Marketing Plan Strategy Assignment

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to simulate the marketing plan for a product with the thesis statement that an ethical product (with organic sources) with premium price can be sold to the non-premium market with fulfilling ethical requirements. A fast consuming product, which is shampoo with organic sources has been marketed in this plan. This plan covers pricing, advertising, packaging, distribution strategy, generating revenue streams and delivering key messages to people. This paper also considers the ethical issues such as increasing ‘events’ or ‘increasing number of times shampoo used in a day’ for escalation of sales.

Product Specification

The product that is to be launched is a new shampoo that is designed from the organic materials and free from chemicals, particularly for the people struggling with the issue of dandruff. The market will be highly responsive in the winters, but seasonality would occur in summers when the sales may be reduced, but not decline.

Target Segment

The target segment is middle-class people who are having dandruff problems. Dandruff can be dangerous for the health of hairs and may lead to baldness. The target market includes the young and adults who are conscious about their hairs.

Age: people aging 15 years to 45 years

Gender: Both males and females

Economic Class: Middle Class to Lower Middle Class

Price: Moderate

Packaging: Bottles and Sachets

Marketing Strategy

Capturing the large target market such as middle-class people which are in the majority, and selling them the products with moderate and affordable price in the form of bottles and sachets. The company is in the middle of cost leadership(MindTools, 2019) and the focus strategy. Targeting the primary market is necessary because most of the revenue comes from it whereas secondary buyers can be future buyers who would purchase the products of the company (Preiss, 2017).The company is not completely following cost leadership strategy by selling the cheapest shampoo in the market, but the company will offer ‘value for money' package that contains organic materials because of which the price is slightly higher than the average shampoos:

Small segment –Large sales: Selling shampoos in sachets with a price range of 10 cents so people who do not afford to buy bottle can have the same luxury of using the shampoo with mini-budget and it will also ensure a habitual purchase. It is one of the most important marketing strategies

Large segment - Small sales:selling shampoo in bottles with a price range of $5. It is for users who purchase shampoo for the usage of a whole month, but their quantity is small.

Revenue Strategy: Selling small chunks of products with little price in massive quantity to generate higher revenues

Usage/Events: Daily/ morning and evening

Key Marketing Communication Message

“Free yourself from chemicals and maintain life-long dandruff free hairs.”

Advertisement

TV: The advertisement will cost a company around $1 million of which half million will be spent on TV advertisements and the prime time slots and in the morning slots. These are the times when the adults and young are present in front of the TVs. Prime spots will increase the advertising budget, but it is advisable to capture the given target market.

Print Media: Almost 10% of the budget will be spent on print media because it is less costly and has reached to the target market and the target media would include magazines focusing on health and use of organic materials.

Door to Door Marketing: Almost 30% of the budget will be spent on the moving truck cabins with washing facility that will roam around the city and offer people to wash their hairs, and a free shampoo bottle will be given to them.

Social Media: This expedition will occur in integration with the social media for which 10% of the budget will be allocated, and it will create trends on social media, engaging people with the advertising content "Free yourself from chemicals and maintain dandruff free hairs."

Distribution

In the distribution of the product, the company will use a push-based marketing strategy aligned with the advertisements. For push marketing, the company will incentivize the retailers and wholesalers to sell the products to the consumer by convincing them to use this product.

Ethical Issues

An ethical issue is that most of the anti-dandruff shampoos have chemicals and they are not corrective in nature, but preventive in nature. In order to ensure continuous revenue streams, the manufacturers insist on regular and addictive use (American Marketing Association, 2017). With the regular use, the hairs become used to of these chemicals, and as a person will leave using the shampoo, dandruff will come again. For this reason, a consumer becomes a habitual user of the product because of the lack of ethics by the companies which ensures use of shampoo just to sustain and increase their revenues.

Conclusion

In this paper, the marketing strategy of the shampoo has been discussed. The target segment is middle class by offering them shampoo of mildly premium quality as it is made of organic products and does not cause damage to the hairs as the chemical shampoos do. The important strategy is the push-based distribution in conjunction with TV advertisement and door to door marketing. In order to capture small chunks, the slices/sachets of products to be sold that will greatly elevate the revenues given the economic class of the market.

References

American Marketing Association. (2017). Marketing's ethical line between social media habit and addiction. Retrieved from https://www.ama.org/marketing-news/marketings-ethical-line-between-social-media-habit-and-addiction/

MindTools. (2019). Porter's generic strategies. Retrieved from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_82.htm

Preiss, J. (2017). Primary vs. secondary target market. Retrieved from https://bizfluent.com/facts-5551909-primary-vs-secondary-target-market.html