Assignment 4: Part D: Your Marketing Plan – Video Presentation

Running head: MARKETING PLAN 1

MARKETING PLAN 8

Marketing plan part C

Name: Yiyao Wang

Professor: Dr. Kevin Tullis

Course: MKT 500

MKT 500

Date:8/22/2014

Introduction

Harvey and Sons Limited is a medium sized carpet manufacturing organization based in US and has several branches throughout the country. It operates both in the US and Canada. The organization only specialized in production, manufacturing and the distribution of fiber made and woven carpets. It is a manufacturer of some of the higher rated beautifully-designed carpets with the use of the latest technology, which has been made available to print carpets with the preferred resolution.

The company has a lot of color options and presents approximately 17 choices of the pure colors for choice. The branding strategy to be employed will be use of unique colors and design to market the organization’s name and quality (D'Angelo, 2010). The organization is to make use of reduced price for it pricing strategy. Being not well known company, the organization will be a price taker in the market but will have reduced prices for its products as compared to the prices of its competitors. The organization’s distribution strategy will be through a network of about 10 out bases throughout the US as well as Canada.

The available competition is intra competition with the main competitors being Mohawk, Daltile and Brumlow Carpet. Brumlow is well known in the US market and is considered to have the most color options in the entire industry. The only weakness is on its high pricing which is a way that the organization uses to reflect the quality. Mohwk and Daltile have strong financial statements and are also well known in the industry. The weaknesses for the two companies are mainly on pricing, reduced innovation and lack of creativity (Pinson, 2008).

The differentiation strategy to be made in relation to the closest competitor is trying to turn the plain as well as the dull colors and make them stunning which will highly transform the home appearance. The organization’s intention is to become the leader in the industry in the next five years and being able to provide the most flexible offers and most rated products in terms of quality.

The organization needs to be aware of the influence of the legal forces and realize that it needs to adhere to the rules and regulations on operating in different areas and opening business in the area. Since the organization is also dependent on the technological forces for the design and manufacture of the carpets, it needs to be aware of the technological transformations and advances in the industry. The organization also needs to make use of the available technology to improve on its innovation (Towill & Christopher, 2002).

On the social forces, the organization needs to be aware that its products should respect and be in respect to the changes in the tastes and preferences of the customers. In the economic sense, the organization should be aware of the changes in the interest rates, the currency valuation and appreciation which will determine the profitability of the organization and its financial status.

In the carpet industry, there are certain trends that it needs to be aware of if at all it will succeed. Some of the major trends include sustainability as well as the fulfilling of the individual needs. This means that as long as the organization product which is carpet is considered to be chemical waste, the organization will face the opportunities of improving the sustainability (Patton & Parker, 2003).

Further, the carpets have a very negative image in terms of health aspects as compared to the hard floor coverings and thus being in the industry it will be required to respond to this. Further, there are new functional properties in the carpets which are achieved through a combination of carpets with the electronics and this allows for many functionalities. The marketing research tools to be used will be the use of focus groups and the blogs as well as the social networks. The blogs and the social networks will act as tools of giving consumers the opportunity of expressing their opinions without any surveys or need for interviews. The organization will also use the focus groups in order to establish the most effective and efficient marketing strategies and messages that it will send to its potential customers.

Implementation strategy

For the implementation of the plan, the first thing to do will be trying to make the marketing strategy work and this will require a lot of adjustments and transformations in the organization. There will be a training program for all the employees so that they can get conversant with the new marketing strategy and get well aligned with the organization’s goals and objectives. After the training, the next thing will be to clarify on the organization’s marketing strategy to the organizations participants who are the employees and other participants.

The intention in this case will be trying to understand the marketing strategy and stating out the best ways of working with the strategy (D'Angelo, 2010). This will be followed by communication of the organization’s strategy to the parties. The most preferred way to communicate will be the use of internal memos and blogs to ensure that all the employees get the information.

Time	Marketing strategy	Begin	Completion
2015	Market segmentation	June	December
2016	Gathering of essential materials to implement the strategy	January	December
2017	Determination of target market	January	June
2017	Promotional strategies	June	December
2018	Implementation of strategy and expansion	January	December

For the coming five years, it is within the organization’s plan to become the market leader in the industry through improving on its innovation to get a substantial market share in the industry. For its expansion, it is within the organization’s plan to expand both in its market share as well as in its physical location (Hutt & Speh, 2013).

New branches and offices will be opened up to increase the organization’s operations. What the company has been saving for will not be sufficient but the company intends on getting financial support through debt financing. The existing connection of the marketing plan and the expansion plans is on the sense that all the strategies outlined are desired to help the organization to increase its operations and reach out to more customers in many other areas locally which calls for physical expansion. The plan requires a lot of commitment and involvement of the management and the employees.

Media tools

One of the media tools that the organization plans on using is the Tagboard. This is a tool useful for the purpose of monitoring any key words that exist across many social media channels. Therefore, the organization can make use of the tool to get to evaluate on the conversations on various hashtags in other social sites like Facebook, Twitter as well as Google+ (Pinson, 2008).

With this tool, the organization will be able to monitor its performance in the industry as well as the performance of its competitors. Another media tool that will be used will be Google+ whereby the organization is able to engage and row circles on a platform. The organization can post and its presence on the site will give it opportunities to advertise and grow online. The advantage of this tool is that it will increase its visibility particularly on Google which is an added advantage.

Performance standards

Ideal and basic standards are the two most common used performance standards which the organization will also use. Particularly the basic standard is used to show any changes that affect efficiency over a given period of time. On the other hand, the ideal standard is mostly based on a perfect operating condition to ensure that there has been no mistake and everything is working as it should (Towill & Christopher, 2002).

Monitoring tools

For the monitoring purpose, to monitor and control the business plan, the organization will develop a tracking system. This tracking system will be used to make evaluations on where the organization stands regularly. Further, this system will help the organization to monitor any key elements in a more frequent way (Patton & Parker, 2003). To monitor its employees, the organization will consider employee coaching in order to monitor what the employees are doing. While monitoring, the manager will not intervene in order to coach the employees apart from in certain circumstances.

Financial controls

One of the financial control methods will be the use of ratio analysis. Ratio analysis is basically a form of financial statement analysis which could be used to obtain an abrupt indication of the organization’s performance in various areas. Since this analysis is based on the accounting information, the method’s effectiveness will be limited by distortions that rise in the financial statements (Hutt & Speh, 2013). Another method will be the budgetary control as it is a good way of controlling system. This is basically because the organization’s plan as well as the available control resources and the revenues are quite essential to the organization’s survival and health too.

Overall performance

The organization can be said to be doing quite well and is making good progressing in relation to its business strategy. This is because judging from its past performance; the organization has the full capability of succeeding and becoming a market leader in the industry. The organization has managed to bring out new products and unique ones in the market within a very short period of time. This means that given the chance the organization is able to take advantage of all the opportunities and is able to thrive (D'Angelo, 2010). Further, the products produced are a true reflection of quality and if the organization maintains that, it will have an added advantage and a competitive advantage.

Integrated market communication

The organization will consider making use of the internal and horizontal marketing integration communication methods. The internal marketing integration implies that the organization needs to strive to keep the workers excited regarding any coming developments and improvements that the organization will be involved in. On the other hand; the horizontal integration is also significant mostly when the organization will be in the stage of actual development of its products (Patton & Parker, 2003).The distribution team needs to communicate with production team and the production team should also communicate with the financing team. With the lines of communication open, the business will flow more smoothly.

References

D'Angelo, J. M. (2010). Spa business strategies: A plan for success. Clifton Park, N.Y: Milady Cengage Learning.

Hutt, M. D., & Speh, T. W. (2013). Business marketing management: B2B. Australia: South-Western, Cengage Learning.

Patton, R. L., & Parker, D. B. (2003). Carpet capital: The rise of a New South industry. Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press.

Pinson, L. (2008). Anatomy of a business plan: A step-by-step guide to building the business and securing your company's future. Tustin, CA: Out of Your Mind & into the Marketplace.

Towill, D., & Christopher, M. (2002). The supply chain strategy conundrum: to be lean or agile or to be lean and agile?. International Journal of Logistics, 5(3), 299-309.