Company G 3 Year Marketing Plan Essay

Company G develops products that improve the lives of consumers with innovative electronic technology and reliable build quality. We believe that our new Radio CD recorder does just that, it improves the lives of our consumers and gives them a product they can rely on because of our product build quality. Our product is a solution for consumers who would enjoy the convenience of having their favorite radio programming at their disposal. This sample-marketing plan demonstrates the strategies employed to place our new product in position to reach our profit potential. Company G provides consumers with not only reliable appliances but appliances that are cutting edge in design. Our company keeps an eco-friendly attitude in mind during the process of producing our products so that waste is eliminated. Solutions have been utilized to reduce maintenance costs, equipment costs and other costs associated with producing our products. Mission Statement â€Å"We enable consumers to improve the quality and convenience of their lives by providing innovative electronics solution.† The Product The features of the Radio CD recorder include a CD player, radio, CD quality radio recording, small to medium build design for portability, strong light weight construction for portability, timer radio recording for use while away from home, a quality antenna for radio signal strength, five hour rechargeable lithium ion batteries for ease of portability, power cord for home use, a USB outlet for all mp3 device compatibility, and easy to operate controls that can all be done from a wireless remote control. These features give consumers the freedom and convenience to use our product in a variety of ways. Build quality of our product surpasses all that is currently in the market and improves the overall radio experience for consumers. Consumer Product Classification Our consumer product classification falls under a shopping product. Consumers will buy our product only after comparing other radio products price, quality, color, and style. Consumers have limited information as it relates to our product and will gather information during the buying process. Our product can also be seen as homogenous, as there is an array of other radios on the market. Target Market Our focus is on Caucasian female college students between the ages of 18 to 25. Majority of our consumers will be working part time jobs and have incomes ranging of $15 to $25K annually. Most of our consumers will be living on a college campus or apartment, and room mating with friends and or living at home with parents. We will market to tech savvy female college students that look for value in their limited amount of spending on electronic products. Also, our consumers will be music lovers that enjoy listening to the radio during studying and leisure time. The consumers purchasing our product will have a limited amount of space for many different products and will be looking for a product that can combine many of their other products all in one. Competitive Situation Analysis Analysis of Competition using Porter’s 5 Forces Model Competitive Rivalry: According to the amount of products available, rivalry intensity is high. What makes for a high intensity of rivalry includes competitors aggressively targeting each other’s markets and aggressively pricing products. Also, competitors are of equal size and market share and industry growth is slow. Lastly, industries fixed costs are high which creates intense competitive rivalry. Threat from New Entrants: Threats from new entrants are low. Reason being is because of significant upfront capital investments required to start this kind of business. Low barriers of entry are also evident by limited access to proprietary technology and proprietary production material inputs. Furthermore, distribution channels are difficult to access, which also causes low barriers to entry. The Internet has very little impact because of high technology development cost and high manufacturing costs. Threat from Buyers: In researching, buyer power has shown to be low with our product because buyer bargaining power is low. Sellers are concentrated compared to buyers and there are few sellers with many buyers, which makes buyer power low. Furthermore, consumer switching costs are relatively high and buyers would not easily be able to produce our products themselves, further supporting that the threat from buyers is low. The Internet can have an impact should buyers ban together on social networking sites to demand discounts. Threat from Suppliers: Threats from suppliers are high. The new technology that has gone in to producing our new product has been developed and is not mass-produced. Suppliers are few and buyers are many. Suppliers can also forward integrate and begin to produce our product themselves. This will impact how our company will be able to continue delivering our product at a reasonable price because suppliers can use the Internet to sell directly to online shoppers. This will have an impact not only on product price but also our distribution and marketing process. Threat from Substitutes: The threat of substitute products in the market is high. Consumers have the option of purchasing similar radios that record on cassette tapes with low switching costs. Also, the cassette radio recorders are cheaper than our product, which also makes a high threat substitute. But, when it comes to quality of both our product and the substitute product the threat of the substitute is low because our product is of higher quality. Before our product, consumers’ only option to record their radio shows or songs would have been to manually record on cassette radios. The Internet allows fewer barriers for substitute cassette radios to be sold online for less money than our product. SWOT Analysis SWOT is useful technique for understanding Company G’s strengths and weaknesses, and for identifying both opportunities open to the company and threats the company faces. What makes SWOT so important is that it can help bring to light opportunities that can be utilized as an advantage. Also, by understanding the weaknesses of our company, we can be ready to take care of and fix potential problems before they happen. Strengths – Our engineers and designers who develop our innovative products is our first strength. This is one of our core competency’s that gives our company a unique advantage over other companies. We can market how we employ the best and most qualified workers, which brings value and quality to the consumer. – An excellent relationship with current suppliers is our second core competency strength. These relationships have been built over time and are difficult to replicate. This gives us an advantage in that we can make our products available with few delays. – Efficient production process is our last strength that allows us to minimize waste in producing our products. We can market our product as being eco-friendly by minimizing waste in the environment. Furthermore, our products are readily available for restock as needed at any time should demand increase. With our products having an efficient production process they can be made with high quality, fr ee of defects. Weaknesses – Target market consists of college students that don’t typically have much money. Our typical target market will be part time working college students. This target market has yet to start their professional career and have a myriad of costs as they try to earn their degrees. Their costs may just be too high to warrant another electronic purchase. – Consumers may be reluctant to change from their lower priced radio cassette recorders to our new higher priced radio CD recorders. Consumers don’t like change, and if they have a radio that have some of the features our product has, they may elect to save money and stay with their old product. – There are a multitude of substitutes in the market that do very similar things to our product. Having consumers understand and feel a need to have an all in one product that has a combination of features that other substitute products have will prove to be difficult. Opportunities – Our product will be the first on the market that offers a CD recorder and recorder timer in an all in one system. There is no other small appliance exactly like our product and we may have an opportunity to change the way we all use radios. – The music related electronic device market is currently a hot trend. Many other electronics that combine phones with music players are dominating the market. Our product has an opportunity to capture a big piece of the market share by combining radios with new CD recording technology. – We can make radios relevant again in the twenty first century. Radios have been around for decades and have become somewhat obsolete to newer alternatives like mp3 devices. Their is an opportunity to offer a product that we all have utilized and make it a viable option for today’s tech savvy consumer and change the way they live. Threats – A potential lawsuit from music companies and artists for copyright infringement is a major threat. Our product will allow consumers to easily record copyrighted music to CD where they can than distribute the music online. This could potentially bring legal trouble to Company G. – Other established companies could not only develop similar products but also even better technology in the future. Competing companies can allow us to take all the risk in bringing our new product to market and if it does well, they can than reproduce something very similar and threaten our market share. – Copyright laws in the future may change, no longer allowing radio recording. The laws are constantly evolving, especially when it comes to the area of music recording. There is a lot of grey area when it comes to recording from the radio and our product could be the catalyst used to bring tougher restrictions on radio recording, making our product illegal to produce or own. Market Objectives Product Objective – Inform target audience about the value our product brings with the list of features and benefits that lead to a 10 percent gain in the small appliance radio market in one year. Price objective – Pricing range will be $79.99 to start for the first six months in order to attract consumers and gain market share. After six months price will move to $99.99. Place objective – Distribution channel length will be short. Distribution will move from producer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Wholesaler will warehouse products in various locations, to keep up with supply and demand as needed. Orders will be palletized and ready for shipment with in 30 minutes of each order placed. All products will be out fitted with radio-frequency identification for tracking and monitoring of our products every six months. Promotion objective – Increase product sales and new product awareness among target audience by 25 percent in the first year of product release. Bringing together this marketing mix gives our product the best possible chance to be successful. Showing our target audience the value in our products through price and features will be key in our consumers purchasing our product. Furthermore, by utilizing our introductory low price and taking advantage of short channel length will insure that our product not only attracts the attention of our target market but also allows our consumer to have easy access to our products. Lastly, the objectives we have set to increase sales and product awareness will insure that our product is known among the market and is a success. Marketing Strategies Company G’s market strategy will include the four elements of the marketing mix which includes product, price, place and promotion strategies. Each element will include three strategies each with a brief description. Product Strategies – Quality as a product strategy will be used in order to win repeat customers in the future. Consumers are frustrated with products that simply do not work or last. By giving our target market an item that is made with quality, our consumers will be more willing to purchase another item in the future and it will overall improve their life. – Development of product lines is our second strategy. The purpose of including a product line strategy is to grow the company’s position in the market place. Also, it allows for even more opportunities for more consumers to purchase our products by having specific needs met for different consumers. – Product design is our third and final strategy. Shopping products are an important factor in that they need to appeal to a consumer’s image. This will allow the product to be more attractive to the consumer and easier to purchase. Having an item aesthetically pleasing will likely be used more and noticed more amongst other products in the department store and at home. Price Strategies – Cost plus pricing strategy will be used to insure that products are sold with a profit. That way no matter whether we mark up or mark down our prices we will make sure to prevent financial losses on our products. – Penetration pricing strategy will be utilized in order to attract customers and gain market share. Penetration pricing will be in affect for the first six months of our initial product offering. – Psychological pricing will be used to have a positive psychological impact on consumers when purchasing. Consumers are more willing to purchase when they feel they are getting a good deal or value for their purchase. Place Strategies – Producer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer will be how we bring our product to consumers. This traditional channel is a simple but cost effective way of providing goods to our consumer in a quick and efficient manner. – Using a wholesaler is the second strategy. This would allow wholesalers to take responsibility of distributing goods to retailers and distributors. By placing multiple wholesalers in strategic areas we will be able to have our product available should demand rise at any time. – Intensive distribution is our third and final place strategy. Using an intensive distribution strategy will allow us to distribute our products through all available channels in order for consumers to purchase our products anywhere. This makes it convenient for consumers to purchase our products.