increase the number of young people playing by recruiting 20 extra schools into the Powergen coaching scheme
- Increase revenue from new sponsors by20%
- Increase the number of season ticket holders
- Raise their profile in the community around Northamptonshire
Branding
The club name is Northampton Saints Rugby Football club. They have the slogan “Simply World Class” as this conveys the message that they have lots of international players. They have team colours that are their corporate colours used in all marketing communications and they are green, yellow and black. There is a club badge that is used on merchandise and team shirts.
Positioning
Northampton Saints nearest competitor is the Leicester Tigers, although Northampton Saints are in a lower league position than the Tigers and overall Tigers are doing better than them. Northampton Saints also have competition for spectators and supporters with Northampton Town Football Club but the Saints have a higher profile than N.T.F.C because the Saints are in the Zurich Premier League of rugby whereas Northampton Town Football Club are only in the Coca Cola league division 2. So in Northampton rugby is a successful sport and football is far less successful.
Advertising
Northampton Saints do not use radio or television advertising; they have a 4 page advert in Northants Today news magazine but they do not pay for this because they have contra deal to do with sponsorship with the magazine.
Northampton Saints sponsor things such as school events but they need to increase the numbers of their own sponsors. They also advertise in local schools around Northamptonshire by putting up posters in the schools. They have no major newsletter because they put all of their news about things such as transfers etc on their website.
The saints don’t advertise on TV or cinema as it is too expensive.
Packaging
Packaging of the merchandise in the Saint’s club shop is important and the merchandise accounts for 17% of the clubs total revenue.
Merchandising
How the club merchandise is laid out in the shop is really important. They have to highlight certain products and put them in a prominent position. All the stock must be well displayed and easy to look at and buy.
Public relations
PR the Northampton Saints do work in the local community with disaffected children that are in care but they do not wish to promote this too widely, they only press releases that Northampton Saints do is when they sign a new player. They give away some of their merchandise but they do not give much away because they feel it devalues the product when it is given away for free. The Saracens recently gave children free admission to games but they now find it difficult to make children pay to get in because people still expect them to be free. The Saints hold 2 open days per year and they promote these by putting posters into local schools, The Saints also run a scheme know as Cash Back. CashBack has been running for six years. The scheme requires rugby clubs, schools, charities and other organisations to sell a minimum of 20 tickets for Saints home games. The organisations benefit in that they receive £5 back from all tickets sold and Saints benefit by hopefully creating new rugby supporters.
Northampton Saints have given back £300,000 to organisations during the last six years. Long Buckby raised £2,665.
Northampton Saints say, “the scheme is a fantastic way to raise funds for your organisation while enjoying all the excitement of top class rugby and the Saints match day experience at Franklin’s Gardens”.
The way that the scheme works is for every full price adult or child ticket the organisation sells for a Saints home match, and then they will get £5 back per ticket. But they must sell a minimum of 20 tickets to qualify.
PR includes community work. For example last year more than 1,500 children benefited from Saints rugby coaching via the Powergen National Rugby Community Programme.
Northampton Saints first team players and the club’s full-time community coaches coaching sessions to 41 schools in Bedfordshire and Kettering culminating in four festivals. The club has also run three Coach the Coaches courses for Junior Sports Leader Association and Community Sports Leader Association students, as well as delivering coaching sessions to 13 rugby clubs in the area.
The Powergen National Rugby Community Programme was aimed at introducing rugby to a whole host of children who the Saints hope will either go on to enjoy the game as players or supporters for many years.
Direct Marketing
Northampton Saints have several databases including season ticket holders, club members, people who less regularly attend games, sponsors and advertisers. They frequently send out notification of promotions and small newsletters to the people on the database.
Website and inter-activemedia
The Saints have a website www.northamptonsaints.co.uk which is the official site of Northampton Saints the trading name of Northampton RFC.
It contains lots of information on their home page with news, signings etc plus they have information on many other aspects of the club including:
- The Saints e-store with opportunity to purchase tickets, merchandise, coaching courses and corporate hospitality on line.
- Fanzone
- Community
- Corporate opportunities
- Conference centre
- Academy
- Stadium
- Sponsor list
- Contact us
- Privacy policy
- Site search
What information is collected
If someone registers with Northampton Saints or have subscribed to receive information from the club, they collect the personal data that is volunteered while using their services. They believe that the experience and interaction with Northampton Saints will be improved if they personalise their service.
For visitors who do not register at northamptonsaints.co.uk, their web server does not recognise information regarding their e-mail address, so you can therefore access the home page and browse northamptonsaints.co.uk without disclosing your personally identifiable information (any information by which you can be identified). These are called cookies.
northamptonsaints.co.uk collects personally identifiable information on certain areas of the site, such as when users register, request information, sign up for conferences or events, participate in posting areas such as the discussion forums and polls and surveys. In addition, when you order certain goods and services from northamptonsaints.co.uk, you will be asked for further information such as your credit card details and expiry date, and to verify the delivery address where relevant.
How the information may be used
Any personal data they collect is used to provide the site user with a customised experience on their site and in their outbound communications to users eg. by email. By knowing more about user they are able to deliver more relevant content and serve users better.
Researching their supporters’ behaviour, demographics and interests is performed on an aggregated basis according to the data site users provide. This is used to help understand site users’ needs and interests.
They automatically log personal data by means such as programming, or link information automatically logged by such means with personal data about specific individuals. They do so for the following purposes:
Technical administration of the website
• Research and development
• Customer administration
• Marketing
Saints use contact information to send out information about Northampton Saints, the products and services offered to supporters both on- and offline. By providing contact details, users are consenting to initial contact, and they can opt out of any future mailing at any point by unsubscribing.
Security - how information is protected
Northampton Saints places great importance in the security of all information and have security measures in place to attempt to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of customer data.
No transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while they strive to protect personal data, they tell users that they use the site at their own risk.
SMS
Saints provide photographs and in-depth statistics to their rugby supporters via a Multi Media Messaging Service (MMS) to picture phones.
The new service, provides pre and post match images and reviews incorporates real player and team statistics from Opta Sports Data. Mobile company O2 became an official partner of Premier Rugby at the start of the 2004/05 season.
This helps make supporters feel even more involved with their club and gives the club the opportunity to communicate with their supporters in an additional way.
Task Three (AO3)
You are now required to undertake and analyse the results of primary and secondary
market research which will inform your marketing proposal for your new
product/service. In order to achieve the best results you need to go through the
following stages:
• Clearly set objectives for your market research.
• Identify who the potential customers are and their requirements.
• Identify possible sources of information, both primary and secondary.
• Decide which methods of research to use to collect the information required.
• Estimate and set a timescale for the completion of the market research.
Carry out the research asap. Deadline for research Task to be written up – Friday Feb 3rd
When you have undertaken your market research analyse your results using a variety of analytical techniques. Present your results in a suitable format eg. Please use charts, graphs etc to put across statistical info.
What you need to do.
Market Research
To produce a realistic marketing proposal for your new product or service at Northampton Saints you need to understand the vital role market research can play in business decision-making. Market research can help to:
• define a market; who are actual buyers – existing and potential?
• identify how to position a particular product or service in a market, See text book pg 14 e.g. whether to devise products with mass appeal and promote them to all types of consumers (mass marketing) or whether to tailor a product to a particular type of consumer (niche marketing);
• investigate consumer attitudes;
• monitor usage;
• forecast needs.
Planning market research
To ensure that relevant and appropriate information is collected to inform your
marketing proposal, you need to:
• set objectives for the market research;
• identify who are the potential consumers and their requirements;
• identify possible sources of information, both primary and secondary;
• decide which method of research to use to collect information;
• estimate and set a timescale for the completion of the market research.
Research into a market – Primary Research
You need to use primary research techniques when gathering market research data.
These techniques include:
• observation;
• experiments;
• surveys;
• questionnaires; - I would like you all to have a go at one of these
• focus groups. – we can do these in school or at Kettering Rugby Club on a Weds night
You must choose at least 2 different types of techniques. Plan how you will use them. Construct the necessary questions etc. Carry out the research. Write it up.
Research into a market – Secondary Research
You also need to collect secondary market-research data to inform your marketing
proposal. This data may come in the form of:
• marketing databases, such as Keynote and Mintel;
• information already available in a business, such as sales figures, sales reports;
• information external to a business, such as government statistics, information from
competitors.
Keep a note of all web pages looked at, books used etc
Interpretation of market research information
You need to link your marketing proposal directly to findings from your market
research. Therefore, you need to understand how to interpret and analyse the
collected data to draw out key information that can inform your marketing proposal.
Analytical techniques that you can draw upon include:
• the use of basic statistical analysis . familiarity with the use of:
. mean; . medium; . mode; . percentages; . forecasting;
• the use of marketing tools . PEST and SWOT for generating information on the wider business environment.
