MARK 110 Marketing Plan    

Name of product or service:  Packaging

Company name: Great Little Box Company

Location: 748 Market Street
Victoria, BC V8T 5K5

Years in business: 38 Years

Website: www.glbc.co.ke

·         The company has low overheads which makes it possible to offer good value to customers.

·         The GLBC can change direction quickly if it finds that the marketing is not working as planned.

·         The company that GLBC consult has a strong reputation in the market.

·         The company is able to respond very quickly as it does not have red tape since it does not require high management approvals.

·         The company is suffering from the modest advertising budget.

·         The company is located at two different locations which makes it hard to reach a lot of customers.

·         There are higher overhead costs which affects the workings of the company.

·         The company is suffering from the shortage of consultants at operating level rather than in partner level.

·         It is suffering from multidisciplinary assignments because of its size.

·         GLBC enjoys a well established position with a well-defined market niche.

·         It also enjoys well-defined market consultancy in areas other than the human resource management.

·         Local government wants to encourage the local established businesses hence it is lowering the tax so as to reduce the cost of production.

·         Due to the large expansion of the company is able to meet the demand of both the local and the nation in the field of packaging.

·         The products provided by the company does not account for cultural diversity in the region.

·         The packaging company is not affect by the culture of the people living in the area hence the business thrives well no matter the culture in the area.

·         Due to the advancement in the technology the customers are able to order goods and services at their homes and delivery is fast. Also other business take it slow in adopting the new technology due to resources required hence the company has enough resources making it leading in technological advances.

·         The business sector is expanding with many future opportunities for a company to succeed but also the competitive companies are growing at a higher rate.

·         The national government has banned the use of paper bags due to environmental pollutions.

·         Reduction in working hours due to increased crime.

·         The government has open the open border policy to encourage foreign companies to join the economy hence increased competition.

·         New trends in the industries hence lack of need for packaging.

·         The world is going through high cultural changes leaving old habits in the past like packaging since people package for themselves.

·         The young generation is dominating the region. This generation march with the new trends making it hard to provide them with the packaging services.

·         Advanced technology hence services like printing people do them at their homes.

·         after 3 months:  the objectives of the company after a period of three months would to ensure that there is the favourable value for the cost of the products. It is to ensure that the cost of the product that the customers are matching the quality of the products provided.

·         after 6 months: the other objective after a period of six months would be to ensure profitability is maintained.  It is to ensure that there is balance between the revenues and expenses.

·         after 12 months:   after a period of twelve months the objective is to cross-sell more products to customers. It is selling of the different products to the same consumer.

Provide a rationale for your sales objectives, explaining why you feel these objectives are realistic.

·         The company should adopt a rationale sale objective which helps them attract customers without incurring more cost that needed. Like the objective of reducing customer acquisition costs. Setting a cost objective for the acquisition of customers helps in reducing the cost and help to develop better strategy to be used by the sales team.

·         Convenience the products are unique when they are easy to use as compared to other products in the market.

·         Quality if the products stand at top notch of the other products being provided by other sellers and producers.

·         Reliability when the product is used never fails the consumers is said to be reliable.

Issues/Concerns: What key questions or concerns need to be answered or addressed?

·         Is the product meeting its objectives that it was made to?

·         Does the quality of the products meet the price being provided with?

·         Does the customers have complains about the product provided by the company?

·         The core customer value provided by Greater Little Box Company (GLBC)is packaging and storage. The customer is seeking which company can provide them with storage and packaging they can trust and turn to. GLBC provide confident to customers for their products since they would be safe.

·         The GLBC company deals with packaging, printing, warehousing and transportation. The GLBC has been in the market for a long period of time dealing with its customer hence the knows all the customers needs making it easy for them to provide quality products to the customer. They also do very well in during transportation as the products reaches to the customers at their original nature.

·         The discounts coupon this is to encourage the users to return the products if the felt that it does not meet their needs as expected. Through offering of discount coupons, the customers have confident that the products are of good qualities.

·         Freebies these are the offers that are provided on the ways to use the products.

·         Services sells these are the services provided after the sales of the product like transportation and installation.

·         When the company is choosing the brand name and the logo it must consider the name or logo that is memorable, that is distinctive and also that it is easy to pronounce.  When a company has great brand it can be able to distinguish it from other companies in the crowd and also its products and services.

·         Among the key feature of the product packaging is ability to protect the content. The main function of packaging is protecting the contents being damage, watering, and also other contaminations.

·         Another feature is convenience this is to make sure the product is not too heavy and too bulky.

·         The other feature is status. During the packaging the company should ensure that the prestige of the person carrying the product is well maintained.

·         Value based pricing the price is a better fit with the customer’s perspective. It also allows the company to be more profitable, meaning the company can acquire more resources and grow the business. Furthermore, when the prince does not work, the solution is not just to lower the price, but to establish what customer value.

·         when the price increases compared to equilibrium price the customer will shift to other competitors whose price is at equilibrium leading to fall in demand. Also when the price falls bellow the equilibrium the demand will be high as it attracts more customers.

·         Development stage the pricing strategy to use at this stage will be market penetration that is pricing products low, which help the company penetrate the market and to gain consumer attention and later on it can increase the price when it has customer loyalty.

·         Growth stage the pricing strategy to use in this strategy will be competitive pricing strategy. The company needs to work on getting customers to their product over the competition. As a result, the company can lower the price or else do more marketing.

·         Maturity stage the best pricing strategy in this stage is competitive pricing strategy. The company may consider cutting prices to keep customer but not below the break even price since the competition is high in this stage.

·         Decline stage the pricing strategy in this stage will be discounting pricing strategy so as to increase customer pricing which will assist in freeing some space for the new products.

·         Indirect channel. Intermediaries add value by bridging major time gap, place gap and position gap that separate products from the final consumer.

·         I would recommend wholesaling since selling goods through wholesale becomes much easy and fast to expand into global market.

·         The best way to manage product inventory will be audit its inventory. Also the company should be consistence on how they receive their inventory. Furthermore, they can track sales and also track all product necessary information. Another recommendation would be to priorities the product performance.

·         The method of advertising budget that the company will use will be percentage of sales method. This is because the budget would be decided depending on the sales unit sold, it is also simple, straight forward and easy to implement.

·         The specific channel recommended for the company to use would be the Radio advertising and frequency of three. Since when the listeners hear an advertisement three times a day it builds recognition mostly without the listener getting tired of listening.

·         Price deal this is a temporary reduction in price.

·         Buy one get one free strategy.

·         Satisfying customers need.

·         Offering immediate feedback to their customer’s complains.

·          The company should exceed customer’s expectation.

·         They can also comminute with their customers to get their problems.

·         The company should focus on exceptional communication. The efficient communication with clients should be made a priority.

·         They share knowledge with the clients to build trust and confidence to clients.

·         They would use company website at least on a daily basis so that customers can be well informed.

·         Another media to be used would be Facebook and Pinterest.

PHASE II:  IMPLEMENTATION

·         Infomercial: Facebook and Pinterest

Frequency: daily for the next one year.

·         Company’s website

Frequency: daily so that the customers would get all the necessary information.

·         Printing advertisement

GLBC magazine

30 pages’ ad, twice per year

·         Business summit exhibitions: View royal

Frequency: monthly

·         Conserving the environment

Planting trees to prevents erosions.

Type of sponsorship: Donation of trees

·         Seniors welfare

Medical camps: deal with hypertension and blood pressure

PHASE III:  CONTROL

·         The evaluation can be done by conducting an audit of the audience and the completion. It can be done to make sure the company realises what things encourage the customers to follow the mainstream. By evaluation the company will be able to know what prompt customer from following a certain post.

·         They can do it by prioritising the list of task. It is brainstorming of what the company is willing to achieve in social media.

·         Integrated direct marketing in this evaluation the customers are left with a place to give their feedback on the website about the product.

·         By the use of analysis tools. It is used to determine the pages viewed by the customers and who bought goods online.

·         Surveys

·         Media monitoring

The alternative options that can be used to modify marketing strategies are by advertising using the local listings, the company should improve its SEO, and also by the use of word of mouth.