Marketing Plan for Flowers and Petals Company

Marketing Plan for Flowers and Petals Company

The primary target market of the business is a niche population that prompted the business idea. This niche population is a group of individuals whereby each individual has a unique preference when it comes to floral products or services. Notably, other companies offer horticultural products and services, but they do not pay full attention to unique preferences by individuals. Instead, companies offer ready-made or signature products and services for the market. The result is a gap in the market where there is not catering to individual preferences that require customized products and services (Strategic Marketing Guide 2019). Flowers and Petals, as a firm, aims to fill this gap and has made this market segment as its primary target market.

Before offering a product or service, a company has to research consumer needs and wants. This research ensures that the product the firm presents to the consumers serves their needs and wants adequately. In effect, the firm will not attract new customers, but also retain the existing clients (Morgan et al., 2018). Flowers and Petals can use three approaches in conducting its market research. One approach would be to have their clients give feedback on their experience with either the product or service that they purchased. Clients can also recommend how to enhance the quality of the product or service. Feedback could be in the form of a review on the company website for those who make online orders. It could also be filling out a form or merely responding to some queries from the staff in the case of the clients who physically visit the store location (Varadarajan, 2015). Another approach is posting surveys on the company website with open-ended questions so that the company can pick out the possible tastes of clients based on their responses to different questions. A final way of conducting market research could be to study the industry reports or reports from the best-performing companies, to identify the best-selling products and services. With these approaches, the company can collect relevant information to aid in effective strategizing for improved market performance.

The marketing mix is a set of strategies that a company utilizes to push its products on the market. These strategies have to do with the product or service itself, pricing, promotion, and the channels of distribution. For the product strategy, the firm intends to have a diverse product portfolio, including the flowers, flower vases, bouquets, and casket sprays. Most of the floral companies only have flowers (Varadarajan, 2015). Therefore, the diverse product range will enable the firm to reach more clients with more needs, thereby creating a competitive advantage. Secondly, the company intends to allow for customized products and services to cater to unique individual preferences (Morgan et al., 2018). By so doing, the company will attract a broader market. Both of these strategies will differentiate the business from other similar companies for a wider market reach.

The business’s pricing strategy will be premium pricing whereby a product or service is priced based on the value that it will give the client. The value of a product or service to a client reflects its quality (Varadarajan, 2015). Notably, consumers often associate high-quality products with high pricing and vice versa. In this case, Flowers and Petals is targeting the niche market of unique individual preferences, which means that the company will provide products and services that suit each of the individual needs of the consumers (Morgan et al., 2018). Consumers will be able to derive high levels of utility from these products and services. It follows that the pricing of these products and services should reflect this high level of utility or efficiency. Moreover, even if this pricing is higher than the rival brands’ pricing, it is justifiable by the high quality and individual customization (Varadarajan, 2015). Therefore, premium pricing will be an appropriate strategy. Competitive pricing can apply for standard products and services such as those offered by rival companies (Varadarajan, 2015). This kind of pricing is just enough to cover operation costs and make a slight profit but keeps the prices level with other brands’ prices so as not to lose clients.

The business will have an online platform to reach more people, as other brands do not have an online presence. As such, the promotion will be online through the company website as well as through social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube (Strategic Marketing Guide 2019). This approach to promotion is free, which will be cost-effective for the company since it is a start-up. Start-ups have to find ways to minimize their costs to reduce the amount required from investors so that there is less debt incurred or less equity given up for financing. Moreover, more people are increasingly using the internet and social media articularly, making it easier to reach more people (Morgan et al., 2018)). Apart from having official pages on these sites, the business will also use the sites as third party advertising websites. Therefore online promotions will be the best approach for the promotion strategy.

The firm will also place posters in different community centres, as well as placing advertisements on radio and television. However, radio and television advertising will only be during holiday seasons such as Christmas (December) and New Year (January), Easter Holidays (Mid-March to Mid-April), and Valentine’s Day (Mid-January to Mid-February) due to the high cost of these platforms. The firm’s online presence will also serve as a distribution channel to reach people who cannot physically visit the store location (Varadarajan, 2015). This online platform will increase its market reach, mainly since other rivals do not sell online, thereby limiting their market to the local clients only.

Advertising Budget for one year

References

‘Strategic Marketing Guide 2019’. https://invisionmag.com/downloadable-content/2019-Strategic-Marketing-Guide-eBook-v20-2.pdf

Morgan, N. A., Whitler, K. A., Feng, H., and Chari, S. (2018). Research in Marketing Strategy. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Neil_Morgan2/publication/327107606_Research_in_Marketing_Strategy/links/5b7c0eae92851c1e1224bfc8/Research-in-Marketing-Strategy.pdf?origin=publication_detail

Varadarajan, R. (2015). Strategic marketing, marketing strategy, and market strategy. Academy of Marketing Science Review, 5: 78-90 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rajan_Varadarajan/publication/284880861_Strategic_marketing_marketing_strategy_and_market_strategy/links/56e6d0cd08ae98445c226a00/Strategic-marketing-marketing-strategy-and-market-strategy.pdf?origin=publication_detail