Advertising:
Printed Media: Above-the-line
- Own Car & Van livery
- Yellow Pages
- Talking Pages
- Local Camberley Newspapers: Weekly Adverts
- Local Free Newspapers: Weekly Adverts
- Local Buses – mobile and cost-effective
- National Car based magazine: Max Power, & Top Gear
- Launch Banner over a key road, i.e. Park Road, Camberley
- Local Radio Stations: 20 & 30 second trailers: 96.4 the Eagle
- Taxis – May not reach the target market
- National Newspapers – Cost maybe too high for budget
- Billboards – Cost maybe too high for budget
- Ad-shell (Bus stops) – Cost maybe too high for budget
- Television – Cost maybe too high for budget
New Media:
- Own Brand Website
- Hyperlink Adverts from other site
- Text adverts via mobile phones
The more advertising the company employs, the more market that will be reached although costs can escalate rapidly so it is important to evaluate how cost-effective each method will be, which I have done above.
Promotion:
Pricing Strategy
- By offering up to 33% off products and MOTs the company should not run at a loss on the services provided and should break-even on them.
- Customer loyalty scheme that entitles the account holder discounts on Services or products, such as 10% of modifications when MoT purchased using a Loyalty account.
Publicity:
Public Relations (PR) Below-the-line
Creation of XE Press Pack:
XE Company and key personnel background, mission statement, services offered, suppliers, strategic partnerships and VARS (Value Added Reseller), hours trading, XE USP’s (Unique Selling Point), Special Promotions, all contact details, legal protector, embargo date (so the information can not be release before the embargo date), web address in bold.
Sponsorship of under 12 years team: football, karate, go-karting approx £650 a season in return team shirts endorses brand (both in and out of game)
- Promotion: Publicity stunts, i.e. collecting signatures for a local charity or national charity Children in Need
- Branded Press Pack & Press Release: local and National news editors
- Flyers: Car Parks, Fast Food outlets
- Give-away Car Stickers: McDonalds & petrol garages
- Car-Sticker competition via local radio
All the above Public relations are designed to increase awareness of the brand and build a reputation of the company by using favourable public acts such as raise money for charity or increase awareness of the brand by posting flyers in fast-food outlets and car stickers.
Promotional Specials:
- Promotional Tie-ins (linked brand advertising specials).
- Simpsons – Although the cost maybe too high for budget, so may not be used.
- KitKat (You’re not a Salmon)
- Point of Sale Promotions
By creating links to already successful brands, consumers will relate the XE brand to those of already existing brands such as Kit-Kat, this will build consumers confidence in the brand, hopefully leading to increased sales.
Sales Staff:
- List what each level of staffing should be aiming for, giving them targets to achieve, and hence creating higher efficiency.
- Passionate about their Job and Cars, so that they will give off a positive outlook to both the company and it’s reputation.
- Clean uniform, as smart, presentable staff members lead to customers expecting high standards and are more likely to spend higher amounts of money.
Insights:
Brainstorming each idea before committing resources toward it would have prevented time being wasted, whilst also focusing upon the task at hand and exploring the strategy in more depth and detail.
By having information collected laid out in a more presentable style would have led to easier interpretations of the data, seeming more professional whilst creating a more reliable data source to work from.
By increasing the amount of people sampled would have led to more conclusive results when the data was interpreted into graphs for analysis, and hence creating a more reliable data source.
Although Shop Owner Questionnaires (refer to appendage ii) were created, because of disorganisation these questionnaires were not set out to companies, I had decided that due to limited time educated guesses on location and pricing would be more sensible.
By not actually asking shop owners the reasons why they had located their shops on their location sites, meant that I was at a disadvantage by not having background knowledge to locational properties, although this was compensated for by having informed reasons to locate the site on a main road, due to footfall figures. These assumptions could have been helped by finding out whether it was worth sacrificing less trade to have lower rental costs in a less desirable location.
Appendix Contents
Appendix contents
Appendage i: Task 1- Decision on Shop
Appendage ii: Task 3- Shop Owner Questionnaire Sampling
Appendage iii: Task 5- Product, Price, Place.
Appendage iv: Task 6- XE Marketing Plan & Advertising Strategy
Appendage V: Task 7- Write up of Marketing Campaign
Appendage vi: Task 2 - General Public Questionnaire
Appendage vii: Task 4 - General Public Questionnaire Data
Appendage viii: Modifications Wanted by Both Male and Female
Appendage ix: Type of Car Driven by Sample
Appendage X: Modifications wanted
Appendage xi: MoT and Modification shop together
Appendage xii: Percentage of people who want Expert help for their cars
Appendage xiii: Fast Forward Motorsport Centre Adverts
Appendage i
Decision on Shop
The Retail Shop will be a Car modification garage and MOT centre for performance cars; for example a branded GTI or SRI model vehicle. The Retail garage-centre will be named ‘XE’ Xtreme Engines. XE will aim to be an officially licensed and customer recommended Vauxhall, and Audi centre, due to its location between existing garages and corporate head offices.
Based as a Tertiary Sector business, direct services will be provided to the consumer in the form of modifications for performances cars. A range of modifications will be offered for many different car manufacturers with an added emphasis on Vauxhall and Audi modifications due to the location.
The Retail garage-centre will need large amounts of space, whilst still being openly accessible to the driving public.
The location chosen is along the A30 London Road, Camberley, Surrey, between Vauxhall’s ‘Fox’s’ garage and Audi’s ‘White’s’ garage, as this is a drive by zone for hundred of drivers daily. These drivers are both corporation workers and housewives heading to the Meadows retail centre on the A30.
Appendage ii
Shop Owner Questionnaire Sampling
I am undertaking research into garages as part of my final GCSE Business Studies programme.
Please could you answer these five questions, it would help my results.
Thank you for your time and help, Chris Monroe.
Please circle your answers
1. Why did you locate near another garage (If applicable) ?
As a direct competition to other garages yes no
It was the only site available yes no
Due to the volumes of car-customers yes no
2. Is it beneficial to be located next to your competitors?
yes no
3. What affect would parking restrictions have on your business?
Would the restrictions reduce your trade? yes no
Would this be over all of your business? yes no
Or just effect ad-hock trade yes no
4. Is low cost rent more important than locational position?
yes no
Is the drive-by location key to your trade yes no
Could low rent saving, make-up for trade loss? yes no
What % drive-by trade occurs monthly? %
5. Is it beneficial to set up strategic partnerships and VARS? (Value Added Reseller)
yes no
Is the cost of official licensing too high for profit yes no
Would the brand from the VAR increase your Profit yes no
What monthly % of trade is strategic partnerships %
What monthly % of trade is from VARS? %
Appendage iii
Product, Price, Place.
The products and services that will be offered are based on market research obtained in task 2 and 4, the following will be offered in the car workshop:
- Exhausts
- Brakes
- Tyres
- Alloys
- Body kits
- Engine Modifying
- Security Systems
- MoT centre
Paint re-sprays have been omitted, the return on capital employed will be little or even towards a loss, therefore capital should be directed else where in the company.
Prices for the above services are based on competition, under cutting will be used to attract customers, the list below is compared to competitors pricing plans, advertising comparisons against Fast Forward Motorsport Centre (appendix xiii).
Our Price Competitors
Exhausts £from 99.99 £from 120
Brakes £from 225 £from 250
Tyres £from 100 £from 120
Alloys £from 350 £from 400
Body Kits £from 370 £from 400
Engine Kits £from 99.99 £from 120
Security £from 250 £from 300
MoT £26.99 £29.99
Asking consumers how much they would pay for ‘mod’ parts was not put into the questionnaires, thinking that using a comparative pricing strategy to the competition would prove to be more valuable research data. Also customers would want to pay as low a price as possible, so by using a comparative pricing strategy more reliable data was collected and a direct proportion for our prices could be worked out.
The location for the business will be based on the A30 between the ‘Audi Whites Garage’ and the ‘Vauxhall Fox’s Garage.’ A location on the A30 will provide vast warehouse space for both a showroom and workshop area, whilst being on the main road out of Camberley. Also on the A30 near the ‘Fox’s’ garage are giant 6m by 10m approx. billboards that can be used to advertise the business on an extremely busy junction where traffic comes in and out of Camberley.
Located in-between Vauxhall and Audi gives the opportunity to be an official Audi and Vauxhall MOT and modification centre, with possible price reductions on official parts from either car dealer and increased customer footfall.
Appendage iv
XE Marketing Plan & Advertising Strategy
XE Marketing Plan & Advertising Strategy
- All marketing with be measure via volume of foot-fall, and increase of sales via mornorting for point-of-sale.
Printed Media –Advertising: Above-the-line
- Own Car & Van livery
- Yellow Pages
- Talking Pages
- Local Camberley Newspapers: Weekly Adverts
- Local Free Newspapers: Weekly Adverts
- Local Buses – mobile and cost-effective
- National Car based magazine: Max Power, & Top Gear
- Launch Banner over a key road, i.e. Park Road, Camberley
- Local Radio Stations: 20 & 30 second trailers: 96.4 the Eagle
- Taxis – May not reach the target market
- National Newspapers – Cost maybe too high for budget
- Billbroads – Cost maybe too high for budget
- Ad-shell (Bus stops) – Cost maybe too high for budget
- Television – Cost maybe too high for budget
New Media:
- Own Brand Website
- Hyperlink Adverts from other site
- Text adverts via mobile phones
Publicity: Public Relations (PR) Below-the-line
Creation of XE Press Pack:
XE Company and key personnel background, mission statement, services offered, suppliers, strategic partnerships and VARS (Value Added Reseller), hours trading, XE USP’s (Unique Selling Point), Special Promotions, all contact details, legal protector, embargo date (so the information can not be release before the embargo date), web address in bold.
-
Sponsorship of under 12 years team: football, karate, go-karting approx £650 a season in return team shirts endorses brand (both in and out of game)
- Promotion: public stunts, i.e. collecting signatures for a local charity or national charity such as Children in Need
- Branded Press Pack & Press Release: local and National news editors
- Flyers: Car Parks, Fast Food outlets
- Give-away Car Stickers: McDonalds & petrol garages
- Car-Sticker competition via local radio
Publicity: Promotional Specials:
- Promotional Tie-ins (linked brand advertising specials).
- Simpsons – Although the cost maybe too high for budget, so may not be used.
- KitKat (You’re not a Salmon)
- Point of Sale Promotions
By creating links to already successful brands, consumers will relate the XE brand to those of already existing brands such as Kit-Kat, this will build consumers confidence in the brand, hopefully leading to increased sales.
Pricing Strategy
- By offering up to 33% off products and MOTs the company should not run at a loss on the services provided and should break-even on them.
- Customer loyalty scheme that entitles the account holder discounts on Services or products, such as 10% of modifications when MoT purchased using a Loyalty account.
Sales Staff:
- List what each level of staffing should be aiming for, giving them targets to achieve, and hence creating higher efficiency.
- Passionate about their Job and Cars, so that they will give off a positive outlook to both the company and it’s reputation.
- Clean uniform, as smart, presentable staff members lead to customers expecting high standards and are more likely to spend higher amounts of money.
Appendage V
Write up of Marketing Campaign
The Introduction:
The Retail Shop will be a Car modification garage and MOT centre for performance cars; for example a branded GTI or SRI model vehicle. The Retail garage-centre will be named ‘XE’ Xtreme Engines. XE will aim to be an officially licensed and customer recommended Vauxhall, and Audi centre, due to its location between existing garages and corporate head offices.
Based as a Tertiary Sector business, direct services will be provided to the consumer in the form of modifications for performances cars. A range of modifications will be offered for many different car manufacturers with an added emphasis on Vauxhall and Audi modifications due to the location.
Type of Research:
The market research which was carried out for Xtreme Engines was as follows:
- General Public Questionnaire Sampling (refer to appendage vi, vii)
- Shop Owner Questionnaire Sampling (refer to appendage ii)
Market Research Results:
By evaluating the Market Research (appendage vii) collected from the General Public, it was ascertained that there is a sufficient demand for the type of enterprise that I wish to market, that relevant graph is, Percentage of people who want Expert help for their cars (refer to appendage ii)
From the data collected it as been ascertained that consumers would like a MoT centre and modification shop together this is supported by the pie chart (MoT and Modification shop together.)
Asking the general public which kind of car they drive, created results for what car manufacturers the enterprise should specialise and invest in to maximise profits and increase turnover of stock.
By asking the general public, questions about their driving vehicle preference, I was able to establish through quantitative and qualitative questioning, what the consumers would like to modify their cars with (refer to appendage vii).
Influences on Marketing Mix:
By analysing the General Public Sampling graph: Modifications Wanted by Both Male and Female. (refer to appendage viii), I was able to determine that the below products (Product Section) should be offered at XE.
Product:
The following products and services shall be offered to consumers at Xtreme Engine.
- Security Systems
- Bodykit
- Engine
- Exhaust
- Brakes
- Tyres
- Alloys
- MoT servicing
The one product which did not have sufficient popularity was a Car Painting service this is supported by the graph: Modifications Wanted by Both Male and Female (refer to appendage viii) By offering this service I do not believe it would be cost effective, as demand for it is low.
Price:
Prices for the above services are based on competition, under cutting will be used to attract customers, the list below is compared to competitors pricing plans, advertising comparisons against Fast Forward Motorsport Centre (appendix xiii).
Our Price Competitors
Exhausts £from 99.99 £from 120
Brakes £from 225 £from 250
Tyres £from 100 £from 120
Alloys £from 350 £from 400
Body Kits £from 370 £from 400
Engine Kits £from 99.99 £from 120
Security £from 250 £from 300
MoT £26.99 £29.99
Asking consumers how much they would pay for ‘mod’ parts was not put into the questionnaires, thinking that using a comparative pricing strategy to the competition would prove to be more valuable research data. Also customers would want to pay as low a price as possible, so by using a comparative pricing strategy more reliable data was collected and a direct proportion for our prices could be worked out.
Pricing Strategy
- By offering up to 33% off products and MOTs the company should not run at a loss on the services provided and should break-even on them.
- Customer loyalty scheme that entitles the account holder discounts on Services or products, such as 10% of modifications when MoT purchased using a Loyalty account.
- Point of Sale Promotions
Place:
The Retail garage-centre will need large amounts of space, whilst still being openly accessible to the driving public.
The location chosen is along the A30 London Road, Camberley, Surrey, between Vauxhall’s ‘Fox’s’ garage and Audi’s ‘White’s’ garage, as this is a drive by zone for hundred of drivers daily. These drivers are both corporation workers and housewives heading to the Meadows retail centre on the A30.
Rental:
- £12K per year, lease break 3, 6, 9 years into 10 year-lease (part-of business plan)
Advertising:
Printed Media: Above-the-line
- Own Car & Van livery
- Yellow Pages
- Talking Pages
- Local Camberley Newspapers: Weekly Adverts
- Local Free Newspapers: Weekly Adverts
- Local Buses – mobile and cost-effective
- National Car based magazine: Max Power, & Top Gear
- Launch Banner over a key road, i.e. Park Road, Camberley
- Local Radio Stations: 20 & 30 second trailers: 96.4 the Eagle
- Taxis – May not reach the target market
- National Newspapers – Cost maybe too high for budget
- Billboards – Cost maybe too high for budget
- Ad-shell (Bus stops) – Cost maybe too high for budget
- Television – Cost maybe too high for budget
New Media:
- Own Brand Website
- Hyperlink Adverts from other site
- Text adverts via mobile phones
Sales Staff:
- List what each level of staffing should be aiming for, giving them targets to achieve, and hence creating higher efficiency.
- Passionate about their Job and Cars, so that they will give off a positive outlook to both the company and it’s reputation.
- Clean uniform, as smart, presentable staff members lead to customers expecting high standards and are more likely to spend higher amounts of money.
Publicity:
Public Relations (PR) Below-the-line
Creation of XE Press Pack:
XE Company and key personnel background, mission statement, services offered, suppliers, strategic partnerships and VARS (Value Added Reseller), hours trading, XE USP’s (Unique Selling Point), Special Promotions, all contact details, legal protector, embargo date (so the information can not be release before the embargo date), web address in bold.
Sponsorship of under 12 years team: football, karate, go-karting approx £650 a season in return team shirts endorses brand (both in and out of game)
- Promotion: public stunts, i.e. collecting signatures for a local charity or national charity Children in Need
- Branded Press Pack & Press Release: local and National news editors
- Flyers: Car Parks, Fast Food outlets
- Give-away Car Stickers: McDonalds & petrol garages
- Car-Sticker competition via local radio
Promotional Specials:
- Promotional Tie-ins (linked brand advertising specials).
- Simpsons – Although the cost maybe too high for budget, so may not be used.
- KitKat (You’re not a Salmon)
Marketing Measurables:
All marketing will be measured via volume of foot-fall, and increase of sales via monitoring point-of-sale.
Conclusion:
By evaluating the Market Research (appendage vii through to xii) collected from the General Public, it was ascertained that there is a sufficient demand for the type of enterprise that I wish to market, refer to graph (Percentage of people who want Expert help for their cars)
By creating links to already successful brands, consumers will relate the XE brand to those of already existing brands such as Kit-Kat, this will build consumers confidence in the brand, hopefully leading to increased sales.
Using heavy marketing to the media and below-the-line sources, potential consumers will be alerted to XE’s lower pricing and high aphesis on customer loyalty through the loyalty card being given out in store and on the launch day.
The overall conclusion drawn from all the data collected and evaluation of the marketing mix, is that Xtreme Engines will most likely be a success as the location ensures easy access for customers on a main road, which increases customer footfall. A competitive price skimming strategy against competition from other tertiary sector rivals will keep open XE into the market as a high quality customer orientated business with lower prices.
Basingstoke, Ruby Club, 2003.
Basingstoke, Ruby Club, 2003.
Basingstoke, Ruby Club, 2003.