Magazines have a large audience that would not be useful to me considering the amount of money I would be paying for an advert. Again there is no movement or sound, which limits me to pictures and writing. Colour advertisements are possible with magazines, which add a classy look to the advert. Also another large advantage is that you can advertise in specialist magazines which relate to what your shop sells so you limit the amount of people you advertise to who aren't interested in buying golf supplies. Also people are more likely to keep past magazines than past papers so they can refer back to them at a later date.
Cinema adverts are only show to a limited audience who go to the cinema and see the advert. Also at the start people don't tend to pay attention to the adverts because they are looking forward to the film and eating the cinema's food. Also if the information is not presented clearly people may not remember the name or location of the shop because they will only see it once. The Cinema adverts can use colour, great sound and lots of movement on a very large screen, which can be very eye-catching, and stick in people’s memories. The advert can also be seen in the local area by only giving the advert to cinemas in the local area, which will reduce the cost and be shown to the more likely customers because they are in the local area.
Radio adverts do not have the benefit of being able to use pictures and images. Also there is no way to take down numbers if you hear the advert in your car or while on the move. People listen to the radio for the music so some people may be irritated listening to adverts in between songs and so they might not take any notice of your advert, so it will be a waste of money. There are many good points though; such as it enables the use of sound, which can be used to great effect. Radio is listened to by all of the socio-economic groups and so there is no limitation s on who will listen to it. The adverts are very cheap to produce so there is no reason, financially, to not produce a half-decent advert, which will be listened to by potential customers, and understood. Also minority groups, such as golfers can be targeted when an event such as Golf is broadcasting on the station.
Posters can only have a limited amount of information on them, which has to be given to the audience as easily understandable as possible. The poster's message can be distorted by weather or graffiti, which can render it useless or give your company a bad name for sloppy adverts. However there are many good points relevant to new business such as it may produce impulse buying if the poster is placed near shops selling the same goods. The posters can be seen repeatedly, if it is on somebody's way to work, for instance. It is also excellent for short sharp messages such as price promises and special offers.
A limited audience can only see the Internet and people may find it hard to get to the site. Also there are technical problems likely to arise such as the servers being down and site maintenance. Some good points are that it is easy and relatively cheap to set up. The number of people viewing the site can be monitored, so you know how effective it is. The site can sell products by credit card to the public. It can also be easily changed to be more effective and then the effectiveness can be monitored, so you can limit the money lost if it is unsuccessful.
Considering all these points I believe the best way to advertise would be in the local papers. The advantages out-weigh the disadvantages. If the newspaper adverts don’t get the sort of publicity the shop needs I may advertise on local radio as well. These are both relatively cheap ways of advertising.
Analysis of My Questionnaire
From my questionnaire I can see that a majority of people buy second hand clubs, which suggests I should devote a section of my shop to second hand clubs. This could work to my favour because it means buying cheap clubs with more of a chance of selling them.
It also shows that people care more about price than the brand of club. This will influence me not only to accommodate for the minority of golfers who can afford the more expensive brand clubs, but to accommodate for the less privileged golfers as well.
Most of the golfers interviewed said that £400 wasn't too expensive for a set of brand new irons, which also means I should take the golfers willing to pay more for a set of clubs into consideration.
A majority of golfers own brand name clubs such as Taylor Made which shows that although their clubs are second hand they are still brand clubs. This shows that people are willing to sell and buy brand clubs.
The clubs people tend to use the most are lofted clubs, ranging from 7 irons to sand wedges. I will take this into consideration when selling single clubs, brand new or second hand.
People hit the best shots with their Woods, mostly 3 woods, but also 7 Woods, Drivers and 5 Woods. I will take this into consideration when selling Woods, either brand-new or second hand. That will probably be the largest range of clubs being sold separately. In addition to this the club they hit the best shot with, was a brand club.
The cosmetics of a club aren't considered an issue by any of the people I interviewed.
Only 2 of the people interviewed owned custom fitted clubs, but the next question revealed that most of them would like custom fitted clubs, if it wasn’t the price.
Most of the people interviewed bought golf balls more than 13 times a year, which suggests that people buy lots of balls per year. Also, almost everybody interviewed felt that golf balls were overpriced.
Of the people who answered 'yes' to having personal tutored lessons most said it made a difference to their game. This is a good sign if I want to open a teaching part of my shop.
I chose to use a questionnaire because it gained information from a range of sources from a range of people. This gives a clearer impression of what the potential customers would be more likely to buy. I only interviewed golfers because there would be very little point in interviewing somebody who is not likely to be a customer to my shop.
Diary
December
I will design a questionnaire and ask people at the local golf club the questions. I will analyze the information to see how their answers can help me to sell more golf products.
January
Starting in January I will promote the opening of my shop and let people know that a new shop is opening. I will do this by posting waterproof posters up around the vicinity. I will advertise the fact that I have second hand and brand new clubs and they will be cheap. I will advertise on the local radio that I have a large range of irons for sale on their own. I will use posters because they are cheap and I want to cut costs effectively. This will let people know that a new shop is opening.
February
The shop will open at the start of February, with an opening ceremony including discounts and competitions. I will open a website, because I have a good knowledge of computers I won't have to pay a professional. The market research I conducted shows that price plays a large part when buying golf clubs so I will do my best to keep the prices down and let people know the clubs aren't expensive. This will entice customers to come to my shop to get cheaper clubs.
March
In March I will open an after sales support counter where people can bring their purchase in if they are not happy with the quality. The staff will then send the faulty product back to the manufacturer to be mended or replaced. This will lead to lots of customer satisfaction and more business because the customers know that if something happens to their clubs they can have them replaced. I will also make a radio advert using quite basic equipment and give it to Vibe FM radio station. This is quite cheap and reaches a wide audience around the potential customer area. Towards the end of March I will conduct another questionnaire in store to see what changes could be made to get more sales.
April
In April I will arrange a tournament to be held in May sponsored by my shop. This will remind people to buy at my store and would be likely to gain customers. Depending on how successful the tournament is I may host more tournaments. The prize will probably be a free club. After this I will submit more adverts to local newspapers like the Diss mercury, quitting prices and stating that there is an Easter sale with discounts. This would remind people that my shop still exists and it would gain new customers who didn't know about my shop and it would entice them to come and see the discounts.
How Laws and Ethics Will Affect the Marketing
There will be certain legal constraints on the way I advertise my shop, products and prices. For instance the 'Trade Descriptions Act' will not allow me to falsely advertise my products or falsely describe them. I.E. I couldn’t say that a club will make you hit it further 100% of the time, if it doesn’t.
I also would be constricted to how I set my prices to certain clubs because of the Ethics of the Market. I couldn’t carry on selling a club that people knew easily broke at a high price because people would not buy it. If I did this I would probably lose customers due to customer dissatisfaction and word of mouth would mean that more people would be reluctant to shop at my shop.
If the business did not make the level o profit I expected I would find out why people did not shop at my store by conducting a questionnaire. If the results indicated that the people were not shopping at my store because they prefer to shop because they preferred to shop at a more established names I may have to consider becoming a franchisee. This may cost more, but if more people become customers it would benefit my business. I would be able to buy in cheaper products and I would be able to buy in cheaper products and I would have a more established brand for my shop. However, this may not be economical at the time because it would cost a lot for me to become a franchisee and I may not have the sufficient funds. The best and safest option would be to become a franchisee because there are few risks, only drawbacks.
Social, economic and environmental effects of my business
It would not be likely that my business would have any environmental effects on the local area. This is because the shop isn’t going to produce a huge amount of rubbish. The economic effects on the local area would also be very small if there was any. My shop wouldn’t bring enough new income to the area to make a significant difference. And, again, the shop would have very little change on the social parts of the area. The shop may, however, take a few customers from the other golf shop at the local course. Hopefully they would become frequent customers but due to customer loyalty they may decide to shop at the golf course.
Evaluation of my marketing plan
Overall I think my business would gain a lot of custom in a relatively short space of time. I think this because there is no real competition in the area apart from the local course’s golf pro shop which is exclusively for members. The features of the shop, which would gain customers, are the second hand clubs and new clubs. This caters for every type of golfer because the second hand clubs are for golfers who cant afford or don’t think it is necessary to have brand new clubs. The brand new clubs cater for more privileged golfers and they will cost more so I will probably make more profit per sale.
The marketing plan itself is thorough and covers almost every aspect, which need to be taken into account when setting up a new small business.
The advertising in local papers would be successful in real life because it would be relatively cheap and reach more of a realistic group of target customers (people in the local area).
This would mean that the amount of people who wouldn’t be customers is kept to a relative minimum.
The other successful part of my business in real life would be the after sales support, which deals with customers broken or faulty clubs. This would assure buyers that if their expensive brand new club breaks it will be replaced. This would gain customers trust and would gain the shop free advertising by word of mouth.
Things that could have been improved in the plan were more research into the questionnaire i.e. more questions and asking more people. This would have given me a broader more accurate idea of what customers want. This could be crucial to the sales of my business as not having exactly what the customers want could mean that customer going to another business that does. Another improvement could have been that I could have accurately researched the prices of the different advertising media, which I have taken into account. This could mean phoning national and local newspapers and radio stations. This would have been more accurate and might uncover different plans or prices of payment.
The plan would help me achieve my aims such as being the number 1 choice in the area because with customer trust from the customer support people would feel safer buying from us. This would also increase the market share because the other golf shops would lose custom. Selling all the clubs and other golf accessories would generate profit if enough were bought. Helping this would be the advertisement on local papers and radio stations.
Overall my plan would be successful because I have taken the customers needs over the boundary of consideration and based everything the shop sells on what the customers needs and wants are.
