Marketing plan presentation

Beard Kings Marketing Plan

Part C: Beard Kings Marketing Plan

Part C: Beard Kings Marketing Plan

Justice Callis

MKT500 Marketing Management

Strayer University

Dr. Lisa Amans

9/6/2020

Part c: Beard Kings Marketing Plan

The feedback received from part B has encouraged me. My instructor indicated that I have improved in most areas of my presentation. Ranging from developing an eye-catching mission statement to the right brand name, brand logo, and slogan, my instructor, said that it was a good job done in an organized manner. However, some areas need further polish and improvement to make my marketing plan as logical and impressive. References and in-text citations are the most crucial parts that I should adhere to so that the plan becomes more executive and presentable. I will use the feedback provided from part B to work on the areas of weakness in this part. I have also improved on sentence construction since, in part A, I was to write less than three sentences in a paragraph. Therefore, in part B, I have tried as much as I can to construct short and meaningful sentences.

The start of Beard Kings began my freshman year of college when my roommate struggled to grow and maintain healthy facial hair. He tried various products and suggestions from other men; however, he did not succeed with growing out a healthy beard as he desired until he tried Beard Kings' products. Beard Kings help men grow their beards using a line of all-natural ingredients in their products. Products include beard oil, beard balm, beard wash, and beard combs. Beard Kings is strategically based in New York City due to the gentrification, fast-paced environment, and widespread social media access. New York City allows men from all walks of life to experience the Beard King experience.

Beard Kings' mission statement is to provide the best natural products suitable for any man’s facial hair needs. Beard Kings' main goal is to help men build their self-confidence and build a self-care regimen that yields positive results. The first step in growing a healthy beard is to maintain the currently healthy hair. Beard Kings is proud to say all products sold are certified organic and made with natural ingredients. Being a natural-based company allows the product to be used by men from all walks of life and gives the consumer reassurance that the products the consumer is putting on their face are pure, chemical-free, and gentle for everyday use. Beard Kings want all men to remember that “Their beard is their best friend!" Men are kings who deserve to self-love! This paper will explore Beard King's pricing and distribution strategy, integrated marketing communications plan, public relations, sales promotion, and personal selling plan, competitive analysis, online and direct marketing plan, and social responsibility/cause-related marketing plan.

Pricing and Distribution Strategy

In marketing, pricing and distribution are complex functions; however, they are manageable because, currently, there are various tools and techniques in the market to enable faster and easier functionality of the same. Being able to set the right prices at the right time is essential for companies that desire to sustain a competitive nature. Strategic choices in pricing and distribution are crucial in determining how the product will be consumed. In this case, Beard King’s products require a strategic pricing and distribution plan that will surpass the existing market competitors (Xu & Qiu, 2020).

Pricing Strategy

Deciding on the amount you charge for your product should be thoughtful. In most cases, men are loyal to brands they are used to regardless of their prices. Therefore, since Beard Kings is a new product in the market, pricing matters a lot and determines the number of customers it will attract. Therefore, consumers' willingness to purchase Beard Kings' products has nothing to do with the costs stipulated but focuses on the value of the product they are buying. Thus, much is needed in figuring out how our products are valuable to the consumers and hence price them through a value-based strategy (Xu & Qiu, 2020). Since Beard Kings' products are new to the competitive market, I would recommend the pricing strategy and the value-based pricing strategy. Penetration pricing refers to low pr strategies to our products to enable us enter the competitive market, after which; the prices will go higher as the Beard Kings products becomes dominant and known to a vast base of becomes. Value-based pricing will allow us to set our product prices according to the consumers' beliefs in the products' worth. After having demonstrations to some of the customers and showing the results after some days, weeks, or months, that will be after having demonstrations to some of the customers.

Distribution Strategy

The distribution strategy refers to the dissemination of goods and services to the end-users. In the fast-paced world of business today, distribution offers a competitive advantage to their companies. Target customers are far and wide, and production costs are increasingly higher; therefore, many companies are trying to expand their markets for higher turnovers and margins. Having an efficient distribution strategy will help Beard Kings obtain higher revenues and retain loyalty from our customers. At Beard Kings, we will use multiple distributions channels to adhere to different customer bases. This is because the short terms goals of Beard Kings intend to focus on men from New York City and surrounding areas but have expectations of growth in the future and become a global entity that will be distributed all over the world (Xu & Qiu, 2020).

Beard Kings will use direct and indirect distribution strategies because it is still a new company in the market. In indirect distribution strategy, the Beard Kings' products will reach their end-users through various channels. For instance, the products will go through C & F, distributors, retailers, and finally to the consumers from the manufacturer. This makes our supply chain longer but worth it. We will send our products directly to our customers in the direct distribution strategy, especially those within New York. We will also have an E-commerce portal and other modern retail platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, among other online platforms.

Integrated Marketing Communications

Integrated marketing communications is a concept that ensures all forms of a marketing communications link with each other. That implies that IMC integrates all promotional tools enabling them to work together in harmony. Examples of IMC include advertising, online marketing, public relation, direct marketing, and sales promotion. IMC plays a vital role in ensuring a synergic effect between brand positioning and brand values. Thus, it obtained a common message regarding communication strategies and techniques sent through a unique tone and meant to differentiate the products. At Beard Kings, the integration goes beyond basic communication tools. We will have different integration levels, such as horizontal, vertical, internal, external, and data integration, to ensure that our products gain a competitive market in providing men with solutions to their facial hair (Finne & Grönroos, 2017).

Horizontal integration occurs across the marketing mix and the functions of the business. At Beard Kings, production, finance, distribution, and communications will work together to ensure that the decisions and actions made at the company will send messages to our consumers. Vertical integration will ensure that the objectives from marketing and communications support the corporate objectives and mission. Internal integration will require internal marketing where the staff and employees will be informed and regularly updated about the developments from advertisements, corporate identity, service standards, and partners, among other functions. External integration will require external partners to advertise and work as PR agencies working together with internal partners to deliver a common cohesive and integrated message.

Message strategy

Beard Kings' message strategy will be based on the use of Unique Selling Preposition and ads that highlight our brand and products that others have failed to offer. Therefore, the message strategy will be USP, and our sample message will be “men's beard is their best friend! Men are kings who deserve self-love!" we plan to be consistent with our traditional and social media choices in a variety of ways. Since our target audience and customers come from all ethnic backgrounds regardless of their skin color, we intend to remain vigilant and produce chemical-free products that enhance beards' growth (Finne & Grönroos, 2017). Our company was built on social media platforms that help advertise the brand name; therefore, we will improve our technology to match the current technological dynamics to ensure consistency. We will improve our beauty blogs and other social media platforms to receive a wide clientele and stay consistent with our strategies.

Media Strategy

A media strategy is a plan of action that will enable Beard Kings to reach its target audience and increase the customer base. Our media strategies will include social media platforms such as Beard Kings' website, TV shows, online advertisements, and ads, as well as other platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In all the platforms, we will create messages representing before and after using our products, showing the changes men will undergo if they opt to use our products. These platforms are essential in marketing our products as well as reaching far and wide consumer niches. Today, millions of people are increasingly being used social media platforms, among which men or our target audience is part of. Therefore, this will help us reach them and show them our products' power in changing the look of their facial hair (Finne & Grönroos, 2017).

Public Relations, Sales Promotion, and Personal Selling Plan

Public relations, sales promotion, and personal selling plans are the primary essentials in a promotional mix. Organizations spend money on promoting their products through various media channels; however, companies like Beard Kings still need to impress their consumers with a consistent message through a marketing communications plan known as promoting communication mix. Therefore, developing a Public Relations, Sales Promotion, and Personal Selling Plan is essential in ensuring the success of the communications strategy in Beard Kings (Kotler et al. 2018).

Public Relations

Public relations are essential in promoting and improving the image of the company. Beard Kings will put a spin on the news, press release, and publicity in setting apart the image of the company and the products thereof. Since PR is a neutral and objective form of promotion, we will use it to show that our products aim at helping men regain their self-love by solving their issues regarding the growth of their facial hair. We can also use samples from some of our consumers who have successfully used our products to create a masculine look with the best beard of their choice regardless of their color.

Sales Promotion

There are various types of promotions ranging from coupons to contests, games, rebates, and mail-in offers. Sales promotion helps consumers and potential ones to develop and take action quickly, purchase more, and come again. Beard Kings will place coupons near their products to allow customers to select particular brands and products. More so, we will explore the B2B trade promotions like exhibitions with our products, trade shows, and special incentives to encourage customers to buy our products at a quicker pace.

Personal Selling Plan

This is an interactive and paid approach to marketing. It involves interaction between a seller and a buyer occurring through various modes such as face-to-face, telephone, or other forms of technology. Beard Kings wishes to develop an interactive relationship with its buyers and, therefore, have to use internal and external sales representatives to foster this relationship. More so, our customer service office will have a telecommunication medium through which consumers will call in for inquiries. The customer service will respond to their concerns at an instant. Moreover, live chats through Snapchat, Skype, and video calls will help foster this interaction while promoting our products across the vast customer base and different niches across New York.

Online and Direct Marketing Plan

Beard Kings will seek to elicit direct responses from the consumers of our men's beard products in online and direct marketing. The responses vary according to customers. Some of the responses can be placing an order, visit our website, or call for action. Direct marketing at Beard Kings includes but is not limited to emails, mobile, telemarketing, coupons, and direct mail marketing. Online marketing uses several digital platforms for marketing the products available through the use of ads (Kotler et al. 2018).

Website

Beard Kings' website is built to help customers place their reviews, visit our company profile, and understand more about our products and services. When consumers click on our website, it will direct them towards various aspects of the company, products, what the products are made of, reviews from other customers, and our goals. This will help in building trust for our products and lure them into trying to use it.

Advertising

Online advertising is essential at Beard Kings because it builds the customers' trust towards our products, engages them, and sends them to our websites to find the products we offer. We use pay per click and display advertising. PPC allows us to integrate our advert into the social networks where people pay for clicking to our website while display advertising is where we display our products on a given platform and encourage customers to find our website and read more about the products thereof.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO helps Beard Kings optimize our online content by allowing the search engine to show the Beard Kings product contents as the top results immediately. An individual clicks the key work related to our products. In this case, if an individual, probably a man, tries to search for anything related to beards, the search engine will automatically directly place us at the top result of the search. Using the Google search engine will help us optimize our hypothetical business marketing strategies.

Social Media

Social media marketing uses various social media platforms to connect to the target audience aimed at building the brand name, increasing sales, and driving the website traffic. Major platforms engaged at Beard Kings include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat. Given that at least 3.5 million people are online, one in three people or a third of the world's population uses it. Therefore, reaching them and marketing our products will not be an issue (Penni, 2017).

Direct Marketing

Direct marketing at Beard Kings includes but is not limited to emails, mobile, telemarketing, coupons, and direct mail marketing. We will talk to our customers through these ways to help them understand the value of our products.

Social Responsibility Plan

Beard Kings intends to create both social and corporate value. We intend to conserve the environment and embrace diversion in labor practices. Our products are natural and chemical-free, implying that they are not hazardous to our customers' environment. We will also create job opportunities for people to work in various departments, hence increasing the community's economy.

Conclusion

Beard Kings targets men from all backgrounds. Our goal is to market our products to a vast customer base by having the best pricing and distribution strategies and integrated marketing communications strategies. Our purpose is to create an interactive relationship with our customers because we intend to help them solve their facial hair concerns.

References

Finne, Å., & Grönroos, C. (2017). Communication-in-use: customer-integrated marketing communication. European Journal of Marketing.

Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., Ang, S. H., Tan, C. T., & Leong, S. M. (2018). Marketing management: an Asian perspective. Pearson.

Penni, J. (2017). The future of online social networks (OSN): A measurement analysis using social media tools and applications. Telematics and Informatics, 34(5), 498-517.

Xu, G., & Qiu, H. (2020). Pricing and Distribution Strategies in a Dual-Channel Supply Chain. International Journal of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management (IJISSCM), 13(3), 23-37.