Abstract
Skylux Construction Company intends to provide high quality services to its customers. Marketing is a very important exercise that every business should practice, and consequently, well done marketing is reflected in the increase in sales. Skylux Construction Company has a marketing campaign that is meant to promote their services to its target clients in the most effective way. This paper explores the intended target market, competitors to the business, and the promotional plan for the company.
The paper will put out a detailed plan on how it intends to attract and retain customers. It will also give a budget of the marketing costs that will be incurred. By the end of the paper, it will be clear what the business intends to do to attain maximum returns and increase its customer base.
- Target market:
The company’s target market is mainly comprised of builders, contractors, and homeowners in the Australian region. The company aims to provide its clients with high-class renovation and remodelling services, while at the same time ensuring that they get the value for their money.
The company chose this particular market because it matches the company’s main objectives and goals. The services provided by Skylux Construction Company are quick, up-to-date, and highly affordable, as compared to those of our competitors. These qualities are meant to satisfy and meet all the needs and requirements of the clients.
- Competitors:
The main competitors to Skylux are Queensland Construction Company Pty Limited, Top Tiles Australia Pty Limited, and Karimbla Construction Services Pty Limited, all being based in Australia.
- Queensland Construction Company Pty Limited:
This construction company offers a wide range of services, including full contracting options for new buildings and additions, as well as snowploughing services. They only offer a few contracts for the snowploughing per season. Their approach to customer service is a one-on-one kind of approach and they have in place stringent policies to ensure that their services are up to standard.
The services offered by the Queensland Construction Company are a bit limited. They do not offer a wide range of options to the client and their contracts are also limited. Their approach to customer service is reasonable. The company needs to consider more specific measures to enforce quality control.
- Top Tiles Australia Pty Limited:
It is a full service construction company. It designs most of its homes free of charge to the homeowner. The company maintains its homes through a standard 1-year warranty. Clients are free to make enquiries at any time during the 1 year grace period, which is a good approach to customer service. For quality control the company has put employed highly skilled personnel.
The range of services offered by Top Tiles Australia Pty Limited is quite wide, which is commendable. The 1-year warranty is an attractive package to its clients. Being always available for consultations is a very good customer approach and having well-trained and highly skilled employees are one of the best quality control measures. It is a sure way of providing excellent services to the clients.
- Karimbla Construction Services Pty Limited:
It is a full-service company, which offers remodelling services exclusively. The company offers the option of facilitating 100% financing for qualified clients via third-party money lenders. Their main customer approach is making a follow-up on the client’s finances, and making available options for easy payments. For quality control, the construction company ensures constant communication with the client throughout the project.
The company has limited its clientele base, by choosing to offer a single type of service which is remodelling. This will generally affect their income. Their way of approach to customer service is also a bit demeaning, as it shows a bit of distrust on the customer’s part .However; their measure of quality control is highly recommended as it ensures the client gets exactly what they want, or even better.
- Promotional Plan:
There are several ways of advertising. Skylux will do online advertising as well as personal advertising. The business will have an official website, where all its activities will be posted .This will make it possible to make use of the banner exchange services available on the internet. Social networking sites will also be an effective advertising platform for the company.
The company will hire sales and marketing personnel who will carry out the personal advertising errands. The personnel will apply the door-to-door marketing approach. This way, they will be able to interact more with the potential clients and will have the opportunity to get more ideas and know exactly what the clients want. The marketing personnel will use questionnaires in their errands, so as to get the most out of the potential clients that they will meet. This information will be used in the expansion plans and improvement of the existing services. They will also be responsible of designing brochures that will be used to market the business.
Skylux Construction Company plans to give offers on some of their services. This will be done according to the type of service the client has paid for. The offers will be on a seasonal base, depending on what type of service is highly on demand in the market.
Skylux Construction Company will also make use of advertising signs. Signs are a powerful communication medium and have a way of commanding full attention of the person viewing them. Signs will index the business so people will be able to locate it easily and faster. Signs will also catch the attention of people who can’t read.
- Budget for the marketing expenses:
Marketing expenses for each month will be as follows:
- Customer Service Policies and Procedures:
Skylux Construction Company has formulated customer service policies and procedures that will help the company generate direction to serve customers in the best way. This is highly dependent on the input of the management and employees. The policies and procedures are well and clearly set. The policies will be well written in handouts that will be issued to all the employees in the company as well as in the business contracts. The procedures, well defined as way of routine practices, will be clearly stated in the job description handouts. This will be done to ensure smooth flow of activities in the company. It will also help in the handling of clients and their needs and demands.
The policies and procedures are formulated in a way that will allow more interactions between the customers and the employees. They are also set in a way to enhance free communication between the management and the employees.
- Marketing policies:
Skylux Construction Company will hire a marketing manager, who will be responsible for the marketing in the firm. The manager will be a highly trained and experienced. One of the things to avoid in the promotional strategies is making the prices of the services offered public. Prices will be discussed in confidence between the client and an employee of the company. This reduces chances of competitive prices from competitors.
As a construction company, Skylux would not want to advertise their business on the media to ensure that they retain their originality. Advertising on the media gives the competitors an edge to be better than you .Again, it is expensive to advertise on the media, especially for a starting business.
Policies of advertising in:
- Yellow pages; this refers to a telephone directory of businesses where the company’s services and products are listed alphabetically by field along with classified advertising. The company’s policies for advertising on the Yellow pages will be not to list the prices of the services and policies. Another policy will be to list down all the contacts of the business, so as to make it easy for the potential clients to locate the business.
- Business Cards; it will be the policy of the company to advertise itself using business cards. The business card will include the holder’s name, company affiliation (particularly the company logo), and contact information (address, telephone number (s), fax number, email address (es), and website). The business cards will be designed very attractively and every employee should have one, as this will boost their own confidence in the roles they play in the company.
- Signs; these being outdoor advertising structures, will play a major role in advertising the business. The bill boards will strategically be positioned around the region, especially along the highways and other streets. The signs should be readable, noticeable, brief and should major on key words.
- Business profiles; business profile channels will be used to explore a variety of other successful companies in the market, new business models and entrepreneurial ideas from sources such as the internal market (employees), and the external market (customers). These will effectively be used to develop new ideas and put them into practice, all in effort of providing better, up to date and fast services.
- Evaluation of plan:
Skylux Construction Company intends to evaluate its marketing plan frequently by:
- Looking at the sales; the sales are supposed to be going high. The sales are dependent on a number of factors including the charge out rates.
- Asking the clients as well as the employees; this involves getting feedbacks from clients and employees and seeking their opinion.
- Checking if the plan has a positive return on investment.
- Checking if the marketing tactics make it easier to sell the available services.
- Checking if the advertising and networking activities create new opportunities for the business to thrive and expand.
Measures that the company will use to test if the policies and procedures are being carried out include:
- Conducting random performance checks: this will keep the employees on their toes and will therefore have no option but to follow the procedures to the latter.
- Conducting surveys: this will be done as a follow-up practice to check if the clients are satisfied and if they will get the value for their money.
- Use of incentives: the management will organise for motivational incentives such as rewarding an employee whose performance stands out, giving promotions on merit and organising fun events for the employees.
References
Per V. Jenster, H. M. (2005). Managing business marketing & sales: an international
perspective. California: Copenhagen Business School Press DK.
Ruskin-Brown, I. (2006). Marketing your service business. London: Thorogood Publishing.
Victor L. Hunter, D. T. (2007). Business to business marketing: creating a community of
customers. New York City: McGraw-Hill Professional.
