Alternative 4: The company should have a plan to enlarge markets to achieve the company’s goal. For example, the company should consider the potential demand all over the world and decide to penetrate the potential markets. Assume the company considered well and chooses Asia as a market:
Pros Cons
1. Valuable “Western” positive product view 1. Higher rate of copycats
2. High demand for personal care products 2. Leads to low-costs for local competitors
3. Opportunity of growth for 1st EMS product 3. Need to re-target the market:
In Asia, product might target only
the housewife.
Redevelop the existing markets in Ireland, Columbia, and theUnited Kingdom. The Company should conduct marketing research to find out the attitudes towards the existing products regularly. Using this data compared with the sales data records, the company can gather the precious data to use in product innovation and development.
Alternative 1: The company needs to have personnel highly skilled in communications to negotiate. It is also important to have a good relationship with the existing distributor.
Pros Cons
1. Possibly get updated market trends from distributor 1.Relying heavily on other’s info
2. Have a competitive advantage over competitors
Alternative 2: Use promotional tools to stimulate sales regularly. Company can’t ignore the existing market even if the markets are in the mature markets.
Pros Cons
1. Retaining the existing customers 1. Promotional costs
2. Brand Recognition advantage 2. Useless for product in declining age
Increase Customer Satisfaction Company can choose to implement the following strategies:
Alternative 1: Promote after-sales service for the professional markets (salon). Customers can reach the customer service via 1-800-slendertone. Also, the company should offer to deliver the replacement pads for the salon.
Pros Cons
1. Increase assurance in products 1. Need to invest in an 800 number
2. Complaints help in product development 2. Carry technical & maintenance costs
3. Opportunity to sell other new products 3. Must have customer orientation
4. Replacement pads sales tend to rise
5. Promote customer loyalty/creditability
Alternative 2: Invest in customer relationship management (CRM)
Pros Cons
1. Deepen customer loyalty 1. Large invest in both hardware & software
2. Infer customer’s needs & wants 2. Required skilled personnel
3. Increase longevity of customer relationships 3. Not all customers want relationship with
the company
4. No guaranteed improvement through
CRM
Alternative 3: Product testing in each market segment
Pros Cons
1. Maximizing satisfaction of the customers needs 1. High costs to reach different expectations
2. Re-design and product development costs
Recommendations
The company planned to achieve sales of £100 million in two years. This goal surely required hard work in both marketing and production. Not only can high standard quality products reach the global market, but the company also really needs a good business strategy to succeed.
To achieve this success, E-commerce is the best choice. In promoting world-class brands, E-commerce helps reach potential customers and existing customers worldwide. Also, customers can easily shop online. E-commerce is a very convenient and cost-effective way to do business today. First, a company must design a website that aims to provide information and create creditability towards the Slendertone brand and its products. The website should include a simulated demonstration on how to use the product by illustrating how the product works. Most importantly, the website should have language selection options. For example, an English version, French version, Spanish version, etc. The company needs to make sure that it provides an appropriate language version that ties in with specific potential markets. In spite of all the advantages of E-commerce, there are some concerns about the privacy and security when using a credit card to make purchases on-line. Thus, the company should have a 100% safe shopping website design to make on-line shopping reliable and secure; ie. Verisign. To penetrate the market again in France, the most likely source of incoming revenue, the company should use an infomercial, which is a very effective tool that works well for the French market. Surely, with a good marketing strategy and quality products, the company will regain its reputation in turn also generate huge profit margins. Moreover, the company should promote the professional market in France because it helps boost the high profit margin for the company at a retail value of over £4,000 for each unit. The promotion to the professional market also helps to increase sales in home use of the product as well. From the above strategy, the company will generate more income from the new market segment. However, the company has to redevelop the existing market as well. This existing market also has the potential for growth. Marketing needs to work closely with the existing distributors. The personnel needs to have good communication skills in order to negotiate with them. In addition, it is a must to develop a good relationship with them. It will be very useful to gather the sales data and consumer’s behavior or attitudes towards the product. With this information, the company can adjust and redesign the products in order to maximize customer satisfaction. Product Development helps to promote growth in the existing markets as well. If the product is in the mature stage of the product life cycle, it still needs to be promoted in some way. The promotional tools help to stimulate sales. However, the company has to have control over the distributor’s promotion under thier brands-- possibly in the form of a contract in order to protect the brand’s image. Plus, the Slendertone brand is still recognized through advertising. Brand recognition is very important for marketing this product. Furthermore, the company should adopt the after-sales service in order to use the increased customer satisfaction and creditability towards the company and all the Slendertone brand products. Service is as important as the product itself. Certainly, with quality services, the customers will tend to have loyalty for the company. Word-of-mouth is possibly the best promotional tool that we receive from doing extra services well. Hence, the toll-free 1-800-slendertone should work effectively to satisfy the customers.
Finally, once the market is extended, the company should re-design their strategy to promote the product in a different place. New markets might require different testing because of the different behaviors in a diverse market group. There is no single best way for marketing in different markets. It is important for the company to make sure that it has the right product in the right place at the right time. Also, the packaging must be translated into those import countries languages to make certain that instructions are clearly understood. This will increase satisfaction in return.
After adopting all recommended strategies, the company should succeed in a world-brand product position and achieve the target figures of £100 million.
