Introduction
For a long period of time special needs of people living and working in hot environments have been ignored. People living in hot regions are overly subjected to serious injuries and bad health states resulting from prolonged exposure to sunlight. To deal with this problem, an innovation was introduced; it is a bandana that comes with a special pouch where ice may be inserted to cool the neck. With the bandana, people living in hot areas can carry their daily tasks irrespective of the time of day (Canadian Center of Science and Education, 2009). To hit the target market, effective communication lines will be developed. The bandana will also help athletes from hot regions to continue training without much harm to their skin. Our product will be sold at fair prices and will target a specific market. Our company’s marketing plan will be designed in a manner to easily avail the product to the target market to help them enjoy life just like people in cooler climates.
Marketing Objectives
Bandana will create a completely new world to those living in hot climates as they will be able to attend to their daily duties, even in the midst of a hot day when temperatures are high. Our team will see to it that workers and athletes living in hot climatic conditions pursue their daily activities despite rampant challenges such as sunstroke. In such a case, our main goal will be to distribute more than 10,000 bandanas on a monthly basis, and we intend to start right away (Wood, 2010). Our future objective is to target customers and we will do this through personal selling and sales promotions. We also intend to increase the monthly units distributed from 10,000 to about 20,000 in the future. Increased sales imply the improvement of lives of those living in hot regions.
Slogan
The company’s slogan will be “BANDANA, cool yourself”. This slogan implies that our product will bring comfort to those who feel discomfort from strong sun and high temperatures. The word “BANDANA” in the slogan signifies our product and its unique features. The word “cool” in the slogan signifies comfort resulting from the use of the product. The word yourself represents customers who are intended to benefit from the product. The slogan clearly explains the importance of our product to the target market and will undoubtedly work for us and the target audience (Harner & Zimmerman, 2002). There are very high chances that potential customers from hot regions will want to try the product based on how the product will improve their wellbeing, cooling their neck and head. We have used a “cap” design. The design representation of the slogan is presented in the appendix.
Marketing Mix
Putting the right product at the right place and in the right time is the main marketing recipe for success. With an effective marketing mix, we stand the chance of externalizing our plans to avoid foreseeable mistakes in the future. The four P’s are discussed below.
The first P represents the product (Varey, 2002). Here, we will have to evaluate several factors such as the product or commodity to distribute and that is bandana. We will also need to know the problem to be solved by the use of the product, and that is cooling of the neck. The features and the benefits of the product will be also evaluated for future improvements. Product uniqueness will also be of great importance in determining how well the product will attract customers. The product stands a good chance of sustaining itself in the market since it effectively deals with the problem of people living in hot regions. The second P represents price. We will carefully examine the price of the product starting from production, through the purchasing process until the product reaches the final user. Such variables like competitive pricing, retail markups and payment plans will be put to consideration when evaluating prices. Bandana is a new product and may not face great challenges in the market. The third “P” stands for promotion. Efforts made to inform the customers about the existence of the product will be considered. Methods like traditional advertising, web promotions and event marketing will be used to promote the product. Promotion is quite an important process and will require the development of marketing strategies appropriate to the price, product and customers. Poor promotion initiatives may lead to huge losses and a lot of time may be wasted (Varey, 2002). Through personal selling and exhibitions in hot regions the attention of the target market will be captured. The fourth “P” represents place. We will select strategic sites to locate our outlet stores. Several questions regarding place will need to be addressed such as whether we will be able to use brick-and-mortar retailers and online sites and merchants. Placement needs to be accompanied with an exit strategy in case we need to adopt new sales channels. We will move the stores to hot regions in order to make them easily accessible to the customers.
Communication Strategies
Communication will not just happen. Effective communication will require effective strategies to be implemented. Ads, new marketing and news release need to be used.
Magazine Advertising
Ads are mostly used to create awareness of a product or service. We will use Ads not only to create awareness of our product but also to explain its functions and usage. The signs used will incorporate important messages that the customers would be happy to know when buying and using the product (Harner & Zimmerman, 2002). The “Cool Neck Band” will help people cool off their bodies while exercising or in areas with intense heat. Five main signs will be considered as explained below.
The first sign is that of athletes holding a bottle of water. This symbolically represents efforts adopted by different athletes just to cool themselves a little bit after long exercises, especially in hot climates. The Cool Neck Band will replace these bottles and offer a long-term solution to such a problem. The second sign is that of heat coming from the asphalt in the form of vapor (Harner & Zimmerman, 2002). This symbolically represents large quantities of heat generated from the exercise or generated as the sun hits a surface. Men dressed in white clothes will be the third sign. White clothes mean that they are trying to reflect the sun and to reduce the amount of heat they are exposed to. With the innovation of Cool Neck Band, people will now be able to wear clothes of their choice. The fifth sign will show the valley of death representing extreme heat and fire.
The Ad above provides various signs that explain different types of extreme adventures targeted by the Cool Neck Band. Major targets of the Cool Neck band include athletes who participate in Ultra Marathons and Adventurers who travel to remote locations. Temperatures during the day in remote locations are very high.
New Marketing
New marketing is the most recent concept in marketing and it has been widely used by businesses in the development of a new online community. Network marketing makes it possible to check the components of particular brands (Evans, 2010). We will use new marketing techniques such as social marketing, applications, e-mails and texting to encourage existing customers to continue using our product and encourage new members to try our product. A discussion of various techniques of new marketing is presented below.
The first technique is social marketing. Here, we will seek to develop marketing concepts with the help of other approaches so as to influence human behaviors for the common good of all. For simplicity, we will use social sites such as facebook and twitter as they provide a high chance of influencing human behaviors (Evans, 2010). The second technique that may be of great importance is the use of applications. With exciting applications such as App store, we will be able to fuel excitement and extend the popularity of the product. Again, the use of applications in marketing has been supported by a growing interest in the use of mobile apps by advertisers and companies. We will also make use of email marketing as the ultimate technique. This technique provides us with a unique way of promoting the product through emails. Representatives of the company will attend to incoming mails from customers thereby providing information regarding product marketing and distribution. Our fourth technique will be a text message marketing (Evans, 2010). Here, we will develop a list of phone numbers from target audience. Using short codes, the company will have the opportunity to save time and money. New marketing strategies are essential tools in the business world today.
News Release
Ultra test
“Adventures without Limits” is an international company teaming up mighty athletes who take part in ultra marathons. The company will release the Cool Neck Band on July 16-18, 2014 during 36th annual Badwater Ultra Marathon. The Ultra Marathon has been recognized as the toughest foot race in the world. The race targets more than 95 of the world’s greatest runners, where they compete in a general race. Runners in this race are expected to cover about 135 miles, with no rest from Death Valley to Mt. Whitney where they are exposed to very high temperatures of up to 130F. With such high temperatures, the race is one of the most difficult races all over the planet. In my view the area is a good market that the company can capitalize on.
Two main reasons persuade us to move to such an environment. First, the environment here is characterized by very high temperatures and people here may not have other choice but to use our product to cool their bodies if they have to remain there. Secondly there are many heat-generating activities such as Ultra Marathon. All athletes may end up using the product. This is why our bandanas will be greatly demanded in this market. With the use of the product, runners will no longer worry about high temperatures.
Though the product is simple, it is unique and brilliant in such a market. The bandana will come in with a special pouch where small particles of ice may be kept. With the ice particles around the neck, generated heat or heat from the external environment will be kept down by the “coolness” of the ice (Postma, 1999). This will help users stick to their activities despite the high temperatures. The ice will help regulate the temperatures enabling runners put down disturbances such as muscle fatigue. As the blood passes around the neck, it loses some heat to the ice lowering an individual’s body temperature thereby cooling off his/her head. A boiler plate was used to test the effect of high temperatures on a runner. Lowered head temperatures prevent fatigue by giving comfort to the part of the brain that controls fatigue. If the rising temperatures in the head are not controlled, the muscles may find it difficult to bear the situation leading to fatigue.
Cool Neck Band looks like a scarf though the two differ greatly as the band is made up of 100% cotton material and polymer crystals. With such components, a user of Cool Neck Bands feels great and comfortable. Cool Neck Bands are being offered at a low price so users can afford them. In fact, a customer will only be required to pay about $19.5 to get this wonderful product. A research conducted on the effectiveness of Cool Neck Band revealed that the product boosted a runner’s time by 51percent or more. Further tests on blood temperature revealed that the body temperatures of runners, who used Cool Neck Band, remained not greatly affected and their level of prolactin, showing heat stress, ws two times lower as compared to runners without the band.
It is good news to all the participants of the Badwater Ultramarathon as each will receive a free Cool Neck Band in their race packet at the Health and Fitness Expo to be held on July 11, 2014. In addition to Cool Neck Bands, the Health & Fitness Expo will present other products that will facilitate a successful run in the heat (Postma, 1999). The event will take place from 10 a.m. till 8 p.m in Death Valley National Park. Mr. Karl Jornet will make a presentation at 1 p.m. He will also be available at stand No. 5 in the Expo to answer questions pertaining to bandana.
Homepage Components and Rationale
A lot of efforts and analyses will be incorporated into creation of an effective homepage. To attain great results from a developed website, we will have to come up with a well-designed system primarily containing the following components. To do well in Bing, Google and other search engines, a company’s website will need to have several key elements with constantly updated content (Harner & Zimmerman, 2002).
The current locator, also known as site ID, provides a way for users to know their current location. For instance, the locater will change the appearance of a tap when that tab has been selected by a user. Secondly, we will have the navigation method providing visitors with a unique way of finding where to navigate to get the required information. The navigation method will give access to sections of the primary content and utilities as well as guidelines on how users can get to required areas. Enhanced navigation will make the site more user-friendly. The third component is the social sharing components. Social sharing components will greatly increase the user’s experience and also improve the company’s organic search rankings (Harner & Zimmerman, 2002). With good social sharing components, the site will look nice and most importantly relevant free traffic will be increased. The fourth component is the trace route that will help users find where on the website they have been. The trace route is also known as the home link. The home link tries to answer the question, “How do I get back to where I started?” The company will incorporate these important components to help come up with a unique link in order to target a specific market and remain user-friendly. Our homepage will also have “help” icon to help users who got stuck thereby promoting user-friendliness.
Focus Group
Having gathered a group of six people from the target market, the main goal was to get their opinion about the product with the most probable information extraction method being direct questions. The procedure of conducting this exercise is that to the group as a whole are asked direct questions, and all possible answers are then analyzed for possible conclusions and recommendations (Templeton, 1987).
Specific instructions and notes will be issued to the interviewees prior to the start of the interview. The first instruction is that a question related to the product or the company will be asked and members of the group will respond, each at a time. Secondly, an interviewee may skip a question if he/she is not sure or has no in-depth knowledge regarding the topic. Thirdly, the interviewees should give true information and may even shed more light where necessary. Towards the end of the interview the group members will be given an opportunity to ask questions or make clarifications regarding the company or the product (Templeton, 1987). The interviewees should take note of several important aspects. First is that the information provided is just for evaluation purposes and will be kept secured by the company. Private information will remain private. The interviewees will not be asked to give any information be it public or private if they don’t want.
The first question will test whether the members of the group are aware of the existence of our product (bandana). Here, responses will shed more light on the overall management of the company and ways to improve its marketing strategies. Answers will lead to the second question which will be whether the interviewees have tested the product. If not, the interviewers may go ahead to know why they have not done so. This will be in an effort to know whether the product is attractive to a common buyer. The third question will try to find out whether the interviewees have worked in areas with high temperatures. This will ascertain whether they have ever been in a great need of the product. The fourth question will ascertain whether there are athletes among the group members. Athletes may better understand the effect of high temperatures on people who are exercising (Templeton, 1987). Fifth question will be asked to understand the product’s interesting features. Sixth question will ascertain whether those who used the product were fully satisfied and whether their expectations were met. Seventh question will ask interviewees to provide information regarding how the product can be improved. A draft of the questionnaire is provided in the appendix.
Based on the interviewees’ responses, several implications may be reached. First, people and athletes in hot regions need Cool Neck Band. The band will help them reach their maximum productivity despite high temperatures. Secondly, athletes from hot regions face great difficulties when dealing with high temperatures and have not been able to attain the best results. Thirdly, more use of our product will imply that customers appreciate it and have learnt its importance over time. We can make several recommendations from the implications and findings (Templeton, 1987). I recommend new users to test our product and see the difference. Secondly, I call upon corporations training runners in hot regions to use bandanas as they have proved to be effective.
In conclusion, bandanas show mighty innovation for those living in hot regions. Continued use of bandanas will greatly improve the lives of individuals living in hot climates.
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