Good Examples of Market Strategy - Travelwire.com

What is Good Marketing?

Examples of marketing are popping up in the news every day all around the world. In order to model a good business strategy, or even just see what a good marketing plan looks like, it can help to look at companies that are successful as well as those facing problems. By learning from their successes and faults, a marketer can see what does and doesn't work in the real life business industry.

Example

I recently have come across an article on PRWeb.com about a new marketing strategy for Travelwire Inc. Travelwire continues to position itself as a leader in online travel booking sites. The reason why it is recently in the news is because of its new partnership with one of Jamaica's best business advertising and events promotion companies, Outdeh.com. This partnership was made to promote the company's marketing campaign within the Carribean, U.S., Canada, and UK markets.  

According to founder Oliver Huie, "Travelwire is focused on brand positioning and finding unique ways to market our vacation packages to a variety of audiences and we believe the partnership with OutDeh.com represents that. They have a vibrant and experienced marketing team with a strong fan and customer base and we want to communicate our message of being an affordable online travel booking provider to their audience." This partnership includes discount pacjages to cutsomers using Travelwire.com as the preferred vendor for all travel related booking and Travelwire would also be Outdeh.com’s preferred travel partner for all their events. This marketing strategy is very smart and I'll tell you why.

When a business is selling its prodcut within a market, it is important for the business to know its consumers as well as its competitors. Ensuring good product placement within the market through promotion and advertising can increase the brand awarenss of the company, as well as gain more purchasers form the target market population. This in turn leads to higher revenues, profits, and success.

What Travelwire has done is made a partnership with a marketing and advertising company that has access to several new channels. Channels are selling avenues that a business sells its product or service through. They are the means by which a consumer uses to purchase that product or service. An increase in channel position allows a company to have access to more consumers. With outdeh.com providing access to not only the U.S. market, but the Carribean, Canadian, and UK markets, which are all prime vacation and tourism staples, Travelwide is now able to reach more consumers in their target market that they may not have had as much success in reaching before.

By offering discounts to these outdeh customers, travelwide also increases the value of the service they are providing. A lower price for the same qulaity of service they are providing will draw in customers and potentially satisy them enough to continue useage of the service. Promotion is a key element in developing recognition, awareness, retention, and recruitment. Also, by becoming a "preferred travel partner" not only will outdeh.com customers automatically trust travelwide.com due to outdeh.com's reputation and quality, but travelwide itself will gain brand awareness and brand recognition.

Finally, by bringing in an experienced and vibrant marketing team with a strong customer base, travelwide will be able to effectively allocate resources towards a successful stratgey and market plan. By learning from their new partner, travelwire.com can learn what works well with their target market and consumer base. In this new learning process, they will be able to increase not only the customer base and sales, but they will increase profits as well!

As you can see, an effective implementation of strategy can really increase success for your business. If you're ever wondering what to do to increase your business, take these steps: analyze the market, create a plan and strategy, test that strategy, make revisions of your plan is having different incomes while continuing market analysis, and hopefully see your success take action!

You can find the article on Travelwire here:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/11/prweb11325189.htm

Experience in Simulation

 Pharmasim Periods 3-7

Throughout the completion of Pharmasim periods 3-7, my team partner and I have come across several learning experiences. Before we even started these 5 periods, we were licky enough to have done some ddep analysis into a mini marketing plan. Though at times this process was tiring and time consuming, it did give us a better idea of what to look for in our simulation. It certainly preared us for what was to come.

Entering into period 3, we had a plan in terms of what our marketing strategy would be, what decisions we would make in terms of advertising, promotion, sales force, pricing/price strategy, line extension as well as a timeline we would look at in making specific decisions for our product. For the most part, our predicted timeline has aligned well with the actual simulation processes. Our decisions to increase our advertising and promotion in order to increase brand awareness and sales have worked. Our allocation of sales force also seem to have correlate into greater retailer support, thus more sales. Our pricing has always been higher, which we were worried about, but up to this point we have a good gross margin and our customers see the price at a good tradeoff value.

We have come across some unexpected situations in these periods however. With forecasting, you can never make exact assumptions. No matter what happens, your numbers will not be exact and there's always room for unexpected influences. One of the challenges we have faced is the unpredictability of certain changes. For example, we did not plan for any of the "special" problems that Allround faces. However, we have made good decisions that have worked out for us. With more planning on these decisions, we would have better understanding of how they might affect Allstar. However, the strategic analysis and market planning has enabled us to know our company and product very well, thus allowing us to make on the spot decisions. These situations cover everything from social media, product tampering, and price/discount discrimination.

Another problem we have been having is with our sales force allocation. We have been following our plan well and our products are improving the Allstar Brand. However, even with growth in sales and constant analysis and change in our sales force, we seem to always get a message to consider revising allocation. This message even popped up a lot when I was in practice simulation before we started. It seems that even after analyzing our sales report, the market sales force, channel sales, and other areas, our allocation in sales force for both the Allround and Allround + products are being identified by the simulation.

The last tricky situation we have faced in these periods have to do with our capacity utilization. There will be some periods where we are a certain percentage over utilization, and then other periods where it is of no concern. With an unpredictable budget every period along with different factors such as retail growth and promotional/advertising needs, it is difficult to understand how these factors will indicate demand and retail sales for each period. The fact that we are not over on some periods shows that our decisions do get better and allow the company to stay under utilization, but then there will be the random periods where we are over. We are having trouble identifying how to keep utilization down for all periods.

Periods 3-7 have taugth me that preparation is key. Understanding your product, the market, the competitors, and the consumers is essential if you want to increase brand awareness, increase profit, increase stock price; whatever the company goals are. Making sure that you plan out these goals and steps to take ahead of time make the marketing process easier and allows the marketers to understand the product and the influential factors that can make success.

Marketing Metrics

Marekting metrics are very valuable to a marketing manager. These metrics help to evaluate a marketing strategy. The follwing list is what I think are good measuring tools for analysis, but do not limit yourself to these alone! Everyone has different analysis techniques, just make sure whatever you are analyzing will give effective and knowledgable results.

Market Share - Share Position
When a company has a product within a market, competitors will battle for a position among that market with them. One way to measure your effectiveness in marketing is to look at your brand's share within the market. This means what percentage of the market that you alone own as compared with other competitors. A higher share means higher sales and profits. Knowing where you are in market share and where other competitors lie will help make decisions in terms of promotion, advertising, and pricing.

Brand Awareness
This metric is the extent to which a brand is recognized by its potential customers. Brand awareness is the primary goal of a product's early months of introduction to the market. This numebr is a percentage of the target market. Correct analysis of brand awareness can allow a company to efficiently increase/decrease in areas they see effective.

Profitability - Net Income
This metric is pretty simple and self-explanatory. Monitoring one's profits, whcih can be analyzed through net income, allows to see how successful a product is doing sales-wise. Having great sales and low costs creates good profit for a company.

Price
Price can go many ways. There are several pricing strategies that will help drive a product in a certian direction. Choosing an effective strategy is key. Knowing what competition prices their products at will also give a better of idea at how consumers think about pricing and can allow you to make better pricing decisions off of those strengths or weaknesses analyzed.

Marketing Efficiency Index (MEI)
Essentially, the Marketing Efficiency Index is calculated by dividing the net income by marketing expenditures. An MEI of 1 shows that for every $1 a company spends, it is making $1 off of that dollar in net income. An MEI of 2 means it is making $2 off of every $1 spent. The MEI is helpful in planning pricing and budget allocation on marketing and other cost areas.

Units Sold
Units sold allows a company to see their progress in many areas. Marketing, price effectiveness, income/profitability are all areas affected by units sold. How well you are doing will either show that the product is selling well among consumers or not selling as planned. Units sold can also be compared between competition and allow a company to see where it is among success in the market.

All of these metrics, among others, are essential in allowing better decisions in marketing strategy.

Pharmasim Situation Analysis Process

 

Pharmasim Periods 0-2

For those of you who are unaware of what Pharmasim is, it is a computer program that helps a marketing student to analyze and make marketing decisions about a fictional over-the-counter cold medicine company. So far, it has been a very eye opening experience that has helped in connecting the analysis methods learned in class to a real life situation.

Coming into this experience, I was nervous because I had never had such  practical experience that would be so hands on. I had done case work before and analysis of specific points of a decision making process, but never anything this intensive. And that's a good thing! All aspects I have learned in class have given me a better understanding of how a marketing plan works in real life situations. Granted, there is still a long ways to go with the Pharmasim process, I feel like it is making me a stronger analyst and decision maker. And it's great to have a partner in all of this to bounce ideas off of and challenge me as well.

In the beginning of Pharmasim, we were able to do trials and practice how the actual program works. That was huge! I was able to understand how all the buttons and categories meant and did. It certainly helped in my understanding for the beginning of the first part of this assessment.

The situation analysis has by far been the most intensive work I have done so far in graduate school work. The amount of time and research that was necessary in order to make our decisions took a lot of focus and attention. And that was just for Periods 0-2...there's about 8 or 9 more to go! And that's only the beginning. The actual situation analysis took even more time, attention, research, and focus. We had 8 days to make an analysis of what you would think a marketer would do in a few weeks (Well, not necessarily. I'm sure they do it faster. Again, I'm still new to this!). The excel workbook we were able to use to analyze the Five C's, strengths, weaknesses, trends, competition and market information, and issues to address in the future was a great help. Very long and draining, but overall it helped me have an overall in-depth look of our product. And the memo helped me to put all of this information in an organized, practical form. Though this process was stressful and at times frustrating in terms of the amount of time and effort required to go into this, I can't help but admit it was helpful in understanding not only the product and market better, but understanding the practical processes of marketing in general. I never realized how much actually went into something as simple as a situation analysis. It's crazy to see how many different factors go into making future decisions. 

I now feel prepared for the next step in the marketing analysis of the Allstar Brands cold medicine product in Paharmasim. But first, I have to get some sleep...

Buyer Behavior: Needs vs. Wants

The Buyer

The buyer wants and the buyer needs. It all depends on how the organization markets and advertises their service or product. In my line of work, the university is trying to satisfy a need, as well as create a want in a way. 

 

The prectice of higher education has been going on for centuries. Going to college isn't something new. The reason I call a higher education a want is because you don't necessarily need to get a higher education at a college or university in order to be successful and intelligent in life. There are plenty of cases of successful individuals who never got an education. Also, there are positions that do not require a degree that an individual can make a living off of. However, a college education does present a service that one usually cannot get on their own: an education. This is where the need aspect comes in.

The majority of society doesn't have the capability or resources to gain an education beyond high school on their own. One needs someone to teach them experiences, lessons, ideas, and theories at a higher level. An individual wouldn't have this on their own. Also, in order to perform certain jobs or get highered into certain situations, he or she needs a degree from a higher education institution. He or she needs the higher education. More and more people are getting degrees now; it is becoming the normal thing for those to do after graduating high school.

When all is said and done, a higher education does create a want for the reason it is not essential but unique and attractive to the consumer, but for the most part it satisfies a need now that a higher education has become a norm in society. Western New England provides a solution to the consumer's problem. It provides a quality education with vast resources to ensure that consumers, in this case students, are able to gain knowledge, experience, and expertise in their desired fields of study.

Buyer Behavior Process

There are multiple levels of decision making when it comes to buyer behavior. There's Nominal Decision Making, Limited Decision Making, and Extended Decision Making. When it comes to Western New England's market, the consumer is the student. In my opinion, they follow the Extended Decision Making. This decision is at the high end of the purchase involvement scale and requires the most extensive level of evaluation. After graduating high school, a student does a lot of research on different schools. There is an internal search for alternatives and a lot of external research including reading reviews of schools, seeking opinions from alumni or current students, going to college fairs, reading pamphlets, going on websites, etc. Deciding on a school ivolves a large amount of time evaluating all of the different schools a student is interested in. Even after he or she applies, there is still more evaluation and research to do. Even after you make the decision on what school you choose, there is always the post evaluation that occurs too. Was this school the right choice? Are you fitting in well? Does the school really offer what you are looking for?

In this decision making, marketers at the university need to make sure thier advertising is prevelant enough to make sure the school is even considered in the decision making process. It's also important that they provide information through countless other sources such as on websites, in mailings, through the mail, on campus visits, and through commercials. These will aid during the external research phase of the student. Finally, they need to follow up with the students after the "purchase" is made, or in this case once the student accepts his or her enrollment in the school. This is done well at Western New England University through the countless strategies and programs we give to students through countless resources like Residence Life, the First Year Office, Admissions, the individual colleges, the Alumni Office, the Career Center, and many many more. For example, in Residence  Life we present students with programs to involve them more and build a community. This strategy not only is a marketable strategy for retention and growth, but it helps us measure how involved students become. We also offer surveys to see how they are enjoying student life as well as what the University has to offer them. This follow up keeps them involved with the university and gives them a say, as well as ensures them that they made the best decision. These follow ups that each department offers reassures the students' decisions and helps retain themin staying for all four years of an education, and possible more depending if they choose graduate or doctoral studies as well.

What Does This Mean?

Understanding buyer behavior allows an organization to understand the decisions that its consumers make. Understanding their needs allows a marketer to direct its marketing and advertising to those areas. If an organization can understand the wants and needs of the consumer, they can better understand who will want the product or service and how they can go about reaching them and structuring their efforts into knowing what decisions the consmer will make. In doing so, an organization will find success in helping to make those consumer decisions easier for them, in a beneficial way to the organization. If an organization does well with this process, they will create loyal consumers who will purchase the product or service!

Competitors Beware!

My "Company"

This week's post is going to be talking about my "company" so to say. As you may already know, I work in the Office of Residence Life at Western New England University as a Residence Manager. Western New England University is a private educational institution that serves the likes of undergraduate, graduate, pharmacy, and law students. In this post, I'm going to be looking at Western New England's vision, its competition, and the served market definition. It's all about competitive analysis this week!

Vision

The purpose of a vision for a company is so that not only will it know who it is and what they stand for, but the consumers it is reaching out to know who the company is and what its goals are too! This will also allow you to see where you stand in the market.

So what is Western New England's vision? This is directly from Western New England's website. "Western New England University is a private, independent, coeducational institution founded in 1919. Located on an attractive 215-acre suburban campus in Springfield, Massachusetts, Western New England University serves 3,700 students, including 2,550 full-time undergraduate students. Undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs are offered through Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Engineering, and Pharmacy, and School of Law." (wne.edu)

Competition

Competition is pretty plain and simple; Who is it in your market that you are up against? Being in the educational institution "market" , Western New England competes to recruit and retain students who are willing and able to learn in a higher education institution. On a large scale, Western New England competes with all colleges across the nation, but in terms of direct competition, it is mainly the colleges and universities in the Western Mass/New England area that it competes with for students. This includes Springfield College and AIC which are just right down the street from campus, community colleges such as Holyoke Community College and STCC, and then theres other nearby institutions like Batpath College, Westfeld State, and the largest competitor, UMass Amherst. There are hundreds of others, and Western New England must ensure that it is creating itself with appropriate vision, goals, strategies, and marketing tools to draw in students from around the nation, and even the world (international students).

 

Served Market Definiton

Served market definition asks what you are as a company. What do you do? There are many different definitions among the many departments and colleges in the university, so there are variations of specificities when looking at more direct areas of the University, but I will give a general market definiton for Western New England University. All-in-all, Western New England Univesity is a private educational institution that serves to educate and develope a student both personally and academically in and outside of the classroom.

 

Compete!

Competitive analysis is essential for a company looking to grow among its market. Yes, it is important for a company to know its customer and how to reach out to them, but it's just as important to know the other competitors in your market trying to do just the same thing. There's always the threat of new competition so a company has to be aware of its surroundings, its market, and its consumers at all times. If a company is efficent and successful at this, it will certainly find itself in a good position in its market.

 

 

Environmental Factors and the Effect on Business

Environmental Factors

External factors are always making an impact on a company's performance. One would think that by looking within the company for answers it would be a simple enough solution to understand the what is causing the business impacts. However, this is not the case. Looking outside is good too. Environmental factors have just as much influence on a company's decisions. These include social, legal and political, economical, technological, and competitive factors.

Social
Society can have a large impact on a company. The social aspects that a company should pay attention to are how society acts, what they value, what do they think about certain issues, what are their views on people, places, things, and issues? Society is essentially your market. Know them!

Legal/Political
Like in any aspect of life, there are rules. Laws, regulations, standards, and those running things essentially set the stage for all businesses and their performance. Those who lead a group are faced with the decisions that make or break a business. Companies must ensure  they follow the rules when conducting business. If they don't, there will be negative consequences that can hurt the company.

Economic
The state of the economy will affect a business no matter what, whether negaitve or positive. The things within the economy a company must pay attention to are the income of those in its market, the ways in which the state of the economy can play into their consumers' decisions (bad economy = less buying, good economy = more buying), supply and demand ALWAYS show how much the consumer will be buying the product or service based on what the need of it is.

Technological
With the continuos development of technology, there are always new ways it can play in to a company's means of business. Technology has created a means of fast and easy communication; global at that. Storage of information is still in its imfancy, and yet it has become an enormous aspect of top companies worldwide. It can store all sorts of data; on customers, company records, files, plans, documents, and so on. It is up to the company to take advantage of this to make business processes more efficient and cost effective.

Competitive
They say keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. This makes perfect sense in the world of business. Knowing who your competition is, what their products are, and how they can affect your product or service. Knowing how they do business (how they set prices, who they do business with, what they produce, the threat they cause) is essential. Not only does this include knowing current competition, but it also deals with knowing the threat of new competition that can come into the market as well. There's always opportunity for others to enter. It is the company's responsibility to keep themselves up to date and prepared.

Real World Analysis

These environmental factors can be used to look at any field of business. I would like to take my job as a Residence Manager for an example, Western New England University being the business up for analysis. As a private educational institution, the people we provide a service for are mainly students. Knowing who they are, what they value, and how they view the service we provide them is implicit. Knowing things about them also help us to differentiate from competition. Being able to provide for our students better will help to model our institution in a more appealing, more beneficial way.  In order to ensure we are providing them the service of an education to the fullest while abiding by the law, we follow educational guidelines and standards, laws that ensure all people are afforded the opportunity to gain an education, federal regulations in terms of financial aid to students, incident action plans and training, and several other aspects related to legal factors that keep the institution in -check. As times change, so does the knowledge an institution must give its students. Technology is an important factor in this. Everything from having computers and databases for students to learn and research from, having security components like ID scanning access and cameras to ensure safety, as well as a central student information server that gives officials access to the students' information. Finally, knowing the economic aspects help the institution to market to our students better because we can take a look inside to the factors that will help them see our product as beneficial. With the rising cost of a college education, we see it can be harder for a student to pay for an education. However, by understanding their difficulties and needs, we can look into what we will need ot do in order to grab their attention and convince them to essentially "buy" our service, or in these terms enroll in our University.

No matter what business one works for, these external factors are important to look at. A company can greatly benefit from understanding how each of these factors play into its daily decisions. Why not try it yourself?