Marketing Management For Non-Marketing Managers

Analysis

Discuss about the Marketing Management For Non-Marketing Managers.

A marketing plan is one part of business plan. The plan is an outlining of tactics and marketing strategy of a business. It mostly focuses on the particular period of time and involves different details of marketing, like goals, action steps, and costs (Westwood, 2016). The agenda of this report is to prepare a marketing plan for footwear made in Australia which will be used to play soccer and named as Gagnant. This is a French word which means winner. The report will involve three task i.e. task 1, it will provide detailed information of the product, features and benefits of the products, target group, characteristics of the target group, promotional techniques, purpose of the promotion, budget plan, action plan for promotion, policies and procedures of organization, roles and responsibilities of the team, technology and skills necessary for promotion. Task 2 will describe the promotional activities that will be used in the promotion of the footwear and a promotional material will be developed. Besides this, Task 3 will provide a concise survey in which feedback of the people will be collected from different sources, analysis of the responses will be done, evaluation of the benefits and impact of the promotion will be performed. Further, explanation of the marketing objectives will be presented, assessment of the planning process and recommendations for future changes in the plan will be provided.   

Gagnant is the brand name of the new footwear which will be used to play soccer by the national and international players, who play to represent their respective countries. Headquarter of the brand will be in Australia. Gagnant is a French word which means winner.

• The insole of the Gagnant shoes is removable.
• Heel Counter and Cushioning- This portion of the shoes provide support of the heel.
• Vamp- The front portion of the shoes which is also said as the strike zone, this part makes contact with the ball. Vamps are added with technology in order to enhance the power of the shot and ball control.
• Studs/Cleats- The cones or blades on the bottommost of the shoes to enhance grip. The stud itself is frequently known as a cleat and is removable from the shoe’s bottom (Reid, 2017).   

Gagnant shoes will provide better control of the ball as compared to other shoes and make it simpler to do sprints and cuts. The Gagnant shoe range will involve a different type of shoes according to different pitches on which people play soccer such as Soft ground, hard ground, Indoor, Firm ground, Artificial ground, and Turf. These shoes will provide good grip for fast movement along with strong zone of strike for accurate and powerful kicks. It is a lightweight shoe for fast movements, fashionable and has a big strike zone to increase shooting.

Target Group for Promotion is Female and Male soccer players, and Recreational, competitive, and professional players. The characteristics of the target market involve geographic according to which these shoes will be offered initially in Australia.

Features of Gagnant

In order to promote Gagnant shoes in the Australian market company can choose advertisement and personal selling techniques. Advertisement technique has been selected because it has a wider range and covers most of the geographical area where the target audience can come across to this offering, besides this, it helps in reflecting the features of the product. Personal selling has been selected because through this sales person of the company come into direct contact with the customers who help in understanding the perception and need of the customers. These shoes will be offered at $60 to $185 in two color options.

Marketing is not just selling a product but it also is known as the art of vending or selling a product to the target customers who are ready to purchase in order to satisfy their wants and needs (Fitzpatrick, 2017). Since marketing involves all the necessities to satisfy consumers, marketing management should be a portion of each employee’s job in the company.

According to Marketing Association of America, Marketing is the procedure of implementing and forecasting the conception, promotion, pricing, and distribution of services and goods, ideas and exchanges them in a way that satisfies organizational and individual objectives (American Marketing Association, 2017). In the above business, marketing will help in promoting the Gagnant awareness to the target audience. Due to marketing, particularly by promoting programs and advertising customers get to know about it and the company.

The aim and objective of promotion are to increase the brand recognition, purchase intent, growth in sales, and goodwill of the product.

The important resources that will be used for promotion are market statistics, networks with the potential buyers, directories, databases, and free marketing materials for the state-branded programs (Thilmany & Curtis, 2018).

Activities	Objective	Action Strategies
Goal/objective of Promotion	Increase brand recognition, and growth in sales	Advertisement through T.V, and personal sales
Responsible Team	To create effective promotional strategies	Marketing department will be responsible to create attractive messages.
Promotion	To introduce Soccer shoes in the market	Advertisement and personal selling
Time period	To establish and promote soccer shoes in the market as soon as possible.	6 Months
Review of Action plan	To identify the deviations in the plan	Marketing department will properly track the progress of the plan and will make changes wherever possible.
Implementation	Successfully implementing the plan in order to grab the attention of the target market.	Promotion of the product will be done through communications channel under the guidance of marketing team.
After implementation review	Review of the customers, and increase in the sales.	Checking the effectiveness and success of the plan.

Advertising- At the time when Gagnant business will be advertised it will follow some of the advertising regulations i.e. Misleading and Deceptive conduct and Bait advertising

Misleading & deceptive conduct- While promoting the product, business will confirm that any statement, branding, or quote representation is not dishonest or misleading. Component pricing is the price of a service or product is promoted in separate parts (Australian Government, 2017). For instance, when the distinct price of a vehicle is presented and added on-road costs are scheduled separately. If the company will advertise its products by using component pricing it will also display the total price inclusive of extra cost in a more noticeable way.

Benefits of Gagnant

Bait advertising- Bait Advertising means a product is promoted at some price deprived of sensible supply. Bait advertising is unlawful if a business vends the goods with the knowledge that they cannot fulfill the anticipated demand (Consumer Affairs, 2012).

A promotional policy is same as a business code of ethics. The policy of Gagnant is to advertise the true features of the soccer shoes which provide comfort and add more power to the kick of the player.

Evaluate marketing communication opportunities- In this step understanding and examination of the target market needs will be performed.

Communication Channels- In this step, with the help of above information, the most beneficial communication channel will be decided by the business. The Gagnant will make use of advertisement and personal selling to sell its products.  

Determining Objective- Promotional objectives will be underlined in terms of short-term or long-term people behaviors that have seen the company’s promotional communication. These objectives of the company will be clearly explained, measurable and appropriate.   

Determining promotional mix- At this step, the company will allocate resource to personal selling, advertisement. Awareness will be created among the customers for the promotional campaigns in order to succeed.

Developing promotional message- At this step, the company will create a promotional message by discussing it with the responsible department.

Develop the promotion budget- Here; the total budget of the promotional activity will be determined, along with cost breakdowns as per territory and elements of the promotional mix.

Determining Campaign Effectiveness- At this step, the promotional plan will be defined in writing. This written document will be comprised of situation analysis, timetables for operative integration of elements of promotion along with marketing mix elements (Lake, 2018).

To promote the product i.e. Gagnant, it needs a marketing team or department who can take the responsibility of its promotion. The marketing department is very important for sales and marketing. It encourages and established a business in the market depending on services or products (Johnson, 2018). It helps in recognizing the zones in which the service or product fits and where the company must concentrate its marketing strategy and thus use its budget for the full coverage and outcomes. The people who will be the part of this department are a marketing manager, Marketing researchers and analyst, Marketing Coordinator, and Marketing Assistants (Martin, 2015).

The marketing department of Gagnant product will possess a maximum of the responsibilities of making a feasible business and profitable. It will be done by engaging customers, creating awareness, creating promotional activities, researching competitors. Some of the major roles and responsibility that will be performed by this department are:

Target Group for Promotion

Applying approach to customer-centric- The marketing department will maintain its relationship with the customers such that they can identify what the customer is asking for and thus try to meet those demands. The feedback from the customer is very important part of the company and it will be conducted through a survey (Knowledge Pills, 2013).

Keeping up with the competition- The department of marketing is responsible for investigating the competition and keeping all the information of competitor’s activities, their products, weaknesses, and business will try to avoid those mistakes as of competitors (Fatteross, 2018).

Communicate, network and negotiate- Effective marketers are a good communicator and smart business operators. The communication skill of the marketing team should be effective as it helps in making deals with the service providers and suppliers keeps a relationship with the consumers, and form treasured networks in the market (Doyle, 2018).

Collaborate with the team of sales- The sales team of a business is a very important part for the success of the marketing and involving this team in making marketing strategies will assist and motivate salespeople in order to attain marketing objectives (The State of Queensland, 2018).

Internet- Website has become now the necessities of the business when it is the matter of marketing products. This medium provides huge space to share the details of the product, videos, reviews, and photos that involve potential customers.

Email Marketing- Email marketing is the most reasonable and possibly attractive promote a product (Kooser, 2018).

Advertising

Advertising is a visual or audio practice of marketing communication that involves an openly subsidized, non-personal message in order to endorse or sell a service, idea, or product (The Economic Times, 2018). In other words, it is attempted to affect the buying behavior of the consumers by offering a convincing selling message about the service or product. Advertising is communicated through different mass media, including traditional media such as newspaper, television, direct mail, radio, blogs, social media, text messages, and websites (Ward, 2018).

The Gagnant soccer shoes will make use of this promotional activity because it has a wider range, helps in increasing the sales; improve good-will, helps in representing better quality of products.

Personal Selling

Personal selling also called as face-to-face selling in which an individual salesperson tries to persuade the client in purchasing a product (The Economic Times, 2018). The Gagnant shoes will use this technique in the starting period of the business in order to know more about the taste of the products and personally explain them the features of the products.

Promotional Technique

This question was provided to various people such as teens, adults, sports person, sports trainers through email, and printing papers. This question involves nine very important question that has helped in understanding the need and perception of the people towards Gagnant shoes.

With the support of above questionnaire, it was identified that 60% of the participants in the survey supported this brand and reflected their wish to purchase this new brand of soccer shoes. However, 40% of the survey population reflected their negative opinion towards buying the new brand and selected the famous shoe brand to purchase to play soccer

The promotional activities i.e. Advertisement and personal selling supported company in creating brand awareness among people due to which 60% of the people want to purchase this brand (Appendix 1).

The benefit of promotional activities i.e. Advertisement and personal selling helped the company in creating a good image in the eyes of the customers due to which 60% of customers suggested an organization to further add some products in their product line such as sports accessories, water bottle, bags (Appendix 1).

Marketing objective of Gagnant Soccer shoes was to create awareness among the people who prefer playing soccer. This objective will be attained by the organization with the help of advertisement and personal selling because as per the survey people suggested promoting shoes on Television ads which will help in attaining the organization objective i.e. of to earn a profit, increase brand awareness, and compete with the strong players in the market (Appendix 1).  

The marketing plan process will be very effective by considering the response of the people through survey i.e. questionnaire. The above plan has suggested some strategies of promotion i.e. Advertisement and personal selling will help people to try this new brand because people are now getting bored of trying that a limited number of branded shoes. Therefore, they want to try something new which is stylish as well as comfortable.       

From the above analysis of the marketing plan of Gagnant soccer shoes, it can be recommended that company can add new products in its product range i.e. sports accessories, water bottles, etc. in order to increase its revenue and market share.   

Conclusion

In the conclusion, it can be said that above-mentioned marketing plan of Gagnant shoes used to play soccer will definitely work in the Australian market because it is offering the best quality of shoes at affordable prices. The above report has highlighted various important aspects i.e. the feature of the soccer shoes, benefits and the promotional techniques that will be used to make customers aware of the product. The promotional activities involve advertisement and personal selling through sales officers. Besides this, the report has stated some legislation that company of the product is going to follow in order to safeguard customers and follow the rules and regulations of the government. Roles and responsibilities of the marketing department of Gagnant shoes have been explained. Further brief explanation of the promotional activity has been stated along with a promotional picture of the product. In the end, a survey has been conducted to know the preferences of the customers in terms of sports shoes.

References

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Consumer Affairs. (2012). Bait Advertising. Retrieved from https://www.consumeraffairs.nt.gov.au/ForConsumers/Youth/BuyingStuff/Pages/Bait-Advertising.aspx

Doyle, A. (2018). Marketing Skills List and Examples. Retrieved from https://www.thebalancecareers.com/marketing-skills-list-2062431

Fatteross, J. (2018). The Role of a Marketing Department. Retrieved from https://www.thehartford.com/business-playbook/in-depth/marketing-department-role

Fitzpatrick, H. (2017). Marketing Management For Non-Marketing Managers: Improving Returns on Marketing Investments. 2^nd edn. U.S: John Wiley & Sons.

Johnson, K.S. (2018). Description of a Marketing Department. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/description-marketing-department-56409.html

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Kooser, A.C. (2018). Technology in the Marketing of Products. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/technology-marketing-products-3307.html

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Martin. (2015). Marketing Department: Organization, Tools & Responsibilities. Retrieved from https://www.cleverism.com/marketing-department-organization-tools-responsibilities/

Reid, C. (2017). Soccer Shoe Guide. Retrieved from https://www.soccer.com/guide/soccer-shoe-guide

The Economic Times. (2018). Definition of ‘Advertising’. Retrieved from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/advertising

The Economic Times. (2018). Definition of ‘Personal Selling’. Retrieved from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/personal-selling

The State of Queensland. (2018). Skills used for successful marketing. Retrieved from https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/marketing-sales/marketing-promotion/marketing-basics/skills

Thilmany, D., & Curtis, K.R. (2018). Marketing and Promotion Resources: Leveraging Existing Programs and Resources. Retrieved from https://valueaddedag.org/nichemarkets/06marketingandpromotionresources.pdf

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Westwood, J. (2016). How to Write a Marketing Plan. 5^th edn. U.K: Kogan Page Publishers.