business report

Poomba Company and the Redesign of the Poomba

Student Name

Poomba Company

Executive Summary

The Poomba’s design is selling well locally but must be altered to increase sales through better marketing. This paper will discuss the steps Poomba Company needs to take to appropriately redesign the Poomba in a way that will attract more customers from outside of our current region and expand our business. The process will start with the company surveying current Poomba owners to obtain information on the perception of the product according to current customers. This will establish our desired model or models the company needs to create. Next, research will be conducted on marketing plans to prepare for selling to an expanding audience. We will combine the survey results and marketing research to redesign the Poomba in a way that best suits our customers’ needs. Poomba Company will sell the new version of the product to more people utilizing the information obtained through marketing research. The goal of Poomba Company is to gain a national audience in the future using a new marketing strategy and redesigned products.

Poomba Company and the Redesign of the Poomba

Poomba Company is a small business located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with 18 employees. We sell a home assistance product called the Poomba. It was designed by dog owners for people looking to pick up dog poop in a more convenient fashion. The Poomba is an outdoor and weatherproof device created for dog owners that uses a sensor to know where dog poop is located within a backyard. It can be set to run a few times a day to pick up dog poop around the owner’s backyard and will store the poop inside a one-gallon trash bag. When the Poomba has picked everything up, it will return to its charging station that is easily set up by the owner. The Poomba has different lights that tell the user how full the trash bag is within the disposal compartment. Green means it is empty, yellow means it is about halfway full, and red means it is full and needs to be replaced. When the red light comes on, the owner will be notified via our Poomba App and must replace the trash bag manually. It is currently for sale in Central Pennsylvania pet stores for $300. The Poomba has had local success so far, but the company is looking to expand nationally over time. To do this, our business will need to redesign and market our product more efficiently to appeal to a wider audience.

Survey

To begin the redesigning process, Poomba Company chose to release a survey asking for current customers to rate their Poomba on overall satisfaction of the product. We also asked for suggestions on features that may need updated for more efficiency or convenience. The results that came back revealed current customers with large or multiple dogs want a bigger version of the original product, so they can replace the trash bags less often. Large dog owners reported needing to replace the bag once every 3-4 days, whereas small dog owners replaced the bag once a week as the Poomba was intended to work. Owners of small dogs generally preferred the one-gallon size of the Poomba. It was also suggested that a self-disposing Poomba may be desirable, even if it will be more expensive. People willing to pay for it said it was better to pay for more convenience.

Marketing Research

After surveying customers, we researched some basic marketing plans to see what Poomba Company can do to increase brand recognition. We chose to analyze our target market: dog owners within the United States. To attract more customers, our company needs to focus on the 36.5 percent of households with dogs in the nation (2012). Because all our sales are in physical stores, it is difficult to expand outside of the Central Pennsylvania area. Our business needs to explore an alternative way of selling our products if we are aiming to do this. Researching some helpful marketing ideas and implementing them will aid our expansion of our company.

I have reviewed our sales records over the past year and discovered that although the beginning of the year saw sales growth, Poomba Company has had steady business with no signs of growth in 3 months. Steady business is not necessarily harmful to us presently, but without any alterations to our marketing plan we will not be able to grow our business in the way that we wish to in the future. We can begin changing this sales plateau by creating a website to sell our products. Although expensive in startup costs, there will be more potential for customers from outside of the area to see what the Poomba has to offer and buy our product (2018). Asking customers to sign up for promotional emails help spread our company name in a relatively cheap way (Kehrer, 2015). A final tip the company can follow is that although focusing on expansion is beneficial, it is also vital that we keep our current customer base loyal as well. They have the best insights on what our product needs for the average consumer, so we should include them in our company’s journey as we continue to grow (Sutter, 2017).

Using all this research, the company is able to have a solid marketing plan. The target market will be dog owners looking to find a convenient way of disposing dog poop. The owners will be middle to upper class citizens who will have more money to spend on a luxury home assistance product. The market is currently focused on loyal customers within the Central Pennsylvania area, but will expand into more regions as our business grows. Now that the target market is established, Poomba Company needs to find the right communication channels for selling the product. We can use a billboard outside of the headquarters to advertise to local residents. Then, we will establish a website where our business can sell and ship our products nationwide. From the website, we can ask virtual visitors to sign up for emails from Poomba Company. Doing this allows us to begin promotions on our various products so we can gain more loyal customers and break into a wider market.

Combining Data

After using a survey and researching possible marketing plans, Poomba company has combined the information to start brainstorming new ideas for the future of the product. We have taken into consideration the current design of the product and used our customers’ surveys to alter the features of the Poomba. Utilizing our current customers’ needs keeps our customer base loyal while still creating a product that can be marketed to new customers. From our survey, Poomba Company should redesign the device to have various sizes and disposal features. Each size will have a different price point, and each type of disposal feature will be taken into consideration when pricing the device. The company’s goal is to appeal to a larger audience by creating more sizes and features of the Poomba.

Poomba 2.0 and Marketing Plan

Multiple sizes of the Poomba will appeal to potential customers because it will suit the owner’s preferences when they are considering the right product to pick for the size and quantity of dogs he or she owns. Instead of a standardized one-gallon Poomba, there will be three sizes. The one-gallon size for small dog owners will be sold at the original price of $300. The three-gallon size for mid-size dogs and single dog owners will be $350. The largest size will feature a five-gallon disposal barrel created for large dogs and owners of multiple dogs. It will be available for sale at $400. All these prices are for the base model design with a manual trash disposal feature.

Poomba also will have two different types of disposal functions. The base model Poomba will have a manual button that owners will press so the trash bag will be released from the device and allow for easy disposal into a nearby trash can. Owners will also have to replace the trash bag themselves. The manual disposal will not have an additional cost in any size. Although this version is still a more convenient way to dispose of dog poop than a conventional poop scoop, Poomba will also come in a luxury model as suggested in our customer survey. The upgraded Poomba will have a trash bag dispenser built in, with a self-tie mechanism that will drop the full trash bag into the owner’s dumpster using a sensor to guide the Poomba. After disposal, the device will automatically dispense a new trash bag into the trash barrel. This luxury model will be released about eight months after the first wave of new devices are released to ensure the programming will work properly. To have the luxury disposal system on the Poomba, there will be an additional $75 charge.

After redesigning the device, Poomba Company will release the new models on the market and launch an updated marketing campaign showcasing the different sizes and disposal features of the Poomba. The physical marketing campaign will begin in the Central Pennsylvania area and expand over time into other regions of the state where the Poomba becomes most popular. It will help keep the customers in these new areas. The billboard by our headquarters will advertise the new models as well. Local pet stores can also begin selling the new versions of the product. Virtual advertising will include the startup of the Poomba Company website, creating an email list to promote our new products, and investing in a few online ads within pet store sites and pet blogs. Reaching out to current customers about reviewing our product online will help boost our brand image and reputation, allowing our business to grow at an accelerated rate. The goal for our company is that this strategy will let us expand nationally over a ten to twenty-year period. Once we begin expanding to other areas of the country, more jobs will be created and will increase the size of our business to a mid-sized company. Eventually our brand will become familiar to dog owners and gain national attention.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The new versions of the Poomba should be very successful if the company wishes to proceed with these plans. The redesigned Poomba with multiple sizes will accommodate different dog breeds and allow owners to feel they have a better, higher quality product. The one, two, and three-gallon models accommodate the various needs of dog owners and allows them to feel they have a more personalized product that satisfies their needs. The luxury model will be scheduled to release 8 months after the new sizes of Poomba are released to ensure a quality product to our customers. Using Poomba Company’s new marketing strategy, local success is set to boost our reputation and sales. It is projected that sales and overall profits will increase so that Poomba Company will be able to expand to more regions and over time expand nationally.

I recommend that Poomba Company use this information to implement these new strategies into our current marketing plan and increase business. Without taking these risks in our company, our sales will start to decline until we can no longer stay in business. Developing new technology to help our customers is the key to having a competitive edge in our market. Luxury home assistance products need constant upgrading so current users will feel that their needs are being met. We need our customers to remain loyal to our company, because without them, we have no steady business. Expanding Poomba Company is the best future for us and our customers.

References

Kehrer, D. (2015, November 23). 7 Steps to Sidestep Slumping Sales. Retrieved from https://www.score.org/resource/7-ways-sidestep-slumping-sales - Kehrer describes simple but beneficial ways to avoid sales decline in a business. He works with small businesses on a regular basis, so he decided to write this article using tricks he found helped the most. Reading this is beneficial in determining the correct way to market my business. It reminded me that continuously analyzing your sales and marketing strategies is vital to keeping your business at the top of its market and maximizes sales.

Sutter, B. (2017, March 31). 6 Content Marketing Strategies Every Small Business Should Steal. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/briansutter/2017/03/31/6-content-marketing-strategies-every-small-business-should-steal/#3dccd6866d94 - This article explains different marketing strategies that can help bring more attention and sales to small businesses.  This can help with finding a proper way to have a competitive edge over other more established and bigger companies. Small businesses do not always have the best resources to aid in expanding business to other areas. Sutter believes that business owners can still succeed on a small budget with the right marketing skills. One of the biggest tools they can use is using media in a way that attracts the desired target audience. Sales will boost when potential customers see the business marketed on their preferred media outlet.

(2018). Marketing and Sales. Retrieved from https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/manage-your-business/marketing-sales#section-header-0 – This government approved and endorsed article is a brief overview showing how to create a simple marketing plan. This is useful in creating a check list for my marketing plan. My company needs to change its marketing plan to suit the redesigned version of the Poomba I am hoping to achieve. Finding the right target market is essential to this process, but I am also looking to do market research to figure out how many people I will want to sell this product to in the future.

(2012). U.S. Pet Ownership Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.avma.org/KB/Resources/Statistics/Pages/Market-research-statistics-US-pet-ownership.aspx - The American Veterinary Medical Association keeps track of the number of pets and owners within the United States. They have released statistics on this to show the number of households that own dogs and other pets within the United States as of 2012. Although the statistics are not up to date, it will provide me with information needed for a solid marketing plan. I need to know how many dog owners there are in the United States, so I can target the appropriate number of people when expanding my company. Without these numbers I have no way of knowing exactly how many people to which I need to market my product.