Using this chart I can see that most of my customers will be living in the same area as the club which is Small Heath. So it is most likely that they will be walking to the club. This means that there must be a place for people to cross the road because it is a very busy main road. Some customers who live a little far may like to come on bus and there is a bus stop just a few seconds walk from the location of the club. However there are also some people who live quite far from the club who would like to attend. However the club and the few shops next to it have a public parking that is safe and secure just behind them, with a footpath in between the club and the shop beside it.
Using this chart I can see that two-thirds of my customers would choose to play pool on separate pool tables rather than on snooker tables. This tells me that I should have both snooker and pool tables so customers can play both games on separate tables for snooker and pool. This will allow me to attract more customers to play both games and allow me to provide the best service, increasing customers and overall increasing revenue.
Looking at this chart I can see that the majority of my customers will wish to play snooker. This tells me that I should have mostly snooker tables at the Club so that the maximum amount of people can be playing at any one moment. There are however some people who would prefer to play pool. For this reason I will integrate some pool tables into the Club and perhaps one in a private room to cater for the needs of all my customers.
The results of this chart show that most customers will be attending the club in the evening. This means that my club must be opening the evenings to allow my customers to play and make the business successful. There are also sufficient numbers of people who would like to play in the afternoon so I must have the club open at this time to allow them to play. There was a small number of people who would like to play in the morning and for this reason I will open the club on certain mornings to allow them to play and all day at the weekend. This would help a wide range of people come to the club and overall make my business prosper.
Using this chart I can see that over half my customers smoke making it a majority. However over 40% still don’t smoke. I don’t think non-smokers would like to play near smokers and would mind if they were inhaling other people’s smoke so I have decided to separate my club into two sections. This way I can attract smokers and non-smokers because I would be allowing the non-smokers to play and enjoy their habit, while also allowing non-smokers to play while not having to inhale other peoples smoke.
Looking at this chart I can see that most customers would like food and rink to be available on site and so I will provide this facility for people. This would allow customers to spend more time in the club playing snooker and also mean that they would spend more money in the club which is especially good for the business. People who do not wish to purchase will not mind other people purchasing food in the club. I will be using vending machines for food and drinks because this is cheaper for the business and will mean that I will not have to employ extra staff to sell food and drinks. These vending machines will be in both the smokers and non-smokers areas of the Club.
Looking at this chart I can see that most of my customers like the idea of private tuition and so for this reason I will need someone who is an expert at the game and will be willing to give tuition. This should be successful because I will be able to attract customers to come, learn and then become regular players at the Club. This is because they will have learned how to play their and so are extremely likely to carry on playing in the club.
This chart shows me that all the people who liked the idea of private tuition would be willing to pay £3 for a session of private tuition where they can learn how to play. This result confirms that my idea of private tuition can be successful as members of the public are willing to pay the set prices. This shows that idea is looking successful but I will have to ensure that the snooker tuition is well taught and successful so the customers are kept interested and continue coming.
Looking at this chart I can see that the most popular payment option is payment by the hour. So I will make this payment option available in the Snooker Club but I will need to have good rates so that the customers are interested and continue coming to the Snooker Club. A great percentage of people also expressed interest in monthly or yearly passes for unlimited use. So I will also make this payment option available in the Snooker Club at reasonable rates for customers who wish to use it. These two options should attract a great number of customers and also suit the needs of different customers. I will not be implementing the payment option of payment per person because not a lot of people liked it and it would also be extremely difficult and expensive to implement.
Looking at this chart I can see that my potential customers have no problem with travelling to get to the club. If my promotion is done well and I have an attractive club more people would be willing to travel to Small Heath. However I conducted my questionnaire in the nearby areas but not on a large scale. So my results are just from the public that live nearby and not on a large scale. S my results are just from the public that live nearby and a questionnaire in further would give me different results.
Looking at this chart I can see the feature that is most wanted is for there to be tournaments held in the club. For this reason I have decided that I will be holding tournaments every so often that will allow customers to pay small fee to enter the competition. The winner will receive a trophy or cash prize or some other prize. I think that this will be a very successful strategy for both attracting customers and increasing the clubs popularity. The other options available on the questionnaire will be used in case customers lose interest in the tournaments.
INTRODUCTION TO THE
The Marketing Mix is the name given to the 4 Ps (4 Parts) of Marketing that are the key to understanding what it is all about. If a firm gets the 4 Ps right it will find it easy to sell its product, but if it gets even one of them wrong it will find it hard to sell the product. All good marketing strategies require the 4 Ps to be successful.
The 4 Ps in the Marketing Mix are Product, Price, Promotion and Place and the way in which they relate to my Snooker Club are:
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PRODUCT – I must come up with a product that the customers want to buy.
The product must fulfil demands and needs of the customers. The way I design the Snooker Club and what products I will have at the club will have to be what the customers want and so to do this I will need to use the results of my Market Research Questionnaire to know what products to provide for the customers including Snooker & Pool tables, Food & Drink sections for Smokers & Non-Smokers, Extra Facilities.
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PRICE - I must give my customers the impression that they are getting value
for money. My prices must compare well with that of the competitors and must be reasonable for the quality of service I am going to provide. I could also use different pricing strategies to give customers value for money and also from my market research questionnaire I can find out what payment options are best suited to my snooker club.
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PROMOTION - I must promote the club and its features and facilities so that
potential customers are aware that it exists. This will mainly involve trying to advertise the club through a range of preferred media including newspapers, posters, billboards, leaflets etc. and also by using below the line promotions like discounts, free gifts and competitions. The results of my market research questionnaire would tell me which of these promotions I should use for the club. Promotion can also be done by having good features in the club which are different to my competitors or which they don't have and by telling people about my facilities I can attract them to my club and away from competitors.
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PLACE - My club must be in a convenient location for customers to attend it
easily. Some factors need to be taken into consideration when locating which include location of competitors, good place for people to see the club, easy to get there with transport including public transport etc. I will take these factors into consideration when locating and also the results of my market research questionnaire would tell me if I am in a good location and if customers will attend the club. I will have no distribution channel because everything will be consumed on site.
USING A COMBINATION OF THESE 4 Ps I SHOULD BE ABLE TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL MARKETING STRATEGY.
One of the 4 p's in the marketing mix is Price. The customers need to get the impression that they are getting value for money. For this to happen there are a number of pricing strategies businesses that can be adopted. I will be mainly using methods from the market led pricing strategy because the price of the product decides whether consumers will buy it. Some of the methods of market led pricing my club could adopt are:
PENETRATION PRICING - Here a firm charges a very low price when the product is new to get lots of people interested in it. Once the product has become established the firm will increase the price. I will be using this pricing method because it applies very well to my business and I can make very good use of this method at the start when I open my club and so using this I could allow potential customers to come and play at the club at very low prices and so they will get to see how good the club is and its facilities and then will keep on coming in the future even at higher prices than before. This is a good method to get customers from competitors to come to my club and help me to establish the club.
SKIMMING - This is the opposite of penetration pricing. Here a firm charges a high price to begin with to make the product desirable to people with large incomes. When the product has become established the firm lowers the price to help it become a mass market product. I will not be using this pricing method because it is very risky and I don't know if I will be able to establish my club with the high prices I will have at the start and potential customers will be unlikely to come to my club and will remain at my competitors club where it is cheaper than my club. Not a lot of people will come to my club at the beginning which is the most important time in the opening of a new business and so people will not be able to see what I have on offer.
PRICE DISCRIMINATION - This is when the firm charges different prices to different consumers for the same product. I will be using this pricing method because it will attract more customers to my club and if I have peak and off peak times for the club I will get a lot of people coming in at off peak times. This method will allow customers who can't come in at peak times to come in at off peak times and play at the club.
COMPETITION PRICING - This is where the firm charges similar prices to other firms. It happens when there is a lot of choice and not much product differentiation. I will not be using this pricing method because I do have product differentiation in my club and so I can charge different prices to what my competitor is charging. This shouldn't affect my business because I will be using penetration pricing to get established and because of the quality service I will offer at the club customers will be hopefully willing to pay the prices I ask of them. However, if I have a low turnout at the club and customers don't like my prices I could turn to this sort of pricing to bring more customers in to the club.
Other pricing methods that could be used are:
LOSS LEADERS - Here a product is sold at an extremely low price but the firm makes its money on other related products. I will not be using this pricing method because it can't really benefit be in any way because customers will mostly come to play snooker or pool and I don't have any other related products except cues that could make me any money. Some people may bring their own cues and so it's not a good pricing method for me to use.
PSYCHOLOGICAL PRICING- This is used by firms to make products look cheaper by pricing it at, say £9.95 and not £10.00. I will be using this pricing method because it's very effective on customers and it does make prices seem cheaper and using this I could attract a lot of customers.
These were some of the pricing methods my club could adopt and I have chosen the ones I will use which will most apply and benefit me in some way to make my club be successful.
Another of the 4 p's in the marketing mix is Promotion. The club along with its features and facilities must be promoted so that potential customers are aware that it exists. For this to happen there are a number of promotional strategies businesses can adopt. A good promotional strategy I could use for my club is:
ADVERTISING - Advertising is any message about itself or its products that the firm has paid for. This is one of the main and most recognised ways of promoting a business and most use this as their main promotional strategy. The ultimate aim of advertising is to sell more products. Advertising can be used to make customers aware of new products, to remind consumers about existing products, to persuade consumers to switch from rival products or to improve the image of the business. There are also two types of advertising which are informative and persuasive. Informative adverts simply describe the product and its features in an impressive sounding way and leaves consumers free to make their own decisions about the product. Persuasive adverts try to convince the consumer that they cannot survive without the product. There are also a huge variety of ways and media a business can use to advertise including television, radio, newspapers etc.
I will be using this promotional method for my club because it is the main way for me to promote my club. It has a lot of advantages to it and is a really good way to make people aware of my club. I am opening up as a new business and people won't be aware of this and I need to make the club seem attractive with good tables and facilities and so advertising will give my club recognition and popularity and I will be able to bring a lot more customers to the club. I could use informative adverts at the start to tell people about my club and its features to gain customers but then after I could use persuasive adverts to convince and persuade people to come to the club and away from competitors.
Other below the line promotion strategies I could use that don't depend on the media are:
DISCOUNTS - This is self explanatory and is when a firm gives the customers a decreased amount to pay for a product and so this will attract more customers and more products will be sold. I will be using this method of promotion because it will allow a lot more people to come to the club when they see that there are discounts and also I will get more business and more products being sold. I could use discounts at particular times when I feel there is less people coming to the club or less equipment being sold and by discounting things like prices for a game of snooker or pool and discounting snooker equipment it should bring more people to the club.
PRODUCT TRIALS - Here a firm trials a product by allowing people to try it out for free and so customers will get to know more about the product and will like it and so purchase it. It gives people more knowledge about the product and see how it is for themselves. I will not be using this promotional method for my club because it doesn't really apply to my club and won't be effective. Snooker or pool isn't a new product and most people are familiar with it and I am not really trying to bring in new customers to play snooker or pool but I am trying to bring customers who play snooker or pool to my club rather than existing clubs and competitors, so this method won't work a great deal for my type of business.
FREE GIFTS - This is also self explanatory and firms give free gifts to customers who buy their products. It can be also used to increase sales and bring in more customers. I will be using this promotional method to promote my club because it is a very popular and effective method to sell products. It will be a very good way to sell products especially the snooker equipment that I want to sell and I could easily sell equipment like snooker cues and give chalk for free etc. and so this will attract a lot of buyers.
BUY ONE GET ONE FREE (BOGOF) - This is basically when a firm offers customers two products for the price of one. It can be very effective in some types of businesses and allows the business to sell a lot more products and create more popularity. I will not be using this promotional method because this also doesn't really apply to my business and I don't have much areas to apply this method to. It could be applied to the equipment I want to sell but the free gifts method is much better to use in that area than this and the free gifts method will be more effective to customers and will be well worth it for me to carry out. This method can't be used in any aspect of my club and so will not be used.
These were some of the promotional methods my club could adopt and I have chosen the ones I will use which will most apply and benefit me in some way to make my club be successful.
One of the main ways of promoting a business is through Advertising and the firm passing on a message about itself or its products. The method used to communicate this message is called the medium. I will need to pass on the message and advertise using some media. There are many different media from which a business can choose from. Some of these media are:
TELEVISION - Adverts on here can reach millions who are watching and you can target people who watch particular programmes. It can be very persuasive and powerful because of its huge audience and has the advantage of colour, sound, vision and movement. It can be tailored at particular groups and particular times of broadcasting which is again another advantage. I will not be using this advertising medium because it is very expensive and not in my budget and so I won't be able to afford it. I am a small business and so I will not have the funds to advertise on television and also there will be no need to advertise on television because most of my customers will be local from the area and I won't have clubs everywhere around the country and so there would be no need to advertise to the whole country on television. I will need local advertising media that will help me to advertise to local people who will come to my club.
RADIO - This is much cheaper to make and to broadcast than television and is value for money because you can target listeners of particular programmes. I will be using this type of advertising medium because it is a very effective way of advertising and telling people about my business. I can use popular local radio stations which will have a lot of audiences to tell them about the new club and what its features are and how good it is and so the message would be spread to many telling them about my club and so attracting them to it. It will also be very cheap for me and within my budget to advertise using this medium and so it can be successful.
CINEMA - It is a useful form of advertising which can be used for local and national businesses and has a high visual and sound impact. Adverts can be aimed at particular age ranges attending the cinema or particular films which can be very effective. I will not be using this advertising medium because it won't help my business a lot and won't be as effective as other methods. It is expensive as well to advertise using this medium and will take up a lot of money. A snooker club advert will not be very effective in the cinema and most people don't pay attention when the adverts are on and be mostly talking about the movie and so it wouldn't be a good way to tell people about my business.
NEWSPAPERS - This is a very popular medium to use to advertise to people. It has the advantage of being permanent and can be kept for future reference and also can provide the reader with far more information than a TV or radio advert. Firms often know about the readership of a particular newspaper and so can target effectively in the right newspapers. I will be using this advertising medium because of its huge advantages over TV and radio adverts. It can be used effectively a lot of the time and readers often read it more than once and can keep it for future reference. I will only be needing local newspapers because my main customers will live locally and it will be very cheap to put an advert in here and it will inform and persuade local people of the region to come and visit the club.
LEAFLETS - These are cheap to produce and distribute. They are usually delivered or posted to houses locally on a large scale. They are very good at informing people of the business and latest offers and so attract a lot of people. I am going to use this medium of advertising for my club because it applies very well to my club. It will be one of the main media I will use to advertise my club. Most of my customers will live locally and are in the 30-40 age range which tells me that they are most likely to be home owners and so I could advertise to them easily by putting leaflets through their door and telling them about the club and latest offers. This should make them aware of the club and so they will be more likely to attend. The leaflets can also be designed in particular ways to attract customers to the club. It also has some more advantages that are linked to that of a newspaper which are that it is permanent and can be kept for reference and also it can provide a lot of information for the reader.
POSTERS - These are widely used by firms selling mass-appeal products. They have a high visual impact, stay in place for a long time and can be seen daily by lots of people. I will be using posters to advertise my club because it will inform a lot of people about the new club and other information related to the club. I can use posters just before I open the club to inform people of the area that I am going to open. This should then make aware potential customers of my club opening and so they will come.
These were some of the range of media my club could adopt and I have chosen the ones I will use which will most apply and benefit me in some way to make my club be successful.
RECOMMENDATION OF
I will now be putting forward my marketing strategy that I have come up using the various research I have carried out. I have used mainly the results and analysis of my market research questionnaire to create this strategy which will help my snooker club to be a success.
Judging from my results I can now conclude that my customers are mainly within the 30-40 age bracket and they will be the ones that will mostly attend the club. I will need to mainly promote my club to people in this age bracket and also suit their needs and make the club look good, formal and attractive. My main customers will also live local and will be from Small Heath as my results have told me and on top of this they will be willing and will have no problem in travelling to my club which tells me that I am in the perfect location for customers to access the club. This also can help me when promoting my club and I will know where to advertise. I have also found out that most of my customers are smokers and would probably want to smoke at the club. I will have to provide this facility to smokers but I will make this a private section so non smokers aren't affected and are away from the smoke.
I have found that my customers want a good snooker club with good facilities and a good atmosphere to play in with lots of options. My customers would like to play pool on separate pool tables rather than playing it on snooker tables and so I will have separate tables for pool and snooker. My customers also would mostly prefer playing snooker rather than pool which tells me that I should mostly have snooker tables at the club and less pool tables. To allow my customers to get the best service I will resurface the tables every month which will make sure that the tables are in good condition and customers play on good tables all the time. Another thing I intend to do is to sell equipment related to snooker and pool including cues, chalk and balls etc. and also snooker tables which can be ordered on site. This will give customers the choice to buy what they like and increase popularity of my club and bring in more money.
I will allow customers to use cues for free when playing on site if they wish and there would be no need to hire them. This is different to my competitor as they give cues out for hire and so this should be a way to attract customers. I will also have private rooms where customers are allowed to play snooker or pool privately with associates for a small price. Most of my customers smoke and so I will be having a smoking and non smoking section to the club to allow smokers to come and not have to worry if they were smoking near a non smoker and I can attract non smokers because they wouldn't have the worry of inhaling smoke. I have done this also because the government is going to bring in the ban of smoking in public places and so if I have my club separate at the start, this ban won't affect me in the future when it is enforced.
My customers will also like food and drink to be available on site. I will mostly have vending machines from which customers can purchase snacks including crisps, chocolate, drinks (hot and cold) etc. There will be these vending machines in both the smokers and non smokers sections because some may not prefer eating food in the smokers section. I will not allow food and drink at the tables but instead I will allow there to be a lounge area where food and drink can be consumed and where people can entertain themselves with music, television etc. This will help to keep tables clean and also a good and calm atmosphere. Customers said that they would mostly attend in the afternoons and evenings and so I will have my club open in the afternoons and evenings to allow my customers to come and play. I will also open the club some days in the morning for customers who wish to come in the mornings but mostly it will be open in the afternoons and evenings. I will also provide toilets for customers because people may stay for some time and may need to go to the toilet.
The pricing strategies that I think are best suited to my club are penetration pricing, price discrimination and also psychological pricing. I can use penetration pricing by allowing potential customers to come and play at the club at very low prices and so they will get to see how good the club is and its facilities and then will keep on coming in the future even at higher prices than before. This is a good method to get customers from competitors to come to my club and help me to establish the club. The strategy of price discrimination can be used to charge different prices to different consumers for the same product. This strategy will attract more customers to the club by having peak and off peak times and my peak times could be Friday and Saturday evenings because most customers come to my club at this time and my off peak times could be in the afternoons of some days like Monday or Tuesday because not many people attend at these times and so this strategy will bring more people into the club. I will have to make sure the prices aren't too high in the peak times and that my customers are satisfied with what they are paying.
I will also use psychological pricing which makes products look cheaper by the way they have been priced. It's very effective on customers and it does make prices seem cheaper and by using this I could attract a lot of customers. I have found that my customers would mainly prefer the payment option of paying per hour and there were also some who preferred the option of monthly or yearly passes for unlimited use. The paying per hour is good for light users or one off customers and I will have reasonable rates for paying per hour to make sure customers do come back. The monthly or yearly passes are good for bulk users and people who play snooker or pool a lot of the time and I will charge fixed rates for these passes which should be well worth it for customers who play a lot. Customers will have these payment options available and can choose which one is best suited to them.
There are some promotional strategies which I think are best suited to my club. The main promotional strategy I will use is advertising. This is the best way to promote a business and I can pass on messages to customers about my club and its products. Advertising can be used for various purposes and I will use it to make customers aware of the new club and that it exists and to persuade customers to switch from competitors and come to my club. I am opening up as a new business and people won't be aware of this and I need to make the club seem attractive with good tables and facilities and so advertising will give my club recognition and popularity and I will be able to bring a lot more customers to the club. I will use both informative and persuasive adverts to advertise to customers. I will use informative adverts at the start to tell people about my club and its features to gain customers but then after I will use persuasive adverts to convince and persuade people to come to the club and away from competitors.
Other below the line promotional strategies that I think are best suited to my shop are discounts and free gifts. When customers see that that I am offering discounts they will be attracted and wanting to come to the club and they will think that they are getting a good deal and so discounts will get me more business and more products sold. I will use discounts at particular times when there are less people coming to the club or less snooker equipment being sold and by discounting prices for a game of snooker or pool and discounting snooker equipment it will bring more people to the club. The strategy of free gifts will be used to increase sales and bring in more people. I will use this strategy to attract customers to buy the snooker and pool equipment that I will be selling and by giving free gifts like chalk with equipment like cues more people will buy the equipment.
The idea that I had put forward of offering private tuition to customers has been liked my customers and so this is a way I can promote my club. Moreover, my customers are willing to pay the prices I set for the private tuition which confirms that it is a good idea and people are willing to come and this facility will add uniqueness and exclusivity which will attract my competitors customers to come to my club. This idea will be successful because I will also be able to attract customers who don't maybe know how to play or aren't good at the game to come and learn but I will ensure that the snooker tuition is good and productive for customers and it keeps them interested and coming back again and again.
Customers have also suggested to me to that they would like to see tournaments in the club. This can be another way of promoting my business and creating popularity to the club. I will have these tournaments every so often which will allow customers and people from the outside to pay small fees to enter the tournament and battle it out until there is a winner who gets to have a match with a celebrity professional snooker player and be in his company to get tips and find out how the professionals play. I will also invite a celebrity professional snooker player for the grand opening of the snooker club which will attract huge amounts of customers who will come to see the celebrity playing snooker and by this they will be able to see my club and facilities as well and then so come in the future.
There are some media I will use to promote and advertise the business through. I will use radio because it is relatively cheap to make and broadcast and can target listeners of particular programmes. It is a good way of telling people about my business and I will use popular local radio stations like Galaxy, BRMB etc. which have a lot of audiences to tell customers about the new club and what its features are. Newspapers are also going to be used because they have many readers and are very popular. Adverts in newspapers are usually very detailed, read more than once and can be kept for future reference. I will only use local newspapers like the Metro, Evening Mail etc. because my main customers will live locally and it will be very cheap to put an advert in here and it will inform and persuade local people of the region to come and visit the club.
I will use leaflets as well to advertise my club. This is because they are cheap to produce and distribute and are very good at informing people of the business and latest offers. Most of my customers will are likely to be home owners and so leafleting the area should be a good idea because my main customers will get aware of the club and so they will be more likely to attend. The leaflets will provide detailed information and will be designed in an attractive way to get the attention of the customers. I will also use posters as a medium to advertise my club because they have a high visual impact and are seen by lots of people and stay in place for a long time. I will use posters just before I open the club to inform people of the area that I am going to open. I will design them well and make them look good and eye catching and also make sure they don't contain too much information which might put customers off. I will put up posters outside my club, in supermarkets in the area including Asda, in other shops and businesses around the area etc and so make potential customers aware of my club opening.
This is my marketing strategy for my snooker club that I had been working towards and it is very detailed explaining every aspect of how I am going to make this snooker club work and get it into business. Field and desk research has been used including results of my market research questionnaire and from this I have found out who my customers are and what they want and with other desk research and own knowledge on how to make the club successful I have come to develop a marketing strategy for the snooker club. I am quite sure that my business venture and this marketing strategy will be a success.
I have used a wide range of sources and gathered information from these to create my marketing strategy. I used web sites on the Internet:
http://www. gcsebitesize. co. uk
http://www.google.com
I used these sites to help me through my coursework and help me find out more on marketing and the marketing mix including market research, pricing and promotional strategies and also the range of media I could use to promote the club. These were very helpful in telling me definitions of key terms and strategies and so I could decide with the information I got if I should use particular strategies for my club. I also used the CGP textbook to find research on marketing and the market research I could use. Other web sites I used were:
http://www.rileys.co.uk
http://www.147.co.uk
I used these web sites to give me an idea of other snooker clubs and how they work. I got an idea of what my competitors and other snooker clubs were offering and also how they advertise and make use of the Internet to tell people about their business and so from this I could make my club different to theirs and make it unique to attract a wide range of customers.
MOHAMMAD ADNAN NASRULLAH – 10.26