Marketing Planning of Spirit Kicks

No matter what type of business is aiming at developing, as well as promotion of products and services, it always needs the proper knowledge about marketing and skilful management. No doubt, there are many other additional aspects necessary to run the business correctly; nevertheless those two remain basic and dominant among all. The producing of Spirit Kicks’ goods belongs to a kind of local business, which is about to expand its scale of operations. Generally, a team of young ladies has developed it and is trying to make more popular. The original idea of creation Spirit Kicks touches the desired performance of school spirit. The peculiarity of it goes to a similarity between style of school spirit shakers and college colors. Students may wear them on the bottom of jeans, on the cuffs of sleeves, around the collar of a shirt. Moreover, they even have fringe that can turn out into a skirt. Young entrepreneurs sold many products during the past year, but it did not go out the boundaries of the campus. Now they are interested in further growth and promotion of goods in other college campuses. However, many creative projects seem to be real in the near future, too.

Evidently there are many points for the entrepreneurs to focus on. First of all, they should pay great attention to the marketing environment. This includes a variety of necessary factors that are tightly connected with each other and create an inevitable impact on the whole business. Therefore, these important elements exist in two main dimensions: internal and external (The Marketing Environment: What it is all about? n.d.). The first one concerns 5 Ms: Men, Money, Material, Market, and Machinery. Consequently, another one includes macro-environment and micro-environment and is much more complex. There are several factors of macro-environment, which have great influences on the whole business: political events, economic changes, natural disasters, technological advancements, cultural differences and demographic factors (The Marketing Environment: What it is all about? n.d.). Micro-environment deals with customers, competitors, public and suppliers (Ramkiganti, n.d.). Even if the scale of business is not large, these factors remain vital.

A good example of micro-environment type of marketing would be building a stable positive relationship with customers. At the same time it often entails new logistics (The Marketing Environment: What it is all about? n.d.). As a result, general consolidation within organization may grow into a big success. The example of macro-environment would be the situation when entrepreneurs think over the issues regarding macro-economic environment. Therefore, their business may overcome probable obstacles and flow into successful one in the global market.

In spite of many pitfalls it is a high time for young business people to do their best for making a promising and positive micro-environment with the help of proper interaction between individuals and organization (The Marketing Environment: What it is all about? n.d.). In fact, there should be enough suppliers, people responsible for public relations (PR) and advertising, as well as those monitoring the competitors and studying the market. The marketing planning includes a well-organized schedule of activities, in order to involve as many potential customers and partners as possible. It presupposes many strategies and ideas to succeed. Discussing goods that refer to the clothing and such kinds of accessories, as the Spirit Kicks’, it is necessary to think about new ways to satisfy customers. Hence, it presupposes probable additional services like free testing patterns, one free product when buying three, discount for people who regularly order Spirit Kicks and involving new customers, for instance. Nevertheless, smart approach to such a business never neglects the well-developed ways to implement those ideas. Besides, the variety of products matters a lot as well, because a wide range of products is always becoming more interesting and creative to the students on campus and will be constantly popular. In order to expand the market, a good strategy also refers to the promotion of ads and PR campaigns.

The relationships with customers may be perfect, when the Spirit Kicks meet students’ preferences, including commodity prices. In addition, it is necessary to respect probable competitors but be confident enough in products’ peculiarity and the whole marketing planning. Nevertheless, the main strategic set of actions must deal with customers (Zenger & Folkman, 2009).

According to Roose (n.d.), “Image and public opinion mean everything, especially in the increasingly influential realm of social media. The individual or group who wins the media race will win the ultimate goal: the trust of the people”. It means that the more times people from other campuses are able to hear about the Spirit Kicks’ products, look at them or try the best it is for the business. In fact, even though eight students are only interested in such goods, from the first time two among all ten will definitely buy them. Interestingly, if the product is worth praise, then for the next time the numbers of interested students, including potential buyers, will only grow. Different types of flyers and ads not only in the local college but in the neighbors’ ones, publications in different newspapers popular among the students, and radio or TV announcements would be very good techniques to expand the market. Such ads may say about pleasant changes about goods and interesting innovations. Probably, in some period of time Spirit Kicks had better change the style and color spectrum a little bit. Moreover, it could be also good to add a definitely new thing to the range of existing Spirit Kicks’ goods. Interestingly, but they may be even totally different in other campus in order to outline the uniqueness of each college. It depends on the needs and wishes of each school’s students, because they often have peculiar mottos and rules, hence different views on many things.

It is important to make sure that some kinds of Spirit Kicks would suit the college students. If not, it is not a big problem because there are many methods regarding the main task how to involve customers. It will be a new challenge to overcome and succeed. In conclusion, it is obligatory to regularly monitor the marketing processes, especially strengths and weaknesses of the Spirit Kicks’ producers.