Question:
Discuss about the Strategic Marketing Plan of Bronze Snake Shop Using Internal Environmental Analysis.
Strategic marketing plan involves structured planning of the business that includes the purchase and sale of various commodities using the unique and creative skills. The paper deals with the description of the company with its background and history. It evaluates internal analysis of company performance by identifying brand, its quality, product portfolio and the services system of the business in addition to its scope and mission.
It includes detailed analysis of internal strength and weakness by understanding the investment pattern in human resources, financial resources and operational capabilities. Then, it discusses the marketing mix and marketing strategy in order to understand the overall structure of the business. It provides a brief note on the barriers in marketing of the Bronze Snake shop. There is also a brief summary on the external environmental analysis of the Bronze Snake shop using pestle analysis, customer analysis and competitor analysis along with SWOT analysis. In conclusion, it evaluates the performances of the business using its types of competitors.
Internal environmental analysis
Company, background and history-
The Bronze Snake shop is a smart company, a retail industry created in 2006 at Melbourne city by David Strangis and Anthony Sacco. With the use of strategic marketing plan, they created 468.17 percent growth of the net output by 2015 (Strauss, 2016). It has employee strength of 41 people as of 2015.
Background of this shop is that with lots of hurdles the owners started the business and earned for the growth and success. The company came up with its ecommerce website. It has an active account on Instagram page in order to attract more customers and to connect with them. After Australia, it has expanded its business in New Zealand.
Description of the company
Bronze Snake shop is a retail business oriented specialized in men’s, women’s and kids clothing and accessories. The initial growth phase of this industry as difficult, slowly it tried its best to create its position and made $ 8.85 million. It deals in marketing sales and unique strategies for the growth and achievements.
Mission, statement corporate objectives
Mission- The mission statement is ‘Great Products, Great Prices and Old School Customer Service’. The company wants to deliver the best products at the best prices to all the store and online customers; hence, it provides next day free shipping irrespective of the amount spent. The customer care service follows the same old philosophy of calling the customers back for any complaint ticket.
Statement- Marketing means purchase and sale of products in the unique way to earn maximum sales. Bronze Snake shop deals in men’s and women’s wears; thereby it requires lots of trends and fashion along with marketing. To maintain a good relation between customer and seller, there must be good communication that leads to encouraging of the customers in the best way. Selling of a product depends on the percentage of influencing capacity of seller (Armstrong et al., 2015).
Objectives- Bronze Snake shop creates customers only when the seller of this shop has full-fledged knowledge and information about the product. More advertisement and research of a product leads to creation of demand; therefore, the product should be in relation to customer wants and needs as the market depends on Customer satisfaction.
Brand identity-
It includes standard in quality with quality brand packaging, labeling in order to create more customers. With creative logos and name of the product creates more demand and sales for the product. With reference to brand identification then it depends largely on the ratings and review on the packaging quality and labeling of the product. Example like clothes and watches, standard unique brand names with good quality material along with present demand as per the customer requirements will create more demand for the product. Customer identifies the product by viewing the price, demand for the product, packaging and the quality.
Product and service portfolio-
Product portfolio- product portfolio identifies the nature of the overall collection of goods and services thereby in addition, using nature of stock, growth rate of the company, profit and loss statement, income and operational statement and the rate and records of risk the company has taken. Good growth in profit and holdings will definitely boost the financial system of the company. With reference to product type then in case of branded clothes and luxury watches, there can be quality materials used in production and proper on time good services in relation to product delivery will create more profit and sales to the business.
Service portfolio- It includes the recordings of all the services and function of the organization provided to the customers and consumers in order to achieve long term profits and benefits. Customer friendly products create more sales and growth thereby with good and quick services in the sales process attracts large number of buyers.
Scope of marketing planning
Proper marketing includes good product services and portfolio for achieving the high growth and success. In order to achieve certain business targets, few steps help in reaching those targets. First for a good marketing plan, shop needs to set a proper goal to achieve desired target of maximum sales and output. Second step deals with planning of completion of number of sales per day. There must be recording of sales activity on a daily basis. Then there is a requirement of organizing information in a systematic manner for the accuracy in the business. After organizing, one needs to design the packaging of the product in the most classy and attractive way in order to encourage for more marketing (Baker & Saren, 2016). Designing involves packaging and labeling of the product. It depends on Bronze Snake shop’s creativity.
The most important point of a good marketing planning is to gain information about the product and the company that includes strength and weakness of the company with addition to the product. It analyses the current market position of the company in terms of market value and profit. Depending on the analysis report, it will help the company in findings of the future condition of the clothes. In order to achieve maximum sales, the work should be in to teams. Apart from one to one open communication; there must be alternative sources of communication like phone calls and online internet help to expand more in terms of business line.
Internal resource assessments with strength and weakness
The company has total of 8 stores in Australia and New Zealand. It believes in utilizing the man power and capital resources in the best possible way. The online section is also a major store of Bronze Snake. For example, the company provides old school customer service for both the store and online customers. Bronze Snake has three different sets of human resource section. One section handles the brick and mortar stores and the other section handles the online selling. The third section is dedicated for customer service. Hence, they train their employees on financial management and operational capabilities to provide the best services on marketing, customer dealing, selling, shipping and easy returns, at the same time maintaining the budget, by increasing sales and reducing wastage costs.
Overall view of marketing mix strategy-
Marketing mix
Bronze Snake has applied the 4Ps of marketing ix in their business operations. The 4Ps of marketing mix comprise of Product, Price, Place and Promotions (Dwyer, ?orak & Tomljenovi?, 2017). Product explains the features and qualities of the product sold by the company. Price explains the total and segregated prices of the product, which includes MRP, discount price, taxes etc. Place refers to the target location for selling and Promotion refers to the marketing techniques used by the company to sell the products.
4Ps of Bronze Snake:
|
Product |
Bronze Snake is in the clothing retail industry. It sells clothing and accessories for men, women and kids. Hence, the product of the company is the highly fashionable and trendy clothing with a high quality for the age group of 15-40 years. |
|
Price |
The company has kept the price affordable, with a very small profit margin. It attracts the young and fashion trendy crowd. |
|
Place |
Bronze Snake has 8 stores across Australia and New Zealand, and official website for selling the products. The locations of the stores are chosen strategically, which can be easily seen and are convenient for people from all over the city. The website helps the tech savvy young crowd to shop from anywhere and at any time. Thus, the online selling has become popular. |
|
Promotion |
The company has adopted the technique of next day free shipping for any price shopping. It has also promoted the affordability of the products. The stores are decorated nicely to attract the crowd. |
Marketing strategy-
Success of Bronze Snake shop comes from a good marketing strategy includes well-defined structured market goals, market plans, market mix in order to achieve maximum profit for the sustainability of the business growth of the business. With reference to Bronze Snake shop, the business needs to setup strong strategy to achieve the set targets for their business. It includes various factors of concern like production, consumption, quality of raw materials, cost of production, customers’ satisfaction, product innovation, and marketing effect of product. Bronze Snake shops involve three main stages of marketing process.
Planning- It involves the analysis of the business strength, weakness, external factors, technology effect, work culture and the overall business condition. These are the various components of planning stage of marketing. The SWOT analysis of the marketing strategy gives the business strength and weakness factor with addition to threats to the industry and opportunities available for this market. Using research methods, it undergoes business current financial position and the future effect on market. It also provides various trends available for new trends and fashion in clothing sector.
Goal setting is the very first stage of planning. It involves proper goal to be set in order to achieve the planned target. This includes determination of material and quality, price rates to be charge, place of marketing, advertising and the effect of new quality and design on consumers. Price rates include proper reasonable rates to charge for the new launch of designer wears in order to increase customer demand for the product (Channon & Jalland, 2016). It decides proper channel of distribution of the product in order to increase productivity. On addition to this, it gives various ways of promoting or advertising the various brands in the unique and creative way using the good marketing strategy.
Execution of the plan- Once the goal is setup and the company created its marketing mix strategy, the next stage is to execute the set goals and strategies in practical. There must be proper budget of the product and sales criteria. Using factors like create resources, designing of marketing business, planning of schedules and then the second part is to execute the entire set plan in to action. Use of Proper quality resources within the given time to fulfill the task with the given marketing budget and strategy is what gives a proper execution of the plan.
Evaluation of the business- With proper use of all the stages and plan one can check the accuracy and the overall performance of the business and its efficiency and work output. It gives an evaluative statement about the business performances in terms of financial statement and market position. Therefore, these are three main stages in marketing process of the Bronze Snake shop.
Internal environment analysis of marketing strategy
Internal environmental analyses the strength of the Bronze Snake shop while formulating strategic plans. Various internal factors of Bronze Snake shop can contribute to the growth of the business profit like financial sector, human factor, and operational support. The internal factors perform production function, human resource development functions, effective planning strategies, coordination and cooperation, finance and marketing (David, David & David, 2017). The organization evaluates the business performances based on these given factors. If the existing work culture is not suitable for the required marketing strategy then the organization has to take decision for the change of work culture in order to achieve good productivity. Using value chain Bronze Snake divides its activities into two broad categories, namely, primary and support activities. Primary activities deal with physical creation of the goods like logistic, inbound, marketing sales practice. On the other hand, support activities include human resource development, technology factor and infrastructure activities.
Barriers in strategy marketing of Bronze snake shop
For a good market plan, there are some or the other problems that create issue while execution of the plan. Those are like poor assumptions, problems in marketing sector and improper marketing feedbacks. Poor assumptions can be due to unskilled employees during the marketing process, the product does not get adequate information on the requirement of the consumer, therefore while marketing the product the problem of false assumption arises. This creates loss of customers for the business. It also leads to less flexibility because of migration and in terms of organization performances, lack of information and improper management system.
The external environment of marketing strategy can influence the Bronze Snake shop. These factors includes out of control and uncertainty in the changes of the factors. Competition, government plans and policies, cultural and social factors, natural forces, demographic and technology factors are the forces that can influence the business operations of an organization (Hollebeek, Conduit & Brodie, 2016). For external analysis of an organization, generally PESTLE analysis is used.
Market competition of Bronze Snake shop includes same product and brands influence the industry in terms of competition. It depends on the marketing strategies, means strong marketing strategies leads to more business in this market. Government plans and policies refers to the norms, rules and regulation in relation to marketing that maintains standard and risk free market structure. It leads to healthy global relation while doing marketing globally (Dwyer, ?orak & Tomljenovi?, 2017). Cultural and social factors include societal needs, welfare, living standards, and the cultural values and ethics that help to grow business rapidly.
When the products are cultural friendly, as per the customer needs and requirements, then it creates more number of sales and demand for the product. Natural forces mean environmental and nature friendly products create sustainable business. It protects the environment and encourages for more green business. Demographic factors include accurate and full-fledged information regarding the market trends and variables that can affect the market strategies of Bronze snake business. On the other side, technological factors involve modern use of technology and mode of communication in order to enhance productivity and growth of the business. Creative skills in advertising of the designer clothes and accessories can increase more sales and profit to the Bronze Snake shop.
Using pestle analysis, the external environmental factors can give us the impact on marketing strategy of Bronze Snake shop. There are six factors of pestle model to evaluate the impact and performance of Bronze Snake shop.
Political factor- Political factor deals with government stable functions in the industry will help the industry to expand more globally , if the government encourages for modern technology then there will more production and output. Good and stable trading relations globally can make the Bronze snake Shop to grow rapidly and aims for maximum profit (Feng, Morgan & Rego, 2017). When the political relations with other countries are good then it acts as a positive merit for the marketing business to create more global relations and agreements with different countries.
Economic factor – Comparing with other countries growth rates and the export position then the market should create more production in order to increase export. In terms of economic factor, the large source of revenue comes from middle-income group of customers therefore there should be reasonable rates, as it creates more demand for the middle group customers. More customers create more income for the Bronze Snake shop (Felix, Rauschnabel & Hinsch, 2017). On the other side, there must be proper payment of rates in order to maintain stable inflationary pressure. Fluctuations in interest rates can affect the business in greater way.
Social factor- Social factors deal with society culture, business ethics and the customer satisfaction; means business should be consumer friendly with reasonable rates using standard business ethics. Demographic factors play a key role in this business. It helps to understand customers’ sentiments while the purchase and sale of the product (Grant, 2016). Thereby, changes in the lifestyle of the consumer largely affect the business.
Technological factor- Technological factor refers to modern technology and innovative solutions add on to more production and tough competition for the Bronze Snake shop. It brings more sales and revenue to the business. The market totally depends on the creative abilities to influence the customers with the best use of various technologies like smart phones, internet and modern means of communication (Hollebeek, Conduit & Brodie, 2016). Growth in the sales directly adds to the more production of Bronze Snake shop.
Legal factor- To increase scale of production, there should be good global relations and this can happen only when there are good government facilities in relation to this retail market. There must be new plans and policies for the betterment of the industry in order to maintain certain legal standards of the business. Business standards encourage for more marketing, consumers and proper legal rules that helps to maintain business reputation (Hollensen, 2015). There must be proper tax structure for Bronze Snake shop in order to maintain business stability.
Environmental factor- Environmental factor is one of the important factors in the marketing industry. The weather condition sometimes influences the demand for the products of Bronze Snake shop business. Locational natural calamities can hamper the sales of a particular location. The seasons also influence the purchasing decisions of the customer. Thus, weather has an important impact on the company’s business. Similarly, like other companies in this industry, Bronze Snake is also affected by environmental pollution (Grant, 2016).
Customer analysis of Bronze Snake shop depends on the marketing business. Marketing business is dependant totally on customers need and preferences. It includes various attributes of customers like customers’ nature, sentiments, and requirement (Hult & Ketchen, 2017). They have the equal influential role just like the supplier in the profit of the organization or business industry. It is the critical aspect to the marketing strategy. Customer analysis is one of the most important aspects of Bronze Snake shop (Hsu et al., 2016). Therefore, if the business owner fails to analyze their customers, they will not be able to run their business with smooth and stability. Bronze Snake Shop focuses on for factors that are demographic, geographic, physiographic and behavioral aspects. Demographic covers the age group from 20 to 35. Geographic includes urban areas and suburban areas while the physiographic covers fashion fanatic ad lastly the behavioral aspects includes latest trends.
To analyze customers Bronze Snake shop requires three features to consider and they are firstly, to identify the target customers, then to understand their needs or requirements, and lastly, to show how the new arrivals in cloths and accessories matches the customer needs. There must be individual face-to-face proper negotiations between the seller and the buyer (Kim, Shin & Min, 2016). The seller should collect adequate information regarding buyers’ preferences in order to sell the exact product with all the requirements. Regardless of the business type, customer analysis depends on demographic details, customer interest, location, communication, demographic details includes name, age, gender and job designation (Serrat, 2017).
Bronze Snake has successfully done the customer analysis for the past 11 years. The founders have said that they had to struggle in the initial five years to establish the business. They have firstly made segmentation of the market, such as, the age group of the potential customers. Then they targeted the customers with affordable price and high quality fashionable and trendy clothes and accessories (McDonald & Wilson, 2016). With the promotional techniques, Bronze Snake has been able to create a positioning of its products with the customers. Thus, by 2015, the company earned $8.85 million (smartcompany.com, 2015).
Local direct and indirect-
Competition depends on business success as well as on the type of consumers whether it is local, direct or indirect. Success of Bronze Snake shop greatly depends on the identification of potential customers. It includes proper conduct of customer analysis also the profits statement of the business. A well-established competitor allows the Bronze Snake shop to collaborate with those business partners that can create direct competition in order to attain maximum profit (Nykiel, 2016). The purpose of analyzing the competitor is to study the business, create a report of future market trends, effect of demand and supply, marketing strategy, to raise the market share, to study various market trends and variables and to create plans for expansion of business (Peppard & Ward, 2016).
Competitor matrix-
Competitor gives the strength and weakness analysis of the Bronze Snake shop on addition to this; it includes various threats and opportunities of the business. A competitor focuses on the business profitability, size of the business, reputation and goodwill, position in the market, strength and weakness factor. The competitor analysis also depends on the statistical, qualitative and quantitative report of the Bronze Snake shop (Peppers & Rogers, 2016). If the Bronze Snake shop gets good remarks for their products then they should continue for long-term sale for future generations as it leads to long term competition. Competitive factor also depends on brand quality and innovation of the product (Percy & Elliott, 2016). A good success with strong reputation creates tough competition in the market.
The marketing mix of the Bronze Snake shop with the other competitors was followed in the table below:
|
Factors |
Bronze Snake shop |
Clothing retailing in Australia |
Cotton on clothing Pty. ltd |
Fast future brands Pty ltd |
|
Industry Product features |
Retail industry Branded, standard quality in clothes |
Retail industry Consumer goods and clothing |
Retail industry Footwear, clothing and consumer accessories |
Retail industry Fashion retail shop |
|
Benefits |
Unique, innovative Global demand |
Customer satisfaction, more profit |
Stylish, trendy and high demand |
Product diversity, variety of choices |
|
Growth Revenue (Annual sales) |
468.17 billion $8.85 million |
3.9 billion $19 billion |
$80.818 118 billion |
A $2billion A $1.5 billion |
|
Threat Opportunities |
Poor quality will discourage customers Modern technology will lead to more business |
Economic uncertainty Franchise and chain stores |
Substitute effect Greater customer satisfaction leads to expansion of business and high profit |
Lack of information create poor sales High standard fashion and advertisements will attract more customers |
|
Market share level |
7.4 % |
2.4% |
5% |
4 % |
Table 1: Marketing matrix of Bronze Snake shop
(Source: Author)
Referring to the strength of Bronze Snake shop, then there are few factors that can lead to success and stability of the industry. To be different from other industry, Bronze Snake shop should possess some unique attributes like innovation and this is what marketing business is about (Pride & Ferrell, 2016). Innovation comes from more and more of research and development in respect of that particular industry. When the Bronze Snake shop performs well it creates more competition due to high price and success, further creates demanding industry (Slack, 2015). Expand of industry occurs because of increasing in demand, thereby increasing in demand leads to increase in production and output growth for Bronze Snake shop.
On the other side, strength comes from correcting the weaknesses. Every industry has positive and negative attributes. As it is marketing business, hold top position therefore, Bronze Snake shop creates huge competition in the market (Spyropoulou et al., 2017). Low advertising, poor quality products, lack of information and high prices for the commodities can act as weakness to the business.
Therefore, Bronze Snake shop when consists of low sales and productivity with adequate knowledge creates threats in terms of decline in consumer, low level output and more rivals (Strauss, 2016).
Opportunities for Bronze Snake shop can be in the form of advancement in the means of resources, investment in the technology and creative ways to expand business (Whittington et al., 2017). More encouragement in the marketing can create more job opportunities leading to more competition and profit.
Conclusion
The report gives an overview of the marketing strategy of Bronze Snake shop with its functions and various stages involved in marketing strategy. The paper gives the scope, aim and mission of the company. Along with this, it gives the internal environment analysis using product services and brand identification, in addition to internal analysis of strength and weakness of the company is given. Marketing strategy when achieved with all the plans and procedure leads to more productive output and goodwill of the business. Bronze Snake shop is a retail industry that uses creative marketing strategy for its growth and profit. Hence, in the 11 years, it has been able to capture 7.4% of the total market share, quite higher than its rivals. It has aimed for creating unique and innovative marketable products with reasonable rates in order to create more supply and demand and Bronze Snake has achieved that successfully.
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