The hotels that are my competitors they use the following techniques for advertising: Some of the hotels advertise in the newspaper. Other hotels such as the Royal Bath advertise in magazines.

Research on promotion

Advertising

Advertising enables you to promote a specific message to a wide audience. Advertisements are messages sent through the media, which are intended to inform or influence the people who are supposed to be potential customers.

The main strengths of advertising is:

Reaching a mass audience.
Sending simple messages to potential customer.
Generating awareness. That your product now exists.
Stimulating interest and excitement.
Building an image, so that people would want to come to buy your service/product instead of your competitors.

My competitors are all local and they are mainly hotels and nightclubs, which I have named in task 6 in “research on competitors”. I have researched about their advertising techniques by going to their venues and by going to my own organisation Bournemouth International centre

The hotels that are my competitors they use the following techniques for advertising:

Some of the hotels advertise in the newspaper.

Other hotels such as the Royal Bath advertise in magazines.

They also advertise on the internet, not only do they have their web sites, with an online tour of the hotels

They also advertise themselves on vehicles for example Marriott hotel advertise themselves on the side of red mini coopers

The nightclubs within Bournemouth use the following techniques for advertising:

They advertise them selves on local radio stations such as fire.
They advertise themselves on posters, transports such as side of buses
They also advertise by direct mail such as leaflets, broachers, catalogues.

My objective for advertising is:

To create awareness amongst customers.
Because I have a lot of competitors I will want to show people the uniqueness of renting out our venue and the special things that come with it.
To maximise repeat purchase of my service.
To encourage potential customers at B.I.C to come and try our new service.

By looking at the way that my competitors advertise themselves I have come up with the following advertising techniques:

I will advertise my self in the local newspaper such as the daily echo.
I will also advertise my new service on transports such as buses.
Because Bournemouth international centre has a website, we could add this new service on it and give people a tour of our conference rooms, which they will be renting out.
I will also advertise this new service on posters, so that everybody can see them
I will also advertise this new service on leaflets, near the Bournemouth international centre.

The reason why I have chosen the above advertising techniques is because:

From the analysis in appendix 4 I found out that:

32% of the people I interviewed purchase the daily echo. Therefore this is going to be the main newspaper I am going to advertise in.
40% of the people I interviewed listen to the fire and30% of the people I interviewed listen to the radio at noon (10 am-2 pm) therefore I will be advertising on the fire at noon, because this way I am sure a lot of people will be listening.
I ...

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The reason why I have chosen the above advertising techniques is because:

From the analysis in appendix 4 I found out that:

32% of the people I interviewed purchase the daily echo. Therefore this is going to be the main newspaper I am going to advertise in.
40% of the people I interviewed listen to the fire and30% of the people I interviewed listen to the radio at noon (10 am-2 pm) therefore I will be advertising on the fire at noon, because this way I am sure a lot of people will be listening.
I also found out that 50% of the people that I interviewed found out about other venues offering the same service in the newspaper.

Another reason why I have chosen the above advertising techniques is because:

To advertise in newspaper doesn’t cost a lot, also viewer can refer back to my advert,
Advertising on posters has high converge, it can be colour which means it will attract peoples attention,
Advertising on the radio, a lot of people listen to the radio; can tell the people how the product works because of sound.

Another reason is because my service is in the maturity stage, my advertisement can be persuasive with the above techniques, and it will hopefully create a desire for my service and it will stimulate purchase.
Even though I am copying my competitors, but I will show people the uniqueness of our service. I will do this in the newspaper by showing pictures of our three conference rooms, and I will tell them how the best chiefs are going to be cooking for them and how you can chose to have a set menu, a buffet or just a mixture of foods such as Italian, Mexican and sea food and we would add any other food that our customer would want us to add but without any extra charge.

Public relation

Public relations (PR) is a means of publicising and promoting a positive image of an organisations achievements with a view of influencing customers to buy products and others to act in ways helpful to the organisation.

From the research I have carried out I have found out that my competitors carry out the following public relations, for hotels it is:

They do charitable donations. To charities such as Rainbows Children’s Hospice in Leicestershire.
They also carry out press release. For example the Marsham court hotel recently did a press release all the 50 staff they had recently employed.

The nightclubs in Bournemouth carry out the following press releases:

They do visits, by inviting the public to their nightclubs and showing them around and offering drinks.
They also do sponsoring, a local nightclub called jimmies recently sponsored “ban on cigarette advertisements”
Many of my competitors carry out press releases, in the daily echo, as it is a local newspaper.
They also do corporate videotapes, in this video they show customers a view of their activities, such as the dj’s they have.

All the public relations are:

Press release
Press conference
Event sponsorship
Event staging
Visits
Hospitality
Charitable donations
Awards and competitions
Company video
Clubs
Seminars
Signed articles.

Although it would be in favour of our company for us to do all these public relations but it is too costly and we would not be able to afford all of these. Therefore I have chosen a few public relations these are:

The first one is going to be press release, because Bournemouth international centre has a lot of achievements and also it will be a good way of introducing our new service. The advantages of press release are that it is free publicity and it is a good way for conveying more complex messages across to our customers.
The other public relation that I would like to do would have to be charitable donations because this will show the concern of our company and that we care but at the same time it will reflect a good image for our company and it usually provides lots of publicity and also help to promote and provide for a good cause.
Another public relation would be inviting the public to our company for a visit and a tour; this will improve the understanding of what Bournemouth international centre offers and our new service.

By carrying out these public relations we will achieve:

We will be promoting in confidence, and creating a favourable image of the company with the public, customers and our suppliers.
It will also increase understanding of our company, the scopes and products that we offer.
It will bring Bournemouth international centre and the products we offer to the attention of a wider audience.
This will generate more business and therefore it will result in more profit.

Sales promotion

Sales promotions are the incentives offered to consumers to encourage them to buy goods and services.

With the research I have done I have found out that my competitors carry out the following sales promotions, hotels:

Their main sales promotion strategy is price reduction and special offers. For example Bournemouth international hotels recently had a special offer, that if you book in for more than 5 nights then dinner will be free.
They also offer special credit terms, it is such that you can rent a room for a party now and pay for it in instalments.
Hotels also offer refunds and they also allow savings to be made on repeat purchases.

Nightclubs within Bournemouth carry out the following sales promotions:

Nightclubs carry out competitions, because this way they will get a lot more customers, and in some clubs in Bournemouth such as Toko they have a competition called “Bournemouth honeys”, this not only gets a lot of customers in for that night but the girl that wins it will be able to go into FHM magazine.
At times they have promotional gifts, and they offer bottles of wines and etc to their consumers.
Some nights they have special offers, such that buy one bottle of “wkd” and get the next one for free.

There are a lot of different sales promotion techniques, but these are the ones I have chosen:

We would do competition between customers, statistic show that people are considerately interested in competition specially If there is an attraction of a prize, the reason why I have chosen method is because my competitors carry this method out, and it is a very good way of alternative advertising.
We would offer special offers and price reductions, not only because our competitors carry out such a technique but because this is one of the most popular ways to get consumers interested in our new service, and once they have a taste of it, they would want to come back.
Another technique that I believe will attract a lot of consumers would be promotional gifts, such gifts could be offered at Christmas times and we could offer bottles of spirits.

The reason why I have chosen the above techniques is because:

These techniques are good because I could introduce our new service.
This will increase sells.
It is a good way to respond to the actions of my competitors.
These techniques are an alternative way of advertising.
I could also encourage customers to buy at off-peak season. Because according to my survey in appendix 3, 73% of the people would purchase this service in the summer times, therefore with these promotional techniques I could get people to purchase this new service other seasons.

Although the only negative thing about sales promotion is that it doesn’t have a long-term effect and it has no effect on brand loyalty.

Selling

“Selling is the art of closing the deal.”

There are two types of selling, one is a direct sale and the other is indirect sales method.

I have researched about the selling techniques of my competitors and it is as follows:

Hotels:

They carry out personal selling, which is either done by setting up meeting or over the telephone.
They also sell through mail order catalogues, this is done by giving customers information about their service and then how then can rent out their venue.

Nightclubs:

They also carry out personal selling, which is either done by setting up meetings or over the telephone.
Nightclubs also sell through the radio, with the advertising carrying information on how to rent out their venue.

By looking at my competitors selling techniques and my own knowledge I have come up with the following selling techniques for my new service:

I will use personal selling, because it is mainly done face to face and it is also done over the telephone, it allows 2-way communication, which is best for persuasion. The reason why I have chosen personal is not only because my competitors do it, it also because:

The sales person is able to negotiate terms such as price.
The sales person is able to encourage the customer for a product trial and test.
The sales person is able to go into detail about the functional and technical aspects of the service.
They are also able to achieve conviction and purchase, and finally close the sale.

Because we are advertising on the radio such as fire radio station, we could give information in the advert so that customers could contact us, make the reservation online.

This method gives us a great control over the marketing.
It gives us a great control over the selling.

We could carry out our selling through mail order, this way we are able to give customers more complex, technique information and they are able to find out how they could rent out our venue.

It is an easy way of sending long or complicated messages to the customers.
This way customer is able to improve their knowledge about our service on a wider scale.
We are also able to target the correct consumers in this way, because from my consumer analysis in appendix 4 I can find out who are my main customers, and target this information at them.

Another selling technique which I am going to use is literature, because:

Most brochures are free then this is a good way to inform people about our new service.
Because my service is complex with a lot of details information, this is a good way of getting it across to my customers.
Also if we use a high quality brochure then we will be able to get a good image for our company and increase credibility.