Executive Summary
The marketing plan is based on an event management company called “The Elegant event management Company”. The firm is a start-up organization based on partnership. The business is intended to offer multiple event management services to diverse sort of event customers from wedding events to the corporate and cultural event. The experience of the organization in different event management areas, good relations with complementary service providers, and knowledgeable and qualified workforce are the things that differentiate the organization from rivals. The firm is a complete pack of event management services and expert in providing quality services at affordable price. The growth of events is an indication of the bright future of the company. The company is covering all those areas that are on hype in the United States. The firm believes in reducing its expenses without compromising on quality. Thus, advertising will be majorly done by social media through different platforms. However, print media will be utilized as well. The overall marketing plan presents an appropriate ground for the success of the organization.
Introduction
Company Description
Creativity and innovation are important parts of a marketing plan, and here we look at a company, which has aptly used creativity to its marketing strategy to a good effect. In this paper, we will discuss about an event management company, Elegant Event Management Company, which is into the business of organizing, planning and executing different events according to the requirements and demands of clients and customers. Being an in the media business, the company has to provide services to their customers and clients according to their needs and requirements. Generally, event management companies help their clients to organize their events in a memorable, classic, and unique manner (Allen, Harris, Jago & Veal, 2001). Elegant Management Company, being an event organizer harps on innovation, creativity, and uniqueness, in planning and organizing events successfully. Because all the clients and customers want a certain amount of uniqueness in the way they want their event to take shape, innovation, and creativity is one of the biggest factors, which determine the success of an event management company like Elegant.
Products and Services
The basic functions of Elegant Management Company will be to offer various event related services to their clients and customers. Some of the events, which they are expected to manage, are
Business and corporate events – Annual Dinners, Product launch, Award and Recognition Parties and other corporate parties.
Wedding Ceremonies
Birthday Parties
Anniversary Parties
Cultural events
Dance Parties
Educational Events
Catering services
As an event management company, Elegant Management Company will offer their customers a complete suite of event management services. In all their offerings, they will add elegance, beauty, innovation, creativity, and uniqueness. The company will operate through different teams, which will be assigned to different events, and will include members who are specialized in their concerned domain of work. The company will be recruiting professional; experienced people will be hired in the company in order to make them achieving the desired results for their customers.
Ownership
Elegant will be a partnership-based company, in which my friend and I will be the owners by making required investments. The profits of the company will also be shared by both of us. The idea of making a partnership is to minimize the burden of capital, and it helps in taking collective decisions.
Strategic focus and plan
Mission Statement
The mission statement of the company is:
“To work together in a cohesive manner with our clients to make event memorable by offering necessary expertise and exceeding the expectations of clients”
Elegant will always value and respect the needs of our client and their demands and will ensure which not only meets the expectations but also exceeds them. We will also strive to maintain the highest standards of ethical and would leave no scope for complaints and irregularities in what we do.
Marketing Goals
Success and growth of an organization hinge upon the Marketing strategy of any organization, and it plays an important role in the success and growth. Marketing enables the company to market its products and services to customers. Marketing creates awareness amongst the customers about the services and products being offered by the company. In our case, we will take help of traditional methods of marketing to reach out to our customer. Online methods will be used to attract clients, and it will be one of the most cost effective mediums for us. Various print mediums will be used to generate awareness and recall in a permanent manner as well.
Core Competency and Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Core competencies are the specific expertise and knowledge in operating business that serves the organization with a competitive advantage. The core competencies of the organization include:
Abilities to manage multiple sorts of events
Organization’s good relations with complementary service provider
Company’s creative thinking abilities
Risk management skills
Flexibility to arrange the event according to the demands of the customer if they ask any last time changes in the event.
Also, a unique combination of staff members who have been a part of different sort of event management activities are the core competencies of the form.
The selection of employees from every different sort of event management fields and other mentioned capabilities are the core competencies that differentiate the company from its competitors and give the “elegance event management” a competitive edge over its rivals.
Situation Analysis
SWOT Analysis
Industry Analysis
PEST analysis is an important tool used to determine the situation of the organization. Therefore, this tool is deployed for industry analysis.
Political/ legal environment: The United States is amongst the places that support events. The government leverages people to arrange an event in the country and supports event management companies in this way. In 2015, total revenue of the sector was $ 5 billion that was generated from different sort of events such as conferences and meetings, outdoor events, cultural festivals, music events, and exhibition and trade shows. The annual growth of the industry is 4.8 percent. The total number of event management organization is 203368 (IBIS World, 2015a).
Economic environment: The economic level of the United States is improving. With increased employment, the purchasing power of the country is on the increase. The rate of inflation is decreasing as well (Focus Economics, 2015). Therefore, people and organizations both can afford to outsource event management services. In 2015, the event management organizations through tradeshows and event planning made $13 million revenue. It has been expected that the conference and event planning activities will grow up to 3.6 percent on an annual basis (IBIS World, 2015b).
Social environment: The social environment of the country is positive for event management organizations as alone in 2015, up to 1 million meetings were held in the United States. The corporate sector spent $40.8 million on events (International Institute of Event Management, 2015).
Technological environment: As it is evident that technological advancement is ever changing field; it has an immense impact on all industries and event management industry has no exception. Event management companies are making the use of advanced technology for promoting their events. The Elegant event management has the capacity to run its event in a modern manner. The company will utilize social media for its events’ promotions. It will use advanced technology in its R&D for keeping themselves up to date regarding new fashion and trends in event management (Ostroff, 2015).
Competitor analysis
Elegant event management is offering divers sort of event management services to its customers. Thus, the all event management companies that are offering corporate events, product launch, award and recognition parties, annual dinners, and other corporate parties, birthday parties, annual dinners, educational events, wedding ceremonies, anniversary parties, and catering services are the competitors of the firm. However, Karen Brown, Eventique, a Kurant Event, Blue Ivy, LK events, and Kristeen LaBrot Events are amongst the biggest competitors of the enterprise.
Customer Analysis
As the organization is offering a variety of services regardless of any profession, therefore, the customers of the organization include individuals who want to get married, arrange birthday parties, anniversary parties, corporate professionals, social organizations (for cultural events), and universities. The reason due to which associations or individual attracts towards event planner can be many. For example, when organizations attempt to do any event they get out a budget that leads them to inefficiencies. Corporations and individuals hire event management organizations for protection, saving time and money, and creativity in their events. The annual number of marriages in the United States is up to 2077000 (Static brain, 2016). From a survey, it is clear that the corporate customers are going to increase their spending on events that will be beneficial for the organization (The Statistic Portal, 2015).
Market-Product Focus
Marketing and Product Objectives
Marketing objectives:
The marketing objective is to increase the awareness of the organization among the 55 percent target audience in the first year.
Product objective:
The objective of the company is to offer the customers innovative, exceptional, and unique event management services from planning to implementation at very reasonable price.
Target market:
The Company is offering its services in multiple domains of event management, therefore; the target market of the company is vast. The target customers of the organization include general people who want to get married, corporate professionals from the field of education and music, government organizations who are interested in conducting cultural events, and people who love to arrange a gathering. The company will target individuals from lower to upper class; however, the company will target small to large (up to 50 to 60 employees) organizations.
Points Of Difference
The points that differentiate the Elegant event management from others are its unique combination of services. The company has experience of managing all sort of event. The firm has good relations with complementary service providers, so corporate professionals do not need to contact media for their event coverage. Individuals do not need to hire photographers separately. Due to the ability to manage versatile events, the enterprise has an ability to manage risk and conduct high quality events at lower possible cost. The organization is flexible as it has the ability to accommodate things according to the demand of customers. Qualified and experienced staff from different event management fields is the specialty of the organization. The corporation will offer services to its customers from set up to clean up. All these features together will differentiate the company from competitors.
Positioning
The company will position itself as an expert in conducting different sort of events. The slogan of the company will be “We are Different: as Excellence Is Not Our Act but a Habit”.
Marketing Program
Product strategy
The company will target the diffident segments and will offer diverse event management services to its customers. The firm will offer event management services for corporate events that will include product launch, annual dinners, award and recognition parties and other corporate parties. Moreover, the organization will target the non-corporate segments through offering Wedding planning services, Birthday Parties services, and Anniversary Parties services. The company will offer Cultural events services, Dance Parties, Educational Events, and Catering services customers who belong to diverse sectors. The group will make sure to provide a set-up to clean-up event management services to its customers. In all their offerings, they will include stylishness, attractiveness, novelty, originality, and uniqueness. For the attainment of goals, the business will work though diverse teams, which will be consigned for dissimilar events, and will comprise members who are specialized in their concerned area of work.
Price strategy
The pricing strategy will be cost effective as compared to the companies and individuals trying to arrange the event themselves. The price will depend on the type of event; and what is being demanded by the customers. The average price for wedding planning including Birthday, Anniversary, and Dance Parties will be 35000 per event. Average price for per educational event will be charged from 20000 to 30000. For corporate events, it will vary from 300000 to 500000 for organizations carry less than 20000 employees. However, for cultural events, 250000 to 350000 will be charged with the capacity of 3000 people.
Promotion strategy
For the promotion of the services, the company will adopt the multichannel strategy. The firm will use print media and social media for its advertisements. It will post its advertisements on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The Elegant event management will market its services through Gmail and will place its event videos on YouTube so people can observe the benefits and feel the quality and uniqueness that they can achieve by associating with the organization for their events’ planning. Pamphlets will be distributed in corporations and universities, and direct mails will be sent with discount offers to the organizations that are used to do such event on a regular basis.
Place strategy
The “Elegant event management” company establishes a website through which people can get detail regarding the prices, facilities provided to them during the event, and discount offers. People can directly call to the management for booking and details. They can visit the office; even at the website, an agent will be available 24/7 from whom customers can get assistance.
Financial Data And Projection
Revenue projection
Breakeven Analysis
Five Year Profit Projection
Organizational Structure
The structure of the company will be based on various departments and divisions, which will carry out specific functions. Various departments of the company will include finance and accounting department, HR department, creative team and marketing department. All of these functions will work in a cohesive manner to achieve the goals of the company. The HR department along with conducting workforce planning and the devising the incentive structure of the employees will do hiring and recruitment. For a generation of innovative and creative ideas, a creative team will be put in place to help in making the events successful. Budgeting and costs of the events will be taken care of by the finance and accounts department. In order to promote the company and bring customers and clients, we will have a dedicated marketing department.
Implementation
Evaluation and Control
For instant evaluation of advertising activities customers responses on social media will be analyzed and if it is found that advertisements are not getting established targets, then modification in advertising activities will be done. However, increased sales will help in evaluating ultimate performance of the marketing activities. Increased satisfaction, positive customer feedback, and repeat purchase will help in determining the performance of the organization. Based on customer feedback, improvement will be done that will enable the organization to be best in its field. Both monthly and yearly revenue will be traced, and growth will be evaluated against set standards.
References
Allen, J., Harris, R., Jago, L. and Veal, A. (2001). Events Beyond 2000: Setting the Agenda. Australian Centre for Event Management, pp. 1-20. Retrieved from, http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/2100/430/Proceedings%202000%20Conference.pdf?sequence=1#page=16
Anderson, J., Narus, J., and Rossum, W. (2006). Customer Value Propositions in Business Markets. Harvard Business Review, pp. 1-10. Retrieved from http://www.supersmous.co.za/DownloadFiles/QuadS-HBR-value-propositions.pdf
Focus Economics. (2015). US Economic Forecast: United States Economy Data. Retrieved January 27, 2016, from http://www.focus-economics.com/countries/united-states
IBIS World. (2015a). Party & Event Planners in the US: Market Research Report. Retrieved January 27, 2016, from http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/party-event-planners.html
IBIS World. (2015b). Trade Show and Conference Planning in the US: Market Research Report. Retrieved January 27, 2016, from http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/default.aspx?indid=1502
International Institute Of Event Management. (2015). Career Prospects in the Event Management Industry. Retrieved January 27, 2016, from https://institute-of-event-management.com/career-prospects-event-management-industry
Ostroff, H. S. (2015). The Top 14 Event Management Statistics Every Event Planner Needs to Know4. Capterra. Retrieved January 27, 2016, from http://blog.capterra.com/14-event-management-statistics-every-event-planner-needs-to-know/
Static brain. (2016). Marriage Statistics. Retrieved January 27, 2016, from http://www.statisticbrain.com/marriage-statistics/
The Statistic Portal. (2015). Will your organization increase, decrease or maintain spending in 2015 on the following types of corporate events?. Retrieved January 27, 2016, from http://www.statista.com/statistics/257280/planned-change-in-spending-on-corporate-events-in-the-us-by-type-of-event/
