Imagine that you are pitching your hypothetical product- or service-based company’s marketing plan to the Shark Tank Team for possible investment. Use a tablet, smartphone, laptop, desktop, or tradi

Running head: PART C: MARKETING PLAN YOUR COMPANY NAME 1

Part C: ABC Marketing Plan for Smart Homes Corporation

MKT500 Marketing Management
Strayer University

Dr. Victoria Hailey

December 1, 2018

Introduction

SmartHomes Corporation is a real estate investment organization that is focused on the purchase of family housing units below the fair market value and refurbishing them. Having its headquarters in Central Florida, the company also rents the facilities at the current market rates. The owners of the company are Paul Scholes and Ryan Schubaker. The organization specializes in fractional home ownership whereby buyers obtain the right to own a unit for between 7 and 28 days each year for 99 years.

I received a very detailed feedback for part B of my assignment, which I am grateful for. First, the professor raised an issue with my choice of brand strategy. After going through the feedback, it dawned on me that there were very many missing parts. My target market, as the professor highlighted, was too broad. It needed to be narrowed down to specifics such as lifestyle, age, attitudes and values. Furthermore, I failed to provide a map for the location of the company and there was also a lack of competitor analysis. The professor winded up by noting that I should have included consumer behavior with brand extension, brand name and a positioning statement. This was very constructive feedback and I will use it to revise my work and include all the missing elements. This feedback will also be used for future reference if I am asked to come up with another marketing plan.

This part of the assignment will encompass the development of Smart Home’s pricing and distribution strategy, a marketing communications plan and a public relations, sales promotion and personal selling plan that is most relevant to the product/ service and media. I will also be developing an online and direct marketing plan and a social responsibility marketing plan in the later parts of the discussion.

Pricing, and Distribution Strategy

For a fast-growing company such as Smart Homes, the biggest challenge is running the business on low operating profit margins. The following factors should be taken into consideration when coming up with the ideal pricing and distribution strategy: competition, fixed and variable costs, the business objectives, the proposed positioning strategies and the target group plus the willingness to pay. It is important to note that pricing decisions can act as a significant determinant of the success or failure of a business (McDonald, 2016).

Pricing Strategy The pricing strategy selected for Smart Homes is price skimming. This strategy mainly encompasses setting high prices for the assets during the introductory phase. It will put the company in a better position to leverage the “newness” of their products while maximizing their profits at the get-go. In fact, the strategy will best suit the sale of “The One.” The marketing team, in this case, will take advantage of the consumers who always want to be the first to purchase a product. Taking this into consideration, the marketing team will adopt phrases such as “exclusive offer” or “limited availability.” The good news is, no budget will even be needed to create this sort of campaign as social media can be used to create excitement about the products. Skimming pricing strategy demands that one should not be quick to lower prices if there is still an opportunity to keep the prices up. The prices should only be reduced if the consumer demand for the real estate homes drops or consumers come in to sell similar products at lower costs (McDonald, 2016). Smart Homes will benefit from the use of this strategy in two major ways. First, the organization will be able to maximize its profits. Secondly, it will get the opportunity to make all the assets seem more special and elusive owing to the prestige around the products.
Distribution Strategy

SmartHomes will adopt a multi-channel distribution approach. This will allow the organization to reach to the maximum number of customers. By adopting this strategy, the organization will be simply providing multiple platforms to get in touch with customers. Smart Homes will work with a number of trustworthy vendors selected from different parts of the State. Local vendors will be the best fit because in addition to being constant homeowners, they are very influential. The business will interact with the selected venders by way of retailers.

Integrated Marketing Communications SmartHomes integrated marketing communication strategy will involve a number of steps. The first step will be identifying the target customers. Narrowing down the audience allows the business to be more targeted when transmitting messages. The customers may be narrowed down to family size, religion, occupation, income, among many other distinguishing factors. The next step will be to identify the key message and the channels that will be used to pass along those messages. It is important to be very picky when selecting the channels. It is also crucial for the communication to be consistent, clear and compelling. Lastly, the marketing team will make a point of tracking the success or failure of their communication campaigns to make the needed adjustments.
Message Strategy

SmartHomes will ensure consistency in communication by seeing to it that the brand is translating well across all the selected channels. This means that an individual who receives an email from the company should not feel that it is a totally different business on Facebook. Ideally, consistency includes the overall look and feel of the company, the style of the organization pertaining graphics, logos, fonts, colors and photography and lastly, the content of the message. This will be done in such a uniform way that someone looking at the company’s newsletter will see a visual connection between it and the website.

Media Strategy

SmartHomes will use several channels to reach its customers. As much as the world is going digital, the company’s digital presence will be complemented in equal measure by its traditional platforms such as the use of flyers and magazines. All in all, the company will go big on social media advertising since it is the most effective. The rationales for these choices are influenced by the type of customers and their location. For those who do not have access to social media, then communication will be done old school.

Public Relations, Sales Promotion, and Personal Selling Plan The formulated marketing plan for SmartHomes will only be executed by using tactical elements of the marketing communication or Proportional Mix such as public relations, sales promotion and personal selling plans. This mix will be used by the company to pursue its set marketing objectives (Serrat, 2017).
Public Relations Plan Being featured in the news is one of the best strategies for any real estate company (Lim, 2016). SmartHomes will take advantage of the various news outlets as much as possible. The trick, in this case, will be finding the right journalists, getting their contact details, building a relationship with them and finally getting them to write and release the company’s story.

Sales Promotion Plan SmartHomes will use several sales promotional pricings such as coupons, point-of-sale discounts, loyalty schemes and trade promotions. This strategy will be aimed at, among many other factors, increasing customer traffic and value perception.
Personal Selling Plan

The personal selling plan for SmartHomes will include many groups of relevant parties such as both outside and inside representatives and the use of customer service. The company will adopt email marketing as its direct communication plan. In this case, the marketing team will design a very graphic and catchy email to be sent to customers.

Online and Direct Marketing Plan

The online marketing plan selected for SmartHomes is the use of social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. These platforms will be the most beneficial as they will capture customers from all age-groups. Direct marketing will include mailshots as mentioned above, Telemarketing and SMS marketing. The development of this strategy will be important as it will help the business to know which market approaches best reach the target market and provide customers with compelling content that they can share with other potential customers (Lim, 2016).

Social Responsibility Plan SmartHome’s position as one of the leaders in the real estate sector puts it in a unique position to recognize the social, economic, civic and environmental responsibility that come along with holding such a position. In this regard, the aim of the company will be to satisfy the needs of the clients and partners through the delivery of innovative buildings and services that lead to the creation of shared value and the development of a more sustainable, collaborative and ecological society.
Conclusion From the discussion above, SmartHomes needs to put many factors into consideration when it comes to the development of its marketing plan. It can be gathered that the success of the company will be determined by the kind of marketing strategies it puts in place, it is, therefore, important to have the best marketing team there is.

References

Lim, W. M. (2016). A blueprint for sustainability marketing: Defining its conceptual boundaries for progress. Marketing theory, 16(2), 232-249.

McDONALD, M. A. L. C. O. L. M. (2016). Strategic marketing planning: theory and practice. In The marketing book (pp. 108-142). Routledge.

Serrat, O. (2017). The future of social marketing. In Knowledge solutions (pp. 119-128). Springer, Singapore.