EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Marketing is an integral part of a company’s operations. Thus being a tool for creating service or product awareness, it is essential that an organization invests in effective marketing techniques and tools (McDonald & Keegan, 2002). From this analysis of G Spot corporations, marketing plays an imperative role within its organizational operation facet. The marketing plan will provide a situational analysis of the business environment and establish proper approaches towards the achievement of a profitable outcome (Westwood, 2002). It will also offer an insightful look at the various market segments that G Spot corporation targets with its product Beana. The marketing plan seeks to boost the company’s profitability by increasing the revenue by 50% that will translate to a 10% return on investment. The marketing will further increase the performance of the company’s stock which it projects will appreciate bringing about a 6.5% share return to investors.
ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS
Political Factors
With many shoe companies outsourcing most of their production functions to other competitive industrial locations, there is need to adhere to set international laws and customs policies. G-Spot will contract Yu An Logistics to aid in the outsourcing functions in mainland China. The company’s management will be keen on ensuring its outsourced are up to par and operate within the legal boundaries of the Chinese labor laws (Zhang, Ko, & Kim, 2010). The company will further implement its operations blueprint that will ensure the business ethics go hand in hand with the Chinese laws and regulations.
Economic Environment
The nation’s GDP has increased from by 0.4% in its third quarter standing at 3.9% which has brought about a rise in disposable income (Sharf, 2014). This will ultimately impact positively on the prospects of the G-Spot Corporations as it intends to venture rigorously into new market frontiers. The company will also save on costs emanating from the outsourcing of its core production and design functions.
Sociocultural Environment
The shoe fashion trends fashion has changed dramatically over the years and season after season. The G-Spot Corporations will invest in research in order to keep up to date with the emerging and dynamic trends globally. The company will also seek to have tailor-made shoes for different target markets in order to fuse innovation and indigenousness.
Technological Environment
The Technological advances observed particularly on the online platforms have had a profound impact on the way products are advertised, distributed and sold. The company will tap into social media as well as website in order to boost consumer responsiveness and interaction, as well as the enhancement of sales. The company will also use technology in the branding and advertisement functions which will involve the use of animated commercials and on-line pop-ups.
Competitive Environment
With most of the top footwear industries putting much focus on athletic footwear, G-Spot Corporations will have an effective market entry with its investment in casual shoes. The company’s competitive advantage lies in its avoidance by niche strategy that has an ultimate focus on establishing a growing transformable shoe market. The company, in its target markets, will gain a competitive advantage through an effective pricing strategy. Each market segment will be assigned competitive prices in order to ensure the G-Spot Corporations shoes are within the financial reach of the targeted consumers.
MARKET SEGMENTATION
The G-Spot Corporations has two market segments-primary and secondary. The primary segment is the working men and women while the secondary comprises of college students. These active market segments represent consumers that go for comfort, fashion and competitive prices when it comes to shoes. Despite their well-to-do incomes, these groups consistently seek quality products that are status-oriented and complement their active lifestyles. To understand these segments the 4Ps, 5Cs and STP tools will be used to analyze them.
4Ps
Product
The Beana shoe line will have unique features that fuse comfort and fashion. The shoes are made from fine genuine leather with a unique finishing. The products will be continuously diversified to incorporate emerging fashion trends and consumer preferences.
Price
The shoe will retail at $70 and adjusted accordingly with the seasonal changes. The price will vary with different global markets factoring in taxation and other charges.
Promotion
The company will use social media and mainstream media to carry out promotions of the products. There will be intensified advertisements and public relations avenues such as annual global exhibitions in trade fairs.
Place
The company hopes in the near future to do away with an intensive distribution structure that entails the use of many distributors. It will instead adopt an exclusive distribution structure in order to enhance accountability and quality in the distribution of its Beana shoe product to the end-consumers.
5Cs
Consumer
The working men and women make up 58% of the 25 to 35-year-old population (Lhi-Zhi & Jie-bing, 2011). With the growing economy, more are expected to join the labor force. Citing the 3.9% GDP growth, the disposable incomes of this demographic group will increase which will project the Beana shoe line revenues. The college student population currently stands at 1.3 million in the country with most of them depending on their guardians for funds. It is thus prudent to note that this group does shoe shopping for pleasure buying them for their wants and not needs.
Company
The G-Spot Corporations has set its eyes on boosting its revenues by 50% in the next three years. In implementing a proper marketing and business approach, this will be realized. Its core mission is to fuse quality, comfort, and affordability in its Beana shoe-line.
Collaborators
The company has key partners that will help translate its marketing plan into a reality. The shoe distributors, graphic designers, online platform administrators and the mainstream media are some of its core collaborators. Through contractual relationships guided by mutual trust and respect, these partners are expected to help the Beana brand become global.
Competitors.
The company’s top competitors are Nike, Adidas and Dr. Scholl’s. All these companies are inclined towards the athletic niche leaving the casual niche much penetrable for G-Spot. Despite their wealth of experience in the industry, G-Spot believes with the right marketing techniques it will be at par with them as a global brand.
Climate
The business climate has been well analyzed by the company using the PEST analysis segment in the environmental analysis segment. Using the PEST analysis, the company will understand how best to align its marketing strategy to factor in the political, economic, sociocultural and technological elements in the market.
STP
This three-step strategy will help in the establishment of an effective marketing plan aimed at various target market segments.
Segmenting
The G-Spot Corporations has established two working men and women, and the college students as its primary and secondary markets respectively. This follows their attributes based on their financial capabilities and lifestyle. The working group is established to have more disposable income due to the current GDP, as well as its projected growth. The group is also associated with an active lifestyle. The college students, on the other hand, are associated with impulse buying highly inclined towards the emerging shoe trends as well as an active, youthful lifestyle.
Targeting
The marketing plan will approach these two groups differently. The advertisements on mainstream media such as the Television, newspapers and magazines will be focused on the working group. The social media platforms will majorly target college students fusing a fresh and innovative strategy that will encourage consumer interaction as well as consumer-responsiveness. The company will also create mobile apps to enhance this marketing technique further.
Positioning
The company intends to structure the Beana shoe line as a quality and comfortable shoe that also incorporates the affordability as an attribute. It targets the discerning buyers that are keen on being unique without stepping out of their comfort zones.It is this position that guides the establishment of this marketing plan.
PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
Website Analysis: With an effective IT department the company hopes to keep track of the company’s progress and penetration on the online platform as it seeks to market itself. Using a web analytics software, the company will manage to track website downloads as well as links that lead to other affiliate links or advertisements on other websites. The analytics package will be essential in following the subscriber movements around www.Gspotcorp.org website. The company hopes to achieve over a million visits on a quarterly basis.
Market share: As per studies, the global shoe market is expected to hit $194 billion by the year 2015 with sale volumes reaching 13.5 billion pairs by the end of 2014. The company intends to have a 1% market share globally in five years’ time with an annual sales volume of 350,000 pairs. This will point to a 22% annual market share growth in the home market.
Customer analysis: Using a customer value model, the company hopes to enhance customer retention by 15% annually. This will further be established through improved customer interaction on both the online and employee-customer relations. The company will also increase its customer service expenditure to enhance the customer satisfaction levels.
Product analysis: The Company will also use surveys on online platforms and mainstream media to analyze the new product adoption rates. With the employment of the marketing plan, the company hopes to boost the product adoption rates to an annual high of 22%. This is based on the casual shoe wear niche market which is 46% of the current footwear market.
SWOT ANALYSIS
Strengths
- Product innovation: The G-Spot Corporations’ Beana shoe line incorporates unique branding and design that appeals to many market segments.
- Brand Logo: The Beana logo is easily recognizable and attractive. It is only a matter of a few years that the logo becomes global due to its unique design.
- Use of online marketing platforms: The Company’s marketing strength lies in its active use of the social media and websites to promote the company’s products.
- Outsourced functions: The relocation of some of its functions to China helps manage its cost structure which translates to increased operations and revenue streams.
Weaknesses
- Lack of supply control: The Company having most of its functions in China; it has less control of its products. The products are susceptible to compromised quality.
- Lack of an adequate global distribution channels: The Company is yet to identify major distributor to oversee its products on a global scale. A single distributor is ideal in ensuring quality and customer satisfaction is enhanced.
- High advertisement costs: With its core aim of reaching out to the global market, the company will have to review its advertisement budget by 25%. This will be strenuous on the company’s overall financial plans.
- Inadequate of retail outlets: The Company lacks enough number of outlets in both home and global markets. As compared to its competitors, the company has relatively low number of fully functioning outlets.
Opportunities
- Favorable industrial patterns: Much of the footwear industry is inclined towards athletic shoes. This means the casual shoe niche is easily penetrable for G-Spot Corporations
- E-commerce: Through platforms such as Ali-Baba and Amazon the company can easily source for buyers and distributors of its products. It can also look for potential business collaborators
- Emerging global markets: Markets in the East Asian region such as China and India have a growing middle class which has a high purchasing power (Zhang, Ko, & Kim, 2010). The two markets also are characterized by large populations that make these areas prospective for the company.
- Mergers: Due to the dynamic nature of the business world, many companies are opening up to mergers and acquisitions in order to incorporate a sustenance approach key to business growth.
Threats
- Counterfeits: The outsourcing of functions to Chinese opens up doors to the infiltration of the company’s products with fakes. This can impact negatively on the G-Spot Corporations’ product quality portfolio (Lhi-Zhi & Jie-bing, 2011).
- Competitor’s innovation and financial muscle: The Company is competing with strong companies that have been around for decades. These companies have virtually conquered the whole of the footwear industry.
- Consumer bargaining power: With the variety of shoe lines from different companies, consumers have a high bargaining power. They can easily switch brands in order to buy products at affordable prices.
- Macroeconomic risks: As the G-Spot Corporations intends to take the Beana shoe-line global, it will have to contend with the varied external business environments. There are emerging issues in various political, economic, sociocultural and technological environments which must be handled tactfully lest they ruin the company’s prospects.
References
Lhi-Zhi, D., & Jie-bing, Y. (2011). Research on Industrial Competitiveness in China:Status,Gap and Outlook. East Asia Economic Journal, 2(4), 114-163.
McDonald, M., & Keegan, W. J. (2002). Marketing plans that work. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Sharf, S. (2014, October 30). U.S. GDP Grew 3.5% In The Third Quarter 2014 - Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthasharf/2014/10/30/u-s-gdp-grew-3-5-in-the-third-quarter-2014/
Westwood, J. (2002). The marketing plan: A step-by-step guide. London: Kogan Page.
Zhang, H., Ko, E., & Kim, H. (2010). The Influences of Customer Equity Drivers on Customer Equity and Loyalty in the Sports Shoe Industry: Comparing Korea and China. Journal of Global Fashion Marketing: Bridging Fashion and Marketing, 1(2), 110-118.
