Marketing Strategies and Plan

A marketing strategy is any complete and general approach to influencing individuals/ corporates and turning them into customers that the business provides. Green Scape’s marketing strategy comprehends key marketing information, messages, plans and priorities concerning its target audience. The marketing strategy updates and upraises the marketing plan; a document that sets out marketing activities. In consumer markets, marketing strategies designs are characterized to intensify the probabilities that consumers will have approving feelings and opinions concerning specific services, brands, and products, and will use and consume them recurrently.

 The key to a successful strategy by Green Scape is creating a strategy that has a long life cycle and concentrations on consumer analysis concerns that face existing companies. Any marketing strategy ideally should not shift over time and aid to assimilate consumer behavior information and material into the marketing strategy expansion development. This specific marketing strategy include developing and offering marketing incentives focused on niche target markets to influence how they feel, what they think and what they do (Percy, 2008).

Green Scape uses various marketing strategies for a successful marketing expansion. In this scenario, we will focus on four different types of marketing strategies that as a business, we will adopt a successful long-term marketing plan. Cause marketing is an accommodating effort between two companies; Green Scape entity and a not-for-profit-making organization to endorse, promote, and benefit from public and supplementary charitable foundations (Percy, 2008). The difference between Cause marketing and corporate giving is taut to specific tax-deductible handouts and donations an organization makes. Co-branding is a marketing strategy whereby at least two separate brands merge to endorse and sell a solo product and/ or service. This enjoinment increases a product or service’s perception value, thus leading to consumers’ ability and willingness to pay more.

Marketing strategy implementation involves a decisive marketing plan, which is tactical and is cohesive with the essential business development tactics. Strategy implementation is identical to monitoring and regulation of a marketing platform. Thus, implementation is a process that shifts strategies into action. The implementation stage includes projects that involve the when, where, who and how of realizing the objectives and aims of Green Scape. This is the subsequent stage in the marketing progression and encompasses the whole business entity (Percy, 2008).

 Marketing implementation contains marketing design, performance, and preparation for development. Having this in mind, this stage then involves the delegation of definite responsibilities and timelines to persons and cluster employees. The employees collect the obligatory resources to execute the marketing plan and offer the product and/ or service to the public. This stage decodes into processes and plans for business areas such as business development, human resources, procurement, marketing, and research (Percy, 2008). This process will have an appropriate distinctive leader at its helm to steer a successful implementation. The leader will effectively communicate the compulsory steps of implementation.

 Green Scape has a strategic map, which classifies the vital elements that manage the performance of the business. These maps include operations, funds, partners and associates, and work atmosphere (Percy, 2008). The use of follow-up activities together with performance measuring tools enhance this process. This plan, therefore, contains various implementation stages. I) involving all invested parties in the completion of strategic plans. ii) Aligning of yearly objectives to the budget. iii) Each implementation group receives various plan versions concerning their specific task. iv) Inaugurating a system(s) that observers and tracks the implementation plan. v) Present the implementation plan to the entire Green Scape family. vi) Schedule monthly meetings, which have conventional means of recording the implementation progress; and lastly set annual dates of review of plans, policies, and assessments. Companies that succeed in implementing their marketing strategy delight in greater product performance due to better market opportunities. Thus, the greater Green Scape’s implementation competence, the greater the company performance (Doole & Lowe, 2008).

Business expansion is the process and procedure of introducing a product and/ or service to a different extensive segment of an already existing market or into a fresh psychographic, demographic, or geographic market. Next, are the different ways in which Green Scape will expand its business? First, the growth of product sales and production in the current markets. This is the most risk-free and easy method of expansion. With this strategy, comes a need to develop alternative/ better pricing strategies, marketing techniques and larger location(s). Second is developing a New Market Segment. This means expanding to a new geographic market. This requires market research, feasibility studies, and pre-product testing. For example, a message addressed to a teenager will contrast that one for an elderly person. Third, is new product introduction? The successful data collection methods and processes, consumer feedback and company research, exists a need to launch a new which responds to the needs and wants of the consumer. The new product should add more value concerning consumer needs (Percy, 2008).

Lastly, Green Scape will go global as a means of business expansion. The rising of consumer expenditure, improved business climate, market growth provides the need for expansion. International businesses include joint ventures, manufacturing, and exportation among others. With these businesses arises different prerequisites to run the business. They include; customer demand assessment, legalities and accounting assistance, cultural affiliations and regulations. The economic balance and development agency of the target country should be stable.

Social media as a marketing tool has grown widely in the marketing world. Green Scape will use social media as an important source of consumer data collection, a channel of communication and a valuable consumer insight. We will integrate the following methods into our marketing strategy plan. First, we will use social media as a means of market research. For an effective market research to be successful there should be a communications plan. This plan must contain both a quantitative and qualitative market research section, which provide data about our target audience concerning our strategic policies. The use of focus group-like questions is key in gathering qualitative statistics (Percy, 2008).

Second is to use social media as a means of encouraging public relations. Through social media, the process of improving public relations has become easily and readily available. Significance and speed are paramount in Public Relations. With social media such as Facebook, we can get comments and feedback within minutes. Third, is the use of social media as an advertisement tool? Advertising has significantly improved in the preceding 10 years. Social media advertising has proven to be a perfect way of a quick, efficient and effective tool of advertisement. Social media marketing has the capacity to target a specific audience, modify advertisement effortlessly, post advertisement easily as well as use limited cost-effective resources for advertisement (Percy, 2008).

Lastly, Green Scape will use social media analytics as a way of recording the marketing communication plan(s). With the data found in social media analytics tools, which store social media data, we will be able to monitor our website data. The data includes the number of people who visit the website, the number of people reached and the type of communication data, which echoes around the business. Thus, we can steadfastly say that social media content thus proves to be readily available, cost-efficient and effective (Doole & Lowe, 2008).

Monitoring the business project and plan simultaneously intensifies the efficiency of both our current and future company activities. Monitoring marketing activity delivers a clear, precise administration and management of activity. Monitoring proves to be a valuable audit process of products and/ or services offered. According to Doole & Lowe (2008), monitoring should be integrated with the initial project plan in terms of time, budget and resources.  We will seek to monitor the business levels that include distribution, price, investments, advertising, and promotion.

Distribution: expressively can influence marketing activities thus, it is important to evaluate this element. This includes recording the excellence of distribution across the distribution channel. This element assessment can be set using our in-house staff e.g. the marketing team. Price: This is paramount in market performance. Both internal and external staff who monitor prices each week. Alternatively, research and sales, agents will monitor the prices of the product and report information regularly. Advertising: the outcome of an advertising promotion depends on the ability of the advert itself to reach the desired target audience (Percy, 2008).With this in mind; we will use media and creative. This method requires viewing and answering a series of questions by the target audience concerning the advert.

Investment: The initial budget versus money spent on marketing should be monitored habitually to ensure financial management and control of the plan. Promotion: depending on the promotional activity, different monitoring techniques are used. The use of samples to predict the activity levels define the different promotional activities within the business plan. Vigilant monitoring gives us a prospect to readdress and rectify activities during a marketing drive; this should be a necessity (Doole & Lowe, 2008).

An Integrated Marketing Communication Strategy is a broad plan that appraises different strategic roles of different communication channels, which conglomerates these elements to deliver stability, needed communication effect and steadiness. Thus, an IMC (Integrated Marketing Communication) strategy is encompassed communications channels components like T.V, magazines, social media, etc. (Blakeman, 2018). For any IMC strategy to work, each different channel of communication should work together.

There are various tools of IMC. We will recapitulate marketing tools that Green Scape will use during different marketing operations. Search engine optimization (SEO), blogs, banner advertisements, and webinars are some but different types of IMC tools. Companies that incorporate IMC tools, benefit in various ways. IMC promotes our brand across numerous social channels Marketers who interconnect their product’s story to their target market. IMC is economical and cost-effective. This is because consumers network with a product across numerous social channels (Blakeman, 2018).

In conclusion, implementing an IMC strategy is vital to any marketer seeking to generate a brief and distinct story of their product and/ or service across different social and marketing channels. Implementation, monitoring and contingency plans should be vital in any marketing strategy. This is because, they are all interdependent and for any marketing strategy to work, each of these elements should work. The key to a successful marketing strategy is categorized in marketing execution and every relevant team demonstrates an increased improvement in marketing that will be critical within the organization whereby the CEO, executive, and the junior staff are in unison.   

References

Blakeman, R. (2018). Integrated marketing communication: Creative strategy from idea to implementation

Doole, I., & Lowe, R. (2008). International marketing strategy: analysis, development, and implementation. Cengage Learning EMEA.

Percy, L. (2008). Strategic integrated marketing communications. Routledge.