WEEK 10 ASSIGNMENT - YOUR MARKETING PLAN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

MKT500

Pundit Child Care Center Marketing Plan (Part C)

Nicholas Henry

MKT500 Marketing Management

Strayer University

Lisa Amans

4 December 2022

Introduction

There are a series of comments from part B of the assignment, and it is from these comments that corrections would be made and make part C professional by all standards. I have learned areas of errors from the words and the knowledge I will use to avoid similar mistakes.

Pundit Child Care Center is a therapy organization established in 2010. The organization is based in Seattle city, Washington State. The location was selected because it is a region with a considerable number of children (0-18years) suffering from mental disorders that compromise their behavior, cognitive and emotional skills. It is also the state where the founder is located, making it easy to manage and run an organization from a close distance. The organization offers services to therapeutic children. The main conditions targeted include anxiety disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), eating disorders, depression, other mood disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The organization offers essential services to the community, but the company must be competitive to achieve its purpose in the industry. Some critical elements consumers are keen on are pricing and distribution strategy; integrated marketing communications; sales promotion and personal selling plan; competitive analysis; an online and direct marketing plan; and social responsibility (Bormane, 2018). This report describes how the organization would handle these elements to ensure the Pundit Child Care Center is unique.

Pricing and Distribution Strategy

The pricing and distribution strategy is the selected channel an organization or investor chooses to extend services or goods to consumers. This is through setting the amount of money consumers would pay for goods and/or services offered and how the services and/or goods would get to consumers. The pricing and distribution strategies must complement each other to achieve the necessary levels of efficiency in service delivery.

Pricing Strategy

The services Pundit Child Care Center offers are unique and sensitive. They require high levels of professionalism, meaning the quality of services is a critical factor in price setting. Highly qualified professionals are paid high in terms of wages and benefits. The organization competes with other brands through the quality of services, convenience, and reliability of services (Bormane, 2018). In reality, consumers have proven to be willing to pay the set prices as long as they would achieve quality results. All the same, the facility's management is always considerate of prices to make the services accessible to as many people as possible.

Cost-plus pricing is the organization's preferred method of pricing while charging for different services offered. Under this pricing strategy, the management captures the initial cost of production in terms of products used in service delivery. It only adds a small percentage that would be used to pay for the employee and corporate profit (Quesenberry, 2020). With the pricing strategy, the organization maintains a good supply of raw materials and resources to pay for wages, benefits, and corporate profits. It is a strategy that makes it possible for the organization to offer high-quality services within an affordability rate of many people within the target market.

Distribution Strategy

The Pundit Child Care Center offers services directly to consumers, which is critical in reducing the supply chain. Direct distribution works best for the organization because the organization sources different raw materials needed for service delivery from vendors and manufacturers and uses them directly on clients. A distribution strategy makes the organization the retailer in the supply chain since after the company uses the products; they get to the end user (Bormane, 2018). Moreover, the company employees make use of their skills directly on consumers. The scenario makes the organization use an exclusive distribution because the services can only be accessed at the facility and nowhere else. Physical presence must take the children through the necessary therapy sessions or any treatment to get to the client.

Integrated Marketing Communications

Today, there are different methods an organization can use to reach out to clients. The situation creates a perfect chance for consumers and investors to connect using consumers' preferred methods based on needs and preferences. It is a scenario that hence pushes businesses to use different marketing communication options to reach out to a high number of people in the market, irrespective of their preferred method of communication.

Message Strategy

Message strategy is a simple yet effective method an organization can use to reach clients. It is a method that remains consistent with other traditional communication strategies and also selected social media choices (Quesenberry, 2020). At the Pundit Child Care Center, short messages send occasional greetings to consumers, remind clients of their appointments, or even seek opinions about the facility. However, messages are guided by the current need of the organization. The reason is with messages; the childcare center captures the message to be communicated to consumers either as a group or as individuals.

Media Strategy

The media is one of the most effective means of reaching out to clients through their brand frequencies. The information can be shared in a transparent manner as well as with the help of descriptive images. Pundit Child Care Center uses renowned media channels to share information regarding the facility's service delivery. For instance, television channels have colossal followership, radio channels, and publications like blogs, healthcare facility magazines, and local newspapers (Quesenberry, 2020). These media channels are selected because in almost all homes within the region of operation, there are at least one or two television sets and radios. Almost 75% of the population gets to buy newspapers and magazines that the younger generation likes.

Public Relations, Sales Promotion, and Personal Selling Plan

Maintaining a good and healthy relationship with clients is a direct way of marketing a business. Consumers are attracted to businesses where they feel valued and appreciated. The Pundit Child Care Center, aware of this fact, has established and applied reliable public relations, sales promotion, and personal selling plans that have helped make the facility's human services to its target market acceptable.

Sales Promotion Plan

The Pundit Child Care Center values loyalty and maintaining a good relationship with consumers are all times. Two significant sales promotion techniques are in place to maintain high sales, as this is the only way the facility can record reliable profit margins. The main sales promotion strategies applied are discounted services and complimentary services. For discounted services, the organization, from time to time, sets a specific period during which clients would be given a discount for any service they seek and receive from the facility (Jakus, 2018). In most cases, a ten percent discount is issued. During such times, the facility can extend services to many people who feel that price is the significant barrier between them and the facility's quality of services. The discount period ranges between one month and two months. Massive communication, mainly through the media, is used to inform members of the public about a planned discounted period.

Free services are also offered; in most cases, they are given on a specific day (Jakus, 2018). For instance, during childcare day, an international day, the facility offers an open day, free checking on children's mental health, and parents with or without mental challenges are given free medical checkups and services. In most cases, the free service day is open for all people where tents are planted in open ground, and members of the public are sensitized about the free services and the importance of attending.

Personal Selling Plan

Pundit Child Care Center uses personal selling through outside sales representatives, inside sales representatives, telemarketing, customer service, and live chats. The company's employees are sales representatives who do inside and outside sales from prospects and clients (Jakus, 2018). Outside sales representatives go out in fieldwork, informing prospects about the organization, services offered, and how to get to the facility. While working as inside us sales representatives, they use client data stored in the center's database to engage clients and get to know their feelings about services offered and areas they would recommend improvement. Telemarketing is also done by the sales team, where they reach out to different clients through phone calls and share about company services.

The receptionist offers customer service and ensures clients get excellent and clear information; they are adequately approached and directed to satisfaction. Service providers, for instance, therapists, doctors, nurses, and psychologists, among others, also ensure that customer service is maintained high and that the client is satisfied (Perreault, 2018). Service providers also engage in live chats with clients for proper guidance and description of what should be done. Lastly, the receptionist and sales representatives do live chats using modern-day teleconferencing technology.

Online and Direct Marketing Plan

In the present times, marketing is done both online and direct. The application of both strategies helps reach clients using digital devices and traditional methods like one-on-one engagement, television, and publications (Christina, Fenni, & Roselina, 2019). At Pundit Child Care Center, the services offered are marketed mainly using online means due to its ease of reaching out to many people. All the same, a fraction of direct marketing is also done.

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the most common online method of marketing used at Pundit Child Care Center. Digital space is diverse, and the organization uses all available alternatives (Perreault, 2018). For instance, the company has a website where vital organizational information is shared, including services offered. The website is www.pundit child care center.com". The website has an interactive segment where clients can pose a question and get a professional response. Social media is also the organization's second alternative, with the main sites being Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Nursezone, Pinterest, and Doximity. Social media is suitable for the younger generation from 25 to 45. From all social media handles, the facility records over 2.6 million followership. For instance, Facebook, the facility has a followership of 1.1 million; Instagram- 600,000; Doximity- 200,000; and Instagram 120,000, among others. However, there are instances where clients follow the organization on more than one social media site. Social media plays a vital role in sharing information about the facility.

Advertising

Online advertising is also used where three primary methods are used; video marketing, where a small video clip is recorded and posted online to market a specific service. Digital signage is also used along major and busy streets for people to see, bus and train stops, and also on busy buildings and malls (Christina, Fenni, & Roselina, 2019). Different images are professionally arranged so people can connect and understand the content. Search engine marketing is the third option, where the organization has paid google to have its various services marketed on different pages and walls (Perreault, 2018). This means that upon consumers searching any webpage, the facility's name, and services always popups.

Search Engine Optimization

Pundit Child Care Center has a search engine that makes it easy for consumers to access the facility’s website. Search engine optimization has been done to ensure that upon clients searching facilities offering childcare support, the name of the facility popups first (Christina, Fenni, & Roselina, 2019). As a result, clients are compelled to contact the business. The method adds much value because consumers believe the facility that comes up first on a search mission is the best in the market.

Direct Marketing

Pundit Child Care Center apart from relying on the internet to market its services, also directly engages consumers creating direct contact. A specific message is sent to clients with direct marketing, unlike digital marketing with online marketing, where the message targets all people in general. Three main direct marketing tactics are direct mailing, telemarketing, and email marketing (Bormane, 2018). The three add much value to the business and the target customers because they allow a close relationship to be established and maintained between the business and the clients. The fact that direct marketing allows clients to air their grievances, get heard, and the issues are acted upon has proven to increase satisfaction levels, which is critical in customer satisfaction.

Social Responsibility Plan

Both directly and indirectly, Pundit Child Care Center has assisted in reducing the crime rate in the region by creating a room where children and young adults are granted a second chance in life. From the massive support Pundit Child Care Center receives from members of the public in Seattle City, Washington State, the facility, in returns, gives back to the people through social responsibility. For instance, the facility has supported community projects like constructing schools for vulnerable populations like street children orphans, and rehabilitation centers for substance abuse addicts. With the facility supporting such projects, the community has benefited by having quality institutions where people in need of offered services can access them locally and at an affordable rate (Perreault, 2018). Hence, the local community has been able to record a low street children rate, massive substance abuse cases have been rescued, many are becoming reliable and law-abiding citizens, and many abandoned children have quality homes where they live safely and are taken care of.

Conclusion

Marketing is critical for any business because it creates desired brand awareness. Massive success has been attained due to the organization, its employees, and the community. Pundit Child Care Center has been proactive in using an integrated marketing tactic where digital and traditional marketing methods have been used consistently. It is a strategy that has opened many doors for the organization, with more strategies remaining that the business can consider and explore.

References

Bormane, S. (2018, May). Integrated Marketing Communications in Sustainable Business. In Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference "Society. Integration. Education (Vol. 6, pp. 80-96).

Christina, I. D., Fenni, F., & Roselina, D. (2019). Digital marketing strategy in promoting a product. Management and Entrepreneurship: Trends of Development, 4(10), 58–66.

Jakus, D. (2018). Visual communication in public relations campaigns. Marketing of Scientific and Research Organizations, 27(1), 25–36.

Perreault, W. D. (2018). Essentials of marketing. New York: Mc Graw Hill.

Quesenberry, K. A. (2020).  Social media strategy: Marketing, advertising, and public relations in the consumer revolution. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

© 2020 Strayer University. All Rights Reserved. This document contains Strayer University Confidential and Proprietary information and may not be copied, further distributed, or otherwise disclosed in whole or in part, without the expressed written permission of Strayer University.

Page 1 of 1