Place
The ‘Treat Yourself’ service would be offered at the premises of Futures maybe in a separate room designed to be relaxing and quite away from the noise of the main shop. The Treat Yourself ranges will be available mostly at weekends as it clearly states in my research that most individuals spend longer on personal care at the weekend then anytime of the week, as most people do not work at weekends, therefore most parties and nights out are planned for the weekend. Futures would make the majority of their profit at the weekend than weekdays because women are at work or have to look after children and the other major market being teenagers are at school/ collage, instead of the length of the customers visit to Futures being restricted from 4.00 to 5.30 pm due to the following legal reasons, if the service were to interfere with education hours and students were to visit Futures then they would be playing truant and Futures would be breaking the law.
Price
When the service is first introduced to spread the word of the new service it would mean that ‘Treat Yourself’ range would enter the market at a special low introductory price lower than the cost of producing or offering the product/service and then after a short time the price would begin to increase and generate profits. Futures would be able to do this without going bankrupt as they already have a main service that provides all their profits, which will be able to sustain the company if the ‘Treat Yourself’ is not successful. Penetration pricing is used to gain a considerable amount of market share and increase the recognition/awareness of the good or service to be marketed once this has been achieved the cost will increase to cover the loss of profits through the introductory price.
An alternate pricing strategy which could be adopted is price differentiation, this means charging customer different prices on products/service depending on the time/day of the week. On certain days of the week for example peak times when it is busy the price charged for the product could be increased from the original price it was sold or provided for. Therefore at times were there is a constant flow of customers the price will stay the at the same price. Consumers will take into account the low prices during the week and make use of Futures’ service at those times. Business occasionally take this route when pricing services in the hope that demand would be reduced at peak times so its resources and workforce are not over stretched and they are able to provide the highest standard of customer service.
Promotion
There are various promotional tools which could be used to promote the ‘Treat Yourself’ service there include
- Marketing Collateral (Producing and distributing materials)
- Promotional activities
- Advertising
Futures already promote its other products and services through brochures which are available at the reception desk. The ‘Treat Yourself’ service can be included in the brochure but as it has to developed Futures can only provide a small amount of space in their brochure by doing so the service will start to gain recognition and interest will be generated. The brochures are not distributed outside the business so they would be aimed at customers who use Futures existing services, to increase the awareness of the product I would consider advertising in the local newspaper and in the shop window. Brochures are effective promotional tools because they inform the customer of all the services provided by Futures all in one place. The only disadvantage of brochures are that they can be expensive to produce depending on the quality of the paper and ink, therefore the cost to promote the new range would not be that great.
Futures can also promote it’s services in the form of posters, these are a very popular way of promoting services because they are simple, straight to the point and eye catching. When producing posters the design must relate to the target audience, the service to be promoted is a children’s service which is aimed at all ages therefore the design must integrate all requires being able to appeal to age groups. The poster can be put up in the shop window or places where people are likely to see them.
Promotional activities include sponsorship events, coupons, loyalty card and free samples. Coupons would relate to the product/service to be marketed in this case. The coupons could offer the customer a discount off using the ‘Treat Yourself’ service at certain times of the day e.g. off peak times. The promotional tools mostly used by Futures customers have exclusive access to the service. The exclusive access when stated will encourage customers who have children to bring them in to use the service if not pass the word on to friends and family. This method of promotion would effectively bring in new customers hence in the long run if there were repeat in sales an d the introduction of new customers increase Futures net profits. The collaboration of the two promotional tools would in the future reduce the risk of high costs, the money it would take to product the brochures and then to separately print coupons would be expensive but printed together will be cheaper.
The internet is another form of promotional advertising, at this moment in time Futures does not have a website, but are planning one in the next three months, when this website is set up it can show the users what sort of service to be expected by the use of photographs.
Advertising is a very popular tool used by many businesses in the form of print advertising, direct mail, outdoor advertising ( such as billboards, bus stops and supermarket trolleys). The outdoor advertising would be expensive for Futures seeing as they are not a big company and would not be able to cover the costs of such a in-depth marketing campaign. Print advertising in the form of a local newspaper would be ideal for Futures, in the introduction of ‘Treat Yourself’. An advertisement in the local Gravesend newspaper could be published informing readers of the new service. Placing an advertisement in a local newspaper is the cheapest method available it doesn’t cost much if printer in black and white but depends on the size and amount of characters.
