Marketing Promotional Strategy.

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Marketing Promotional Strategy

Product- A Marks and Spencer virtual mobile telecommunication network. This service would be run on one of the four major networks, mm02, Vodafone, Orange, or One2One. The pricing tariffs will be competitively priced to match the current markets prices. The user of the Marks and Spencer mobile phone will be sent news of special offers and deals, and other promotional advertisement by text message. This will include phone owner special offers and a point scheme where by every time they use a special offer sent to them by text message they will get special bonus points which will earn them credit for their mobile phone or money off their bill. This service will include special Marks and Spencer mobile phones, which will be exclusive to the Marks and Spencer owner. The Marks and Spencer network will be known as Marks and Spencer Mobile.

Business Objective- The objective is to obtain and retain a loyal customer base that will hopefully spend more money and not shop at rival stores. The Marks and Spencer mobile phone will be based on the Orange network as this would make them compatible with other Orange phones making calls between them cheaper, this is more likely to happen as Orange has the largest market share.

Marketing Objective- To create a mobile phone network and to advertise and send special offers to subscribers of the Marks and Spencer network. Advertisement will also be done on other mobile phone networks. Fig1

Fig 1 WhatMobile

My promotional plan will be to get as many subscribers for the Marks and Spencer network and then to offer them special offers and send them advertisements. The idea is that if they get an offer they cant refuse they will come and spend money on it. This could be used in conjunction with a bonus scheme as at Tesco. While spending at Marks and Spencer they will be less likely to spend at rival stores and as they are subscribed to Marks and Spencer they will feel more loyalty toward the store as they are part of the Marks and Spencer brand.

S-Specific- What I’m going to achieve is a loyal base of customers many of whom will already be Marks and Spencer members with Marks and Spencer charge cards. I hope to gain a small segment of the mobile market and use this as a base for advertising products and special offers. The calls will be cheap, with contract and pre-pay options available, in the hope that large number of people will join and hopefully start using Marks and Spencer products and services. The people signed up to the phone service will hopefully spread the word when they receive news of offers etc. Extra services such as weather, traffic, news and sports updates will also be included. A healthy profit is also wanted on the actual mobile phone service.

The marketing process is divided into two phases. A strategic and a tactical phase. The strategic phase has three components, segmentation, targeting, and positioning. (STP) We must distinguish between our different customers, choose whom it will serve effectively and communicate the benefit it offers to that group. There are many different types of customer but the one I intend to target is primarily the young affluential holders of a Marks and Spencer card and those who are buying the “Per Una range of clothing as they are most like to use current technology. I will also try to target the older middle classes, as they are the current people who shop at Marks and Spencer. A key step in marketing this service is to create and communicate a clear message that will establish the brand in relation to its competitors. Then positioning and image will effect how the customer perceives the company, especially if they have had a past experience with the company named. I would market my service as the best quality. I cant claim to be the best in several fields as this could hurt its credibility as no one would believe me if I was to say its the cheapest, most reliable, popular phone as no one would take it seriously and the Marks and Spencer image of quality would be damaged.

These are he two social grades that I will aim to target:

B- (Approximately 11%). Group B is the middle class. These are senior executives and managers. These people are often on the move and may well appreciate being informed of goings on, news reports, traffic reports etc.

C-C¹- (Approximately 8%). Group C¹ is lower middle class. These are white-collar, white-blouse office workers. They mostly use their phone during peak hours and are often mobile-to-mobile. Marks and Spencer will try to push for this type of customer as they use their mobile phone a lot.

Under the ACORN system or rating I will target four specific ACORN types and two ACORN groups.

Different people have different images and influences, especially in the family, if I can target people in the B and C ranges who are also between the ages of 20-45. Family members and peers may perceive this as a service to have and people below 20 may see it as a "cool" product and may aspire to use such a service. Often the products people purchase are used to express individuality and status and Marks and Spencer is seen as a supplier of quality.

Under ACORN the groups I am to target are al well off and able to afford such a service and would most likely make excellent customers at MARKS AND SPENCER. The B group people are all families who will often do family shops and will have money to spend and are very reliable when it comes to spending significant amounts of money.

I want to focus on the needs of the person rather than the product as people don't purchase "things" as much as they purchase a service to satisfy needs such as exclusivity, information and promotions and offer of special offers and deals that will fulfil their needs. If they have had a good experience at Marks and Spencer and see memorable advertisement their decision to purchase a Marks and Spencer product or service is greatly increased.

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M-Measurable- I hope to have a 1% share of the market by 2004, advertisement will be quite heavy to begin with and posters will be around in the stores. Advertisement of the call plans will be one of the major features as this will hopefully persuade people to get an Marks and Spencer phone even if the don’t normally shop at Marks and Spencer. Promotion of the special offers a subscriber will get will then follow explaining the great benefits that a user could hope to gain. Success could be measured by noting the amount of money spent and the number of people shopping at Marks and Spencer who had a mobile phone and had responded to an offer sent to them. The number of subscribers and the profit made on their calls could also be taken in to account. Consumer panels and interviews could be done to find out what peoples current view of the service is. Questionnaires can be handed out when people use one of the bonuses, such as free airtime on their mobile. This could be used to find certain things in relation to that part of the particular service they are using and why they are not using the other stories if that is the case. Profitability control can be used to find out what the profit ratings of Marks and Spencer’s different products and services are and how they are effected by the new mobile and information service. If it was making a profit in its self and increasing sales of other products this would be seen as a great success. Customer satisfaction could also be measured as a why of tracking our goal achievement and why they may use or switch to a rival product and/ or service. The way people get and remember information affects their buying process a lot.

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A-Attainable- goals need to be attainable, it would be inconceivable to say 'we will sell a Marks and Spencer mobile to everybody in Britain' it is impossible. Only a small number of subscribers are needed for the mobile phone service. Text messaging is seen as the great prospect for marketing a product and I believe I could make this work.

R-Realistic- this is a very realistic objective as this area is generally untouched and is predicted to boom as a marketing resource in the future. Pizza Hut has recently set up a joint advertising and promotional feature with a local ...

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