individual report

Candidate Number: Course: Module: Professional Diploma in Marketing

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This is a sample of a previous marketing plan that has been produced by a student for a CIM module.

Please note that this answer is taken from a different module assessment brief, which had different requirements and tasks. This is not a model answer and is only provided for you to view what a marketing plan could like.

You must follow the Brief and regulations applicable to assessment briefing and session you are working towards.

Marketing & Planning Process

CIM Number: Word count: 6,231

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Develop an online service to aid business performance

Created by: Online Marketing Manager Created for: Marketing Director

Date: January 2013

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Contents

1. Executive Summary Page 4

2. Marketing Audit Page 5

2.1 Organisational Overview Page 5

2.2 Marketing Plan Rationale Page 6

2.3 Analysis of the external environment Page 6

2.4 The Competitive Environment Page 6

2.5 Internal Audit Page 9

2.6 SWOT analysis based on findings of audit Page 11

3. Marketing Plan Page 13

3.1 Executive Summary Page 13

3.2 Objectives & Strategies Page 13

3.3 External and Internal Analysis Page 14

3.4 Future Trends Page 14

3.5 Marketing Objectives Page 15

3.6 Marketing Strategy Page 15

3.7 Implementation Page 19

3.8 Control and Forecasting Page 19

4. Evaluation Report Page 22

5. Bibliography Page 29

6. References Page 29

7. Appendix: Company Overview Page 30

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1. Executive Summary XXXX has ambitious growth targets, aiming to double its size in the next five years. The company’s profits

have been hit by the recent disruption in the Middle East, once its second bestselling product, with sales to

Egypt, Syria and Libya being particularly hard hit. Tough economic conditions, coupled with an increase in

competition in the luxury sector, will make achieving this growth target difficult. A key area where XXXX

can achieve growth with minimal investment to contribute to this target has been identified as via natural

search.

The development of an online version of XXX Magazine will attract more visitors to the company website

via natural search, through the creation of keyword-rich content. Additional benefits are that XXXX will

address a change in demand for more personalised tailor-made holiday experiences by highlighting the

range of experiences on offer, and help strengthen the company’s positioning as an expert in luxury travel.

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2. MARKETING AUDIT

2.1 Organisational Overview

XXXX is a luxury Tour Operator with offices in London, Mumbai, Sydney, New York and Dubai. The UK

arm operates independently and employs 72 people across the following departments: Sales, Marketing,

Product, Operations, Customer Services, Finance, IT.

2.2 Marketing Plan Rationale

There are a number of factors which have been identified as either threatening the current market share of

XXXX or offering opportunities for growth. There has been an increase in competition in the luxury travel

sector in the form of new entrants to the market such as Black Tomato which threatens XXXXmarket

share. There is a greater demand for “experience-led” holidays with the “wow factor”, and which are

tailored to suit individual needs, which XXXX needs to respond to. And the internet has become the

primary research tool for people seeking holidays, presenting an opportunity for XXXX to improve its

search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy as a means of reaching new customers.

The company could respond to the increased competition in the luxury travel sector and the rising demand

for tailor-made holidays by increasing its advertising spend, focusing in particular on its expertise.

However, this would be expensive at a time when, owing to the poor performance of its Middle East

product, revenue is lower than it otherwise would be. It could take on a digital agency to improve its search

engine performance to reach new customers, but again this would have high cost implications. Instead,

the launch of XXXX Online, an online version of the company’s offline travel magazine XXXX, will address

these issues by:

 Improving search engine performance through the creation of regular keyword-rich content.

 Emphasising XXXXexpertise in luxury travel through features such as “Ask the Expert”.

 Highlighting the depth of holiday experiences offered through inspiring articles, imagery and video.

XXXX is a travel magazine produced in-house and sent out to 30,000 clients three times a year. The

magazine features travel news, interviews with celebrities such as Michael Palin, recipes, photo

competitions, travel tips and more.

2.3 Analysis of the external environment

The macro environment will be analysed using PESTLE .

Factor which may change Short, medium or long-term?

Impact relevance

Political In recent years the cost of flying has increased dramatically, largely due to the imposition of and changes made to Air Passenger Duty (APD). On 1 November 2009, the then Labour government implemented a new policy basing the tax on four geographical bands, set at intervals of 2,000 miles, meaning travellers flying further would pay more tax than those flying short haul. For a company such as XXXX, dealing in long-haul destinations, this has increased the cost of their holidays. After initial promises to look at reforming this act, in the 2011 Budget the coalition Government announced that it would not proceed with a per-plane duty “given

Medium-term Medium High

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concerns over the legality and feasibility of this approach” (House of Commons, 2011). In 2012 APD was increased by twice the rate of inflation, further increasing the cost of flying. Industry bodies continue to lobby for a reduction in APD.

Economic - The recent recession has impacted on sales for XXXX in line with many other companies in the luxury sector. Travel is a sentiment-driven purchase, and as such is susceptible to recessions and the mindset of being careful with money, that accompanies them. XXXXcore clientele is relatively recession-proof, being largely made up of retired clients unaffected by the unemployment rate, although the continuing low interest rates are likely to mean their savings will be stagnating, and pensions are likely to be affected by an expected continuation of the Bank of England policy of quantative easing. Since the credit crunch of 2007 there has been an annual increase in the staycation industry, with more and more people choosing to holiday in the UK. However, a 2012 survey by M&S Money found the average UK holiday was 25% more expensive than holidaying abroad, and the staycation boom could be over with a perceived lack of value for money when holidaying in the UK (Marks and Spencer’s website, 2012)

Medium-Term Medium

Social: The large number of people born in the 1960’s baby boom means the population of the United Kingdom continues to age. In 2011 the oldest baby boomers turned 65. With the age of XXXXaverage traveller being 62, there is an opportunity for sales growth through this healthy and wealthy demographic. Attitudes towards travel from this demographic have changed from seeking luxury to seeking more tailored personalised experiences. “To meet the demands of today’s consumers, the description of ‘luxury travel’ has been reborn as ‘customised,’ ‘bespoke’ and ‘deeply personal’. For example, consumers don’t want to just dine in a restaurant – they want to understand the wine pairings, meet the chef, tour the kitchen, etc. The selling point has become the ‘depth of a travel experience’ – its uniqueness, its personal aspect, its cultural and spiritual enlightenment, its thrill.” (ILTM website, 2010)

Medium / Long-Term

High

Technological XXXX is seeing an increasing number of visitors to their website site from mobile devices, in particular i-pads. Visits from 1 July 2012 to 30 September 2012 from mobile devices represented 17.5% of the total. For the same period in 2011, mobile visits made up just 5.9% of the total. XXXX is currently reviewing options in terms of creating a mobile-friendly or responsive site, and this will need to be considered with the creation of XXXX Online. In terms of the anticipated search engine benefits of XXXX Online, Google and other search engines are constantly reassessing their algorithms to keep one step ahead of black-hat SEO practitioners, with many companies being penalised in Google’s recent penguin and panda updates. As a result it is important to keep up-to-date with the latest in SEO. Quality content and social media signals such as comments, Facebook likes and Google + recommendations, are expected to be the major factors in determining search engine rankings in the future rather than links.

Medium-Term Medium

Legal A legal factor which frequently impacts upon the travel industry is the advice given by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on travel to destinations involved in local crises. In 2011 the FCO advised against all non-essential travel to Syria, meaning XXXX would be unable to operate in this destination for insurance reasons. In recent years, events in Libya, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon have impacted dramatically on the company’s Middle East product, with sales falling by 55% in 2011 compared to 2010. With no obvious end to the crisis in Syria on the horizon, we will assume that unrest in the Middle East will continue to impact upon sales in that region for the next twelve months, and that all other regions will remain relatively stable.

Short-Term High

Environmental There continues to be concern amongst travellers about carbon emissions, but this appears to have had little impact on the number of people flying. A Propensity to Fly Study, conducted by Lougborough University, states that whilst 88% of participants were willing to reduce energy consumption at home throughout the year, only 26% said the same when asked if they would “not fly in the next 12 months.” (guardian.co.uk, 2009). Sustainable tourism continues to be a growing area and there is an increasing desire amongst travellers to feel that their money is contributing towards spreading wealth in third-world countries.

Medium-Term Medium

2.4 The Competitive Environment The luxury travel sector is less competitive than the lower end of the market, where players such as

Thomson and Last Minute reside, sales are higher, margins are smaller, brand differentiation less

significant and companies such as Thomas Cook are in financial trouble. Nevertheless, recent years have

seen a number of new entrants to the luxury end of the market, including Black Tomato (founded in 2005),

who have seen rapid growth. “Since 2006 sales, which represent the travel invoiced, have grown 75% a

year, from £1.3m in 2006 to £6.8m in 2009.” (Fastrack website, 2010).

2.4.1 Porter’s Five Forces Analysis (Megicks 2009, pp. 88-89)

Force Severity Time-scale Possible effects Reaction

Threat of

new

competition

Low Medium/Long- term

The luxury sector requires a great deal of expertise and first-hand knowledge of the area the company is selling. For this reason new entrants to the market tend to take the form of regional specialists such as Bamboo Travel. In the past ten years

The emergence of new regional specialists and Black Tomato has meant XXXX needs to try harder to maintain and increase its current market share.

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there have only been a handful of new global tour operators, most notably Black Tomato.

Threat of

substitute

products or

services

Fairly High

Medium Term With the exception of a few brand loyal clients, most customers choose the destination first, then a company to suit that destination. It is therefore important to be seen as a specialist in all the areas XXXX offers tours to. With the advent of the internet there is also the threat of customers making their own arrangements independently.

Highlight expertise across all products, not just historically strong products such as India. Emphasise benefits of booking through a tour operator rather than independently.

Bargaining

power of

customers

(buyers)

High High

There is a varying amount of choice for consumers depending on the region they are interested in travelling to. Certain destinations, such as India, are intensely competitive and as a result margins are lower and the bargaining power of customers is higher than for more niche destinations, such as Ethiopia, Madagascar or Russia.

Highlight company’s expertise to strengthen its point of differentiation.

Bargaining

power of

suppliers

Low Medium-Term Airlines, ground agents and hotels are currently in strong competition with each other and thus their bargaining power is low. Owing to the economic downturn, hotels are struggling to fill their rooms in many key destinations, and ground agents, who arrange the transfers, excursions and guided tours on behalf of UK-based travel companies, are also suffering. XXXX can utilise its global group buying power to gain economies of scale.

Utilise combined buying power of XXXXglobal offices to gain advantage in negotiations with suppliers.

Intensity of

competitive

rivalry

High Medium-Term With the threat of new entrants relatively low and with customer bargaining power currently strong, the intensity of competitive rivalry between established luxury tour operators is high. Whilst price is less of a factor than at the lower end of the market, a perceived value for money is becoming increasingly important.

Improve performance in search engines and attract relevant traffic from people researching holidays. Highlight expertise, quality of product and knowledge of the sales team.

2.4.2 Market Summary

There is a strong need to show that the holidays represent value for money, to highlight expertise and to

offer unique and memorable experiences to travellers.

2.4.3 Key Competitors Target market types have been taken from the ACORN classifications.

Company Target market

Market share

Blog / Magazine area online Threat to XXXX

Audley Travel

Affluent greys, flourishing families, secure families,

10% Audley Traveller: Good level of keyword-rick content. Not brilliantly organised eg no country search.

“Tailor-Made holidays & tours for the discerning traveller”. When Audley Travel was founded in 1996, its owner identified XXXX as occupying the space he wanted to target, and the company has since undergone an aggressive growth strategy. Audley Travel is better known for its tailor- made holidays, compared to XXXX, which is better known for group holidays.

Scott Dunn Wealthy achievers, educated urbanites, affluent greys, prosperous professionals

7% The Blog: A very basic blog with poor formatting and poorly organised content. Hard to find from main site.

“Anything else is just a holiday”. Scott Dunn is a luxury tour operator which targets a slightly younger clientele than XXXX. Many of their core clients are made up of young high fliers. They focus less on touring holidays and more on relaxing breaks in luxurious properties, as well as skiing holidays.

Bales Worldwide

Affluent greys, wealthy achievers,

5% Bales blog: Poorly organised, no categorisation or ability to search by destination. Poor presentation with small images. No client content.

Bales Worldwide is the most similar like-for- like competitor to XXXX, specialising in group tours and tailor-made holidays. The company has gone through a tough time in recent years, resulting in a 20% cut in workforce, and its poor marketing policy has contributed to a decrease in marketing share to around 5%.

Carrier Educated urbanites, prosperous professionals

3% The Edit, introduced in November 2012, has a good level of content but the layout is confusing. Renders poorly in IE. No option

North west based upmarket tour operator, offering aspirational holidays to young wealthy professionals.

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for users to comment so missing out on social signals for SEO.

Abercrombie & Kent

Wealthy achievers, affluent greys, prosperous professionals

7% Company blog, featuring staff reviews, not very inspiring.

“Pioneering luxury travel”. Abercrombie & Kent offer tailor-made and cultural holidays worldwide. They do not offer group holidays.

Kuoni Travel Wealthy achievers, affluent greys, prosperous professionals

15% Launched Nov ’12, promises “inspiring travel features” from both “our expert team” and “Kuoni travellers”.

“No-one knows the world like us”. Kuoni Travel has 20% of the luxury travel market. The company enjoys an excellent performance in terms of search engine rankings.

Black Tomato

Educated urbanites, prosperous professionals.

5% Pinch Magazine: More of a lifestyle magazine, covering the arts, style, culture and design. Written in a more neutral way than most blogs, and written by dedicated staff not clients or sales team.

Black Tomato is a young company very much aimed at a wealthy younger market. It promotes unique personalised experiences, and whilst not yet a threat to XXXXtraditional core clientele, represents a challenge to their ability to target a younger market.

2.4.5 Customer buying influences Word of mouth is a strong influence on holiday buying, with people traditionally exchanging holiday stories

on social occasions. With the rise of social media there is also the opportunity for those conversations to

take place online. Customers are also susceptible to marketing influences, with editorial, imagery and

video in particular having the strength to inspire. Tactical online marketing campaigns based around

topical or timely events, such as major BBC wildlife series (eg Madagascar) or exhibitions (eg Indian

sculpture) have been successful in the past. Price is important at the luxury end, but a perceived value for

money is even more so with customers seeking the “wow factor” with luxury travel. Search is dominant in

the research process. 71% of consumers researched or browsed for a flight in the last six months,

according to a survey carried out by econsultancy (newmediatrendwatch website, 2012).

Newmediatrendwatch reports, “Travellers are looking for a mix of inspiration about what they might do,

along with practical information about climate, customs and more. Destination sites wisely offer this type of

navigation, connecting visitors with all a destination has to offer. The philosophy behind destination sites is

subtly different from that of commercial travel websites in that its aim is to guide or simply provide direction

but not capture and retain customers. This approach could be a profitable service option for other travel

providers.”

2.4.6 The Search Engine Landscape

Google continues to dominate, with 90% of search queries in October 2012, despite Bing’s gains (v3

website, 2012). Google’s two most recent updates, Penguin and Panda, penalised sites who had been

obtaining links from low-quality sites such as directories. Crucially, high quality content is going to be more

and more important in the future, taking precedence over links as it is less open to abuse. Social media

signals are also going to increase in significance.

2.4.7 The XXXX Brand

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XXXX has a strong brand, being the oldest travel company in the world. However, it is currently placed in a

crowded area in the perception map below, offering premium holidays with medium to strong expertise. Its

competitors such as Audley Travel and Black Tomato are more effectively emphasising their expertise in

luxury travel through advertising and via their websites.

2.5 INTERNAL AUDIT 2.5.1 McKinsey 7S Strategy In an attempt to increase turnover the company has tried a number of Ansoff’s growth strategies,

including product development, adding Australasia and the Caribbean to its holiday portfolio in the last five

years. Two years ago the company employed Ansoff’s diversification strategy, targeting a younger affluent

market by introducing a new sub-brand, called Relax & Explore. This product was aimed at wealthy

achievers and educated urbanites, in particular younger city workers, but this has yet to prove successful.

Shared Values The company’s mission and objectives are not well-known amongst staff, so shared

values are vague, although there is a general shared commitment to high quality service.

Structure The Managing Director is rarely in the UK, therefore the Company Director handles the day-to-

day running of the company. Below the directors, each department is run by a departmental head. There is

little communication up and down the chain or between departments, with company news often being

transmitted via email rather than face to face meetings, and the company lacks a good communicator at

the top. This means staff moral can be low and there is little customer focus.

Systems The current reservations system is being phased out with a new group-wide system being

introduced. The new system, when complete, will make the company work much more efficiently, with

individual rates for flights, hotels and excursions being loaded, enabling the sales team to turn quotes

around in hours rather than days, improving customer experience. The new system is due to launch in

summer 2013.

Style The leadership style is not currently very inclusive, and communication within the company is poor.

As a result many staff members feel disenfranchised.

Staff XXXX benefits from highly knowledgeable and well-travelled sales and product teams. This is an

excellent resource when it comes to creating inspiring travel content. A lack of internal communication as

well as career development, means the sales team suffers from quite a high turnover of staff, which

threatens the proposed positioning of the company as the experts in luxury travel.

2.5.2 Marketing Strategy

XXXX has recently cut back on its spend in traditional print media advertising, but continues to advertise in

the travel supplements of the national broadsheets. The company has increased its spend on Pay Per

Click advertising, and also has a budget for making gains in SEO via link-building and blogger outreach. It

has had some success recently with Facebook, and has a database of 40,000 email subscribers. XXX

Magazine is in its fourth year, and is produced three times a year and mailed to 30,000 enquirers.

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2.5.3 The Marketing Mix using the 7P’s (adapted from McCarthy, 1970) Product – Analysis using the Boston Consultancy Group’s Matrix, 1970.

Stars Latin America tours – currently performing well Far East tours – currently performing well Europe tours – currently performing well, Pound > Euro Africa tours – currently performing well

Problem Children Short Breaks – low margins Australasia tours – young product not yet established Tailor-Made Holidays – growing area but not well enough established

Cash Cows Group Tours – continue to sell well Honeymoons – sell well but usually once in a lifetime purchase

Dogs Middle East tours – current crises Caribbean holidays – very competitive Relax Holidays – failed to take off

Place – XXXX has no client-facing premises, it sells its holidays via the website, over the telephone or via

travel agents.

Price - Value for money is crucial in the current economic climate. Recently XXXX has reviewed the

pricing of its star tours, China Experience and Indian Experience. It was found that competitors were

undercutting XXXX by using lower standard hotels. As a result, new “standard” versions of the star tours

have been introduced which are competitively priced whilst using lower standard hotels. For other

products it is important to emphasise the quality of hotels and elements such as private guides and

chauffeur-driven transfers to highlight the value for money element over its lower-priced competitors.

Promotion – XXXX advertises in the weekend travel supplements of the Telegraph and the

Guardian/Observer. The company attends two consumer annual travel shows, the Times Destinations

show and the Luxury Travel Fair. XXXX spends £90,000 per year on Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising,

which historically had the best ROI, but in the last twelve months click charges have risen considerably.

The company also has an SEO strategy to drive natural traffic to the website, and promotes offers and

new products via Facebook and its bi-monthly e-newsletters .

Packaging – XXXX has consistent branding across its products, but the strapline of “Over 250 Years of

Discovery” is not really working hard enough in terms of highlighting its expertise.

Positioning – XXXX has a strong brand and is recognised as the oldest travel company and as such very

experienced. It’s reputation for expertise is currently in danger however.

People – XXXX has a very knowledgeable and well-travelled sales team, which is an asset the company

needs to make more of. The Product Team who devise the holidays are also very experienced. In the

Marketing Department there is a lack of an organised approach to marketing in terms of performing audits

and formally creating marketing plans which needs to be addressed.

2.5.4 Marketing Segmentation XXXXdatabase is segmented in the following ways:

 Life stage – honeymooners, family holidays, couples holidays, single holidays

 Type of holiday taken – short breaks, family holidays, group holidays, tailor-made holidays

 Bookers / enquirers

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Those on the existing company database are targeted with one strategy, via direct mail, XXX Magazine

and monthly e-shots. Those not on the marketing database are targeted via the publications they read,

most notably the Telegraph and Times, via PPC and SEO and with advertising on some of the websites

they visit.

The following ACORN CACI demographics have proved profitable for XXXX and represent the company’s

core demographic:

Group Type Percentage of database Targeting

Wealthy achievers Affluent greys 40% Enewsletters, direct mail, Telegraph

Wealthy achievers Wealthy executives 25% Enewsletters, direct mail, FT,

Urban prosperity Prosperous professionals 20% Enewsletters, direct mail, Guardian/Telegraph

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3. MARKETING PLAN

3.1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The marketing plan adopted is a synergistic plan, based on McDonald (2007) and is for a period of one

year. This will look to establish a framework to build, launch and promote XXXX Online to help achieve the

company’s objectives, and results, in terms of search engine rankings, web statistics, and bookings, will be

monitored closely and fed back into the plan.

3.1.1 Key Issues The marketing audit identified the following key issues which need to be addressed:

The wow factor

There is an increasing demand for tailored highly personalised travel experiences with the “wow factor” in

the luxury sector, as identified in the social section of the PESTLE analysis (2.3) and Customer Buying

Influences (2.4.5). With XXXXwebsite currently being largely a reproduction of its brochure content, the

company does not currently have a natural place for this type of content, beyond its existing blog. Visitors

to the site looking for inspirational travel ideas will currently be disappointed and likely to search competitor

sites instead. Online XXXX will offer a platform to showcase a range of inspirational holiday experiences.

The dominance of search and the increasing importance of good quality links, content and social

signals

Analysis of customers’ buying influences (2.4.5) found that 71% of travellers used search engines to

research their holiday plans, meaning if XXXX does not have a good search engine presence they will

struggle to attract new business.

Google’s business model depends upon providing the most relevant and trustworthy results for a user’s

search term. The analysis of the search engine landscape (2.4.6) and the technology element of the

PESTLE analysis in the marketing audit, identified that Google is constantly assessing and amending its

search algorithms in an attempt to remain one step ahead of the black hat SEO practitioners. Quality

content is going to become more and more important in the future, taking precedence over links as it is

less open to abuse. Social media signals are also going to be crucial, in that they provide the element of

trust that Google is looking for.

The implication of all this is that if XXXX does not respond the company’s search engine rankings will

suffer. This will mean less traffic to the company website and fewer bookings, with its market share

dwindling in comparison to competitors who have strategies in place to respond to this. The creation of a

content-rich magazine area, providing link-bait for third party websites and stimulating discussion and

social recommendations, will stand XXXX in good stead with regards to search engine rankings.

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The XXXX brand and expertise

The brand perception map in the marketing audit (2.4.7) identified that XXXX is in danger of falling into a

crowded area where expertise is lower than some of its competitors whilst offering a similarly priced

product. If the company’s position of differentiation in terms of expertise is eroded, customers are not likely

to view its holidays as representing value for money. Focusing on the expertise of the sales team on the

company website, through articles and features such as “Ask the expert” will help move the company

higher up the perception map towards more expertise.

Increased competition in the luxury travel sector

The emergence of Black Tomato as a worldwide specialist, and regional specialists such as Bamboo

Travel and Selective Asia, threaten XXXXcurrent market share. Improving its search engine rankings and

focussing on its expertise to all regions can help defend its market position.

3.2 Objectives and strategies

3.2.1 Corporate Mission

To provide expertise, excellent value and high quality service.

3.2.2 Corporate Objectives

XXXX UK has a very ambitious corporate objective to double the size of the company within five years. It

would also help to have some non-financial objectives, such as to become the leading experts in luxury

travel, or based on customer service levels, to help with the brand’s positioning.

3.2.3 Summary of overall position and corporate strategy

XXXX holds a strong position in the luxury travel sector, but to achieve growth it needs to attract greater

market share for its core products through natural search, and shift its focus more towards the tailor-made

aspect of luxury travel. It needs to emphasise its expertise to maintain its position as a knowledgeable and

experienced travel company.

3.3 EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL ANALYSIS

3.3.1 Overview of market

The marketing audit found that the luxury travel market has been relatively unaffected by the recession and

with a large baby boomer generation has the potential to grow over the next few years. The greatest

opportunity for XXXX to grow would be to take a greater share of the existing “silver surfer” over 55’s market.

3.3.2 Competitor analysis

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The analysis of competitors (2.4.3) found that most travel companies already have a blog or magazine

area, although of varying quality. Black Tomato, Kuoni and Carrier have all introduced magazine areas in

the last few months, which is most likely a response to changes in the search engine landscape and the

need to highlight expertise.

3.4 FUTURE TRENDS

3.4.1 The Luxury travel market

Luxury travellers are increasingly seeking unique tailor-made experiences. In terms of online behaviour,

the Customer Buying Influences analysis (1.4.5) showed that consumers are looking for inspiration as well

as practical information online.

3.4.2 SWOT Analysis

Strengths Weaknesses

 Strong brand with unrivalled history, being the oldest travel company in the world.

 Experienced and knowledgeable sales team.

 Resources which can be placed online in the form of staff and client blogs, XXXX articles.

 Lack of customer-focus, more sale-focused.

 No “Meet the sales team” feature on its website, unlike many of its competitors.

 Low staff morale

 Brand to some extent better known for group holidays rather than tailor-made.

 Brand may be considered stuffy and old fashioned by young

Opportunities Threats

 Growing demand for tailor-made travel experiences

 Growing baby boomer generation

 Increasing importance of online research offers opportunity to reach new clients through SEO

 Google’s increased focus on quality content as a factor in search engine rankings

 New entrants to the market

 Competitors responding with content-rich online magazines

 Google making further changes to algorithms

3.5 MARKETING OBJECTIVES

Based on the corporate objectives and the financial objectives, and taking into account the internal and

external marketing audits, the following marketing objectives have been identified:

 20% increase in organic non-brand search traffic in one year from 24,000 to 28,800.

 10% increase in the time on the website over the course of twelve months from 3.3 to 3.6 minutes.

 Increase in website conversion rate from 2% to 3% over the course of twelve months.

These objectives will help XXXX benefit from the increasing dominance of search in the holiday research

process, by giving it a better search engine presence for key phrases. The increase in time spent on the

XXXX website will be an indication that the content is more useful and inspiring for users. All visitors to the

site will have the company’s expertise highlighted to them through this inspiring content throughout the

site. The increases in web traffic and conversion rate will lead to an increase in sales, helping the

company achieve its corporate objectives.

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3.6 MARKETING STRATEGY

XXXX Online will be designed by the company’s external design company, and built by their current web

developers. Content will be written by the sales, product and marketing teams, as well as external sources

such as journalists. Regions with potential for increasing sales, such as China, Russia and Madagascar,

will be focused on in terms of content. The creation of keyword-rich content around pre-identified keywords

will result in an increase in search engine rankings for those terms. A different three destinations with

associated terms will be focused on each quarter. The site will be promoted to XXXX clients via direct

mail, emails and the website.

3.6.1 Marketing Segmentation

The market segments which best fit with XXXXobjectives are the three segments which make up its core

database. Given that the company is not introducing new products, but instead wanting to increase its

market share for its existing products, this can be best served by focusing on the three key segments

within its database that it is already serving. These are the demographics the company needs to sell the

idea of XXXX Online to, and encourage them to engage with it.

Group Type Percentage of database Targeting

Wealthy achievers Affluent greys 40% Emails, Direct Mail, Facebook

Wealthy achievers Wealthy executives 25% Emails, Direct Mail, Facebook

Urban prosperity Prosperous professionals 20% Emails, Direct Mail, Facebook

3.6.2 Targeting Strategy

XXXX should target the segments within its database, promoting XXXX features within its bi-monthly

enewsletters and via Facebook. Relevant XXXX features should also be flagged up from country landing

and tour pages within the main XXXX website. Those not on the company database should be targeted via

Facebook advertising, where demographics of age and an interest in travel can be specified, and through

placing content on third party websites

2.6.3 Positioning Strategy

<positioning map removed>

XXXX has the opportunity to position itself higher up the map in terms of expertise, moving itself away

from the crowded area it currently occupies.

3.6.4 Competitive Advantage

XXXX is the oldest travel company in the world, and as such has a perception of experience that other

companies struggle to match. This can also be a weakness when trying to appeal to a younger clientele,

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as this can be seen as “stuffiness”, but it is a strength with the core market. In creating a differentiation

over its competitors, by emphasising the company’s expertise, XXXX can gain an advantage over its

competitors and therefore increase sales and market share. XXXX also enjoys competitive prices made

possible by the company’s combined group buying power.

Given that XXXX already has a high quality offline magazine and a backlog of content and is well set up to

exploit the internal expertise of its staff in terms of sourcing content, an opportunity exists to create the

best, most inspiring online magazine area to aid search engine rankings and conversion rate.

Marketing Strategy

To meet corporate and marketing objectives will require an increase in market share. Using the Ansoff

Matrix, the growth strategy has been identified as increasing market share of the existing market. This is a

strategy that has proved successful in the past for XXXX, unlike its efforts to sell new products to new

markets, such as the Relax & Explore product, or to sell existing products to new markets, such as its

family holidays product. The key demographics of this strategy show no signs of reducing travel habits and

the size of the segments is likely to increase slightly in the medium term. The limitations of this strategy

are that growth will be limited to its existing markets, so will be finite. To go after new, younger markets,

will call for more repositioning, given that as the world’s oldest brand, XXXX is sometimes seen as an

older person’s travel company. For now the best way to achieve the company objectives is to focus on its

core business by emphasising its expertise and increasing its core market share.

Ansoff Matrix

Existing products New products

Existing markets

Chosen strategy – increase market share through positioning as the travel experts. Attract more online business via SEO.

New markets

3.6.5 Specific Marketing Programme 4 P’s (McCarthy, 1960)

Product XXXX Online will launch in March 2013. It will help to support the company’s

marketing strategy by increasing web traffic, website conversions and time on site. XXXX

Online will feature:

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 Destination features, written by staff and journalists

 “Your Stories” – trip reviews written by clients

 “What’s On Around the World” – a calendar of festivals and events

 “Ask the Expert” – questions posed to XXXXregional experts

 Food and drink articles, interviews with celebrities, non-travel features

 Photo competitions

Content will be sourced from past issues of XXXX, from the sales, marketing and product

teams and from third parties. Content will be updated daily. The limitations of XXXX Online are

that the product will only be visible to web visitors, and will rely on visitors clicking through to

articles from related landing pages, so customers will not be reached by offline channels.

Place XXXX Online will have its own website, accessible from the company’s main website via

a permanent presence in the top banner and a feature on the home page. Relevant articles will

also be flagged up from country landing pages, to highlight the depth of experience on offer as

well as the company’s expertise, and to offer further destination-led inspiration. XXXX also

offers the opportunity to create link-bait – content which others find so interesting they share it

through linking to the relevant page, further helping SEO. Examples of such content could be

the results of surveys of the company’s clients, interviews with tour guides or videos.

Price XXXX Online will be free to access via the company website.

.

Promotion. XXXX Online will be promoted to the 40,000 strong email database via a launch

email, and will receive a permanent spot in the company’s subsequent bi-monthly newsletters.

The site will also be promoted to the 30,000 subscribers of the offline XXXX Magazine, in the

covering letter of brochure requests and via a splash on the Home Page of the main website.

The results of surveys carried out through XXXX Online will be used to create newsworthy

press releases, such as the death of the postcard in the modern age, to raise the profile of

XXXX Online in the media. Link-bait such as top five’s, surveys, destination features,

infographics, will be created to help promote XXXX Online to the wider web by being featured

on third party travel blogs. There will also be a budget for creating sponsored posts on third

party websites linking back to XXXX. A targeted Facebook advertising campaign will be run,

promoting the magazine to those interested in travel.

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3.7 IMPLEMENTATION

3.7.1 Schedule of key tasks

3.7.2 Resource Allocation

Internal human resources will include the PR Executive, the online marketing team, members of the sales

team, the product team and XXXX Magazine’s editor to contribute towards XXXX content.

The day-to-day moderation of XXXX Online will be managed by the Online Marketing Executive.

3.7.3 Budgets

Activity Budget Design £1500 Build £3000 Competitions £1200 per year Commissioned articles £1200 per year Hosting £0 Promotion £2000 Total £8900

The budget for year one will be £8900, as this includes design and build. Moving forwards from year to the budget will be £2900 per year. 3.7.4 Risks and Contingency

As with any online project there is the risk of delay in terms of the proposed launch date. It is important to

have a very detailed schedule with key deadlines at each stage, that all parties are aware of the schedule

and that it is stuck to as closely as possible.

3.8 CONTROL AND FORECASTING

3.8.1 Assumptions made in the plan

Activity Mth 1 Mth 2 Mth 3 Mth 4 Mth 5 Mth 6 Mth 7 Mth 8 Mth 9 Mth 10 Mth 11 Mth 12

XXXX design

XXXX build

Testing

Launch

Email campaign

Facebook adv

Sponsored posts

Website flash

XXXX offline

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The current level of web traffic will be maintained, and XXXX will lead to a rise in web traffic overall.

Google will continue to be the most important search engine and content will continue to pay an important

part in search engine rankings. The Marketing team will have time to update XXXX regularly.

3.8.2 Critical Success Factors

 Current quality of sales staff is maintained – a wealth of internal expertise and knowledge will be

crucial otherwise it will be more difficult to create regular inspiring content.

 High levels of customer service must be maintained to help move the company up the perception

map.

 XXXX online content needs to be inspiring, of a high quality and highlight the company’s expertise

to meet the marketing objectives

 XXXX online content needs to contain targeted keywords and be fully indexed by search engines

for the increase in relevant web traffic to be effective

3.8.3 Measurement

The success of Online XXXX will be measured in the following ways:

 Search Engine rankings - these will be monitored monthly from month two of launch by the Online

Marketing Manager, against both generic keywords and those that have been targeted that quarter.

Search Engines take up to two months for changes to be reflected in listings.

 Web statistics – visits to the website, time on site, bounce rate and more will be measured monthly

by the Online Marketing Manager using Google Analytics. This will be used to judge quality and fed

back into the content plan for XXXX.

 Online bookings – bookings with a website campaign code will be measured monthly using the

internal marketing database.

3.8.4 Benchmarks

XXXX Online will be compared to competitor magazines in terms of quality of articles, level of user

engagement and regularity of updates. Criteria will include:

 Level of engagement – if articles are receiving web traffic and comments this means clients are

finding the content engaging

 Regularity of updates – a minimum of three new items to be published each week

3.8.5 Metrics

The following metrics will be used to measure success:

 Visits to Online XXXX: 3000 per month by end of year one

 10% increase in the time on the website over the course of twelve months from 3.3 to 3.6 minutes

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 20% increase in organic non-brand search traffic by end of year one from 24,000 to 28,800 per

month

 Website conversion to increase from 2% to 3% (note a conversion can be an email enquiry,

brochure download or booking)

The above metrics will be measured once a month using Google analytics and the internal marketing

information system.

3.8.6 Financial Forecasts

Year 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Passengers 8350 8827 8709 7671 7589 7968

Revenue 21,924,823 23,474,744 25,066,430 25,105,933 25,025,103 26,274,874

3.8.7 Costs

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 £8900 £2900 £2900 £3500 £5000

3.8.8 Revenues The following table shows bookings with a web-related campaign code from 10/11/2011 to 10/11/2012 and

what bookings could be using the same website conversion rate with a 20% increase in traffic.

Year Web visits Pax Value 2011-2012 427,334 1,072 3,408,427 2012-2013 512,801 1,282 4,076,123 2013-2014 615,361 1,544 4,909153

Online XXXX would lead to an increase in revenues of £667,696 after the first twelve months. If traffic to

the site were to continue to grow by 20%, this would mean an increase of £833,030 in year two. The first

year rise in revenue would not be enough to meet the increase in revenue set as a financial target for

2013, of £1,249,771 so other marketing activity would need to take place to support the financial

objectives.

Word Count: 3,261

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4 EVALUATION REPORT Explain and assess the way in which the marketing planning process can benefit your chosen organisation The Chartered Institute of Marketing definition of marketing is as follows: ‘…the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer relationships

profitably...’ (Megicks 2009, p. 4)

Adopting a marketing focus helps put identifying and satisfying the customer’s needs (profitably) at the

centre of everything a company does. The implication of placing customer satisfaction as the main

emphasis is that everyone in the business will have the customer in mind and how they are adding value.

This implies that everyone in the company has a role in marketing, ie satisfying the needs of the customer.

The marketing department will still be the ones devising specific tactics to bring in new business, deal with

the press and so on, but strategies need to be communicated to all departments, and each department

needs to continually consider how it is adding value to the customer.

Marketing planning has been defined as follows:

“Marketing planning is the structured process of researching and analysing marketing situations,

developing and documenting marketing objectives, strategies and programmes, and implementing,

evaluating and controlling activities to achieve the objectives.” (Hollensen, 2006)

The purpose of marketing planning has been defined as: “to find a systematic way of identifying a range of

options, to choose one or more of them, then to schedule and cost out what has to be done to achieve the

objectives.” (McDonald, 1989, p.13)

At a basic level, marketing planning helps identify the needs of the customer. From that point, a company

can work out how to profit by satisfying those needs and creating a competitive advantage. By identifying

that customers in the luxury travel sector are seeking more expertise, for example, and analysing the

company’s position in relation to its competitors on the perception map, XXXX can take an informed

decision to position itself based on this demand. Without this insight, the company may choose an

alternative positioning policy based on low-price for example, which would critically erode the company’s

element of differentiation.

One of the key elements of marketing planning involves considering the external environment. “Analysis

of the external environment…provides, along with an understanding of internal factors, one of the main

platforms from which marketing strategy and operations are determined and subsequently contribute to

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the development of the marketing plan” Blythe & Megicks (2010, p80). Currently at XXXX, decisions are

made in isolation without much consideration given to the external environment, internal capabilities and

the activity of competitors. This can be dangerous, given no company operates in a vacuum, and means

the threats and opportunities affecting the business are ignored. For example, the marketing audit carried

out in this process identified that the demand for luxury holidays is changing, with an increasing demand

for more bespoke personalised holidays with once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Without knowledge like this,

the XXXX product would age and die, given that products are considered to have a finite life cycle. “Some

organisations will find they have most of their products in the maturity stage and much time will be spent

advertising the products, but with little thought being given to rebranding, repositioning or product

modification.” (CIM The Marketing Planning Process, 2012).

The problem of being a fairly sales-orientated company such as XXXX is that the sales team are

incentivised to chase short term targets. This means the future can be ignored, which is to the detriment of

the long-term success of the company.

To summarise, adopting a marketing planning process can help XXXX in the following ways:

 Identify and analyse internal strengths and shortcomings.

 Improve efficiencies of all departments through tools such as Porter’s Value Chain, which looks at

how value is added at each stage of the process of selling holidays, from initial creation of product

(product) converting an enquiry into a booking (sales), sending out of documents (operations) to

after sales service (customer services).

 Provide a clear sense of direction to all staff and increase motivation through a shared purpose

 Highlight opportunities and threats to the business

The benefits of adopting a marketing focus can be seen, however there are limitations to the market

planning process:

 Company culture, such as the sales-focused one at XXXX, can be very difficult to change

 It can be time-consuming, particularly undertaking a marketing audit, which should be done

annually. Without a market-orientated culture in place it can be hard to justify this time to directors.

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Critically evaluate the role of the marketing audit as part of the marketing planning process, and

identify the problems of information-gathering and analysis encountered in undertaking the audit

Kotler suggests a marketing audit is “A comprehensive, systematic, independent and periodic examination

of a company’s or business unit’s marketing environment, objectives, strategies and activities.” (Kotler et

al, 2009).

According to the CIM website, “Carrying out the marketing audit provides the opportunity to review and

appraise your whole marketing activity, enabling you to assess past and present performance as well as to

provide the basis for evaluating possible future courses of action.”

The marketing audit helps to better understand the external business environment. It can identify potential

opportunities to exploit, as well as potential threats to respond to. It helps to understand the competitive

environment better, and encourages strategic thinking. The Marketing Audit is essentially a snapshot of

where the company is now. It is imperative to gain a full understanding of the current situation to be fully

informed of how to plan for getting to where a company wants to be. From that position, marketing

strategies can be devised. Audits should be viewed as a regular necessity rather than a one-off exercise,

as the environment is constantly changing.

Marketing audits also give companies a clear focus by highlighting who the main competitors are and their

activities, and looking at who the main customers are. Furthermore, an audit helps to identify which

products are revenue generators and which are loss earners, through tools such as the Boston Box. This

enables a company to focus its marketing efforts on the most profitable products.

With marketing audits not historically taking place at XXXX there is no existing structure in place to

complete this analysis. Some problems with regards to information gathering and analysis have been

highlighted as follows:

 The audit was not undertaken by an independent body, but by a member of the marketing team. In

an ideal world an independent body would undertake the audit, so that there would be complete

neutrality when it came to internal analysis in particular, where internal politics can play a part.

 The state of the luxury travel market and the market share of competitors were estimated, with

sales figures time-consuming and expensive to obtain. Whilst not 100% accurate, an informed

estimate was made, and the audit forces one to consider in depth the actions of one’s competitors,

particularly in this case with their policies towards online magazines/blogs.

 The PESTLE tool provides a simple framework for analysing the external environment, but this

analysis will be subjective and could be open to different interpretation. Assumptions were made

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about the future of the economy but again future events can be hard to predict, with the US

economy currently teetering on a fiscal cliff.

 A crucial part of the marketing audit involves looking at the internal environment. Here difficulty was

encountered obtaining information on the shared values component of the McKinsey 7S model,

which meant the marketing strategy was hard to define.

 Beyond corporate objectives related to profit, it was difficult to identify corporate goals. Without a

clearly defined mission statement and corporate goals, the marketing strategy is hard to define and

this is a crucial foundation of any marketing plan. Other internal information such as structure,

styles, systems and staff was easier to come by.

Explain, with justification, how an appropriate competitive strategy has been developed as a part

of the marketing plan for the organisation, utilising a segmentation-targeting-positioning

approach. This should evidence how the marketing mix will be used to achieve the desired

positioning, and how the performance of the marketing plan will be evaluated.

The marketing audit and the Ansoff Matrix in particular, identified that the greatest opportunity open to

XXXX is to increase its market share for its existing products. Rather than try to compete with companies

already targeting a younger clientele, the over 55’s segment has been identified as continuing to offer

potential for growth, in that this continues to be a large and wealthy demographic. There is potential for

XXXX to increase its market share of this demographic, through natural search and repositioning as

experts. It has been decided that at this time it is best not to repeat costly errors in the past of trying to

reach new demographics or launch new products, but rather focus on the core business.

However, the positioning map and analysis of trends in the luxury travel market showed XXXX needs to

focus on its element of differentiation by highlighting its expertise to satisfy the needs of this market and

thus increase its market share. Whilst the depth of content on the company website is generally good,

XXXX is one of the few companies not to feature sales team bios, and whilst the company has a blog

featuring articles written by staff, this is not flagged up from the home page or country-level pages.

Utilising the valuable resource of internal travel knowledge by creating engaging content and highlighting

this throughout the site will help position XXXX as experts in the eyes of website visitors.

The strategy is to move XXXX to a less crowded area of the positioning map, with high expertise and

competitive prices. Given the increasing demand for once in a lifetime holiday experiences and the current

importance of value for money in the minds of customers, this would be a good place to be. The Marketing

Mix will help achieve this by:

 Highlighting the company’s expertise through inspiring and engaging travel features in XXXX

Online

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 Promoting this expertise to all website visitors, on the home page and throughout the site

 Highlighting this expertise through XXXX features in the company’s bi-monthly newsletters

 Promoting XXXX Online to a wider travel audience via sponsored blog posts

The creation of XXXX Online will give XXXX a competitive advantage in natural search, which is one of the

key sources of new business in the travel market. It is estimated that this SEO strategy of reaching new

customers can bring in over half a million pounds of additional revenue by the end of year one.

The marketing plan offers a detailed roadmap of how XXXX Online can be launched successfully.

Crucially, it also outlines how and when performance will be measured. This enables a company to adjust

the plan according to results, and to feed back learnings into the planning process.

Measurement and control Using Google Analytics, the web statistics for XXXX Online will be monitored at a top-level on a weekly

basis. Statistics will include visits, unique visits, bounce rate and time on site. The success of XXXX Online

depends largely on the quality of the content, and here the website statistics can bring learnings about

what type of content is working and what isn’t. Therefore in addition to top level reporting, the online

marketing manager will report on the most and least popular individual articles in XXXX in terms of visits,

comments, and bounce rate. This will be fed back to the editorial team to help ensure the content remains

inspiring and engaging.

The effect of XXXX Online on search engine rankings will be monitored using Advanced Web Ranking

software. This will look at the progress against a set number of keywords in Google, once a month. For

keywords that need additional help or where progress is slow, XXXX content can be held back from

publishing, and published instead on third party sites instead (link-bait) to create valuable links and

improve the link profile for those terms. It has been estimated that it will be possible to focus on three

keyword phrases each quarter, but again if this proves to either be too cautious or too optimistic, then this

strategy can be reviewed.

The bi-monthly e-newsletters will have a large part to play in driving traffic to XXXX and helping spark

dialogue. Therefore the email statistics will also be monitored closely by the online marketing manager,

with click-through rates to relevant articles being taken into account and further feeding into the content

learnings.

XXXX has historically had difficulties accurately attributing bookings to marketing campaigns for a number

of reasons:

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 Very few clients book online, so any online data is lost when the client calls the company and takes

the enquiry offline

 The system depends upon the sales consultant correctly identifying which campaign the client is

responding to with their enquiry

This means that measuring the success of XXXX Online in terms of bookings will not be 100% accurate.

Whilst not ideal, so long as relatively accurate figures are acquired for bookings with website-related

campaign codes, then the marketing plan can be evaluated and adjusted if necessary.

Identify the potential issues that may be encountered when implementing the marketing plan in the

context of your chosen organisation over the stated period, and present practical proposals for

resolving them

The success of XXXX Online depends on the quality of the content. There will be a need to source content

from different departments, including sales, marketing and product. With the sales and product team

focussed on short term sales targets, the importance of finding time to create content for XXXX will not be

immediately apparent and could fall by the wayside. It is therefore crucial that there are presentations early

on to outline the concept of XXXX and the benefits it can bring. This will require some inter-departmental

meetings, with a member of the marketing team presenting XXXX. In particular, the departmental heads

need to buy into the idea of XXXX, in order that they can ensure members of their team are able to supply

content. This should be achieved with initial high level meetings to present the sales forecasts related to

the plan.

XXXX Online will also require better internal communication – all departments needs to be aware of the

importance of XXXX Online, as staff across the company will be contributing content. There is currently

little inter-departmental communication, and this is an example of the benefits of having clearly defined

objectives. However, changing this culture will not be easy. Communicating the plan across the company

could prove difficult as could persuading departments such as sales to allow members time away from

their day-to-day sales roles to create content for XXXX. This can be overcome by driving home the

importance of XXXX, by presenting projected sales figures as a result of gains in SEO to departmental

heads.

Communication will also need to be improved for the marketing planning process to be synergistic. Web

statistics such as visitor numbers, time on site, conversion rate and search engine rankings will need to be

analysed and shared amongst stakeholders. Anecdotal feedback on the success of XXXX Online will need

to be communicated by the sales team. This will require greater and more frequent cooperation between

departments than currently.

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The perception that XXXX Online creates in the mind of visitors to the website needs to be backed up by

the reality of the customer’s experience of the product, with high quality service and expertise expected

from all departments. XXXXintended new position on the perception map needs to be backed up by

reality. This means the sales team needs to remain relatively stable in terms of personnel, when often

there are periods of high turnover. This is one of the most serious and difficult to overcome problems. It

requires a change of mind-set in the way the company is run. The company needs to adopt a more

market-orientated stance, putting the customer at the heart of everything, and should consider more staff

development and welfare. Adopting a customer-satisfaction element into the sales team incentives would

be highly recommended, as this would remove some of the focus from short-term sales and more towards

high quality service.

The targets and benchmarks for XXXX Online have been estimated as realistically as possible. It is

important that objectives are SMART, in other words they are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant

and time-controlled. However, it can be very difficult to guarantee anything in the world of SEO. Creating

lots of keyword rich content will help XXXXsearch engine performance, but no specific guarantees can be

made in terms of the company will rise from eighth to third in Google for the search phrase “India holidays”

for example. It is a safe assumption however that publishing fresh and relevant content each week will aid

the website’s performance in search engines and improve the overall rankings. Opportunities will be

identified with regards to individual search terms which have a high potential for sales and a realistic

opportunity to attract a large amount of traffic.

The marketing plan currently suggests that XXXX Online will be managed day-to-day by one of the Online

Marketing Executives, and overseen by the Online Marketing Manager. It is anticipated that the uploading

of content will be covered by this, and some moderation of the community in terms of responding to

enquiries and moderating comments. However, if the idea of XXXX proves more successful than

anticipated, in terms of the level of customer engagement, this could take up more and more of the Online

Marketing Executive’s time. In this instance it will be suggested that a full-time member of staff is taken on

solely to look after XXXX Online.

Word count: 2,970

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5. BIBLIOGRAPHY

CIM The Market Planning Process: Study Text (BPP Learning Media, 2012)

Market Planning: Strategy, Environment & Context (Prof Jim Blythe and Phil Megicks, FT Prentice Hall,

2010)

Marketing Plans: How to Prepare Them, How to Use Them (McDonald, Butterworth-Heinemann 2007)

Principles of Marketing (Kotler et al, Pearson, 2009)

6. REFERENCE LIST

Budget 2010, HC61 June 2010 p36

CIM Website, accessed 20 December 2012, http://www.cim.co.uk/marketingplanningtool/tech/tech5.asp

Fast Track 100, accessed November 2012,

http://www.fasttrack.co.uk/fasttrack/leagues/dbDetails.asp?siteID=1&compID=3001&yr=2010

Guardian.co.uk, accessed November 2012 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/05/british-

public-flights-carbon-footprint

House of Commons, HC 836 March 2011 para 1 152-3

ILTM website, accessed November 2012 http://www.iltm.net/files/leaders_forum_white_paper_2010.pdf

Market Planning (Blythe & Megson), p6

Marks & Spencer website, accessed November 2012 http://bank.marksandspencer.com/explore/media-

centre/press-release/2012/06/sun-sea-and-sand-or-staycation/PR100232/

Newmediatrendwatch.com accessed November 2012 http://www.newmediatrendwatch.com/world-

overview/91-online-travel-market?showall=1

Principles of Marketing, Kotler et al, 2009, p865

V3 website - http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2223078/google-uk-search-share-slips-below-90-percent-as-

bing-grows accessed 22 December 2012

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