Customer Analysis Of Kiddo - Wearable Device For Children, Essay.

An analysis of customers is perhaps the most important aspect of the marketing plan. Things to consider in your analysis of customers include:
a. Who are the customers
b. Do they differ Can they be segmented by their needs or purchase behaviors How do the segments differ
c. Why do customers need the product
d. How do they choose
e. Are they aware of the brand, how do they perceive it, have they tried it, and are they loyal
f. Where and when do they buy
g. Who influences the buyer
h. What is the channel buying process.

 Kiddo is one kind of wearable device for children that give their parents a tension free life. This particular product is made in Singapore. The device helps the parents monitor their child's health when they are at work or outside. This wearable device has chargeable port and can sustain the charge for 48 hours, once it is charged. The iOS 7 and 4.1 android version has made it possible to get connected with the mobile application where parents can monitor their kid's development from their mobile at the end of the day. This particular context has been discussed in the customer analysis for Kiddo; besides, the market segmentation plus the target market and the positioning strategy of the product in the target market has also been discussed. Through a SMART, objective analysis the value proposition, specific and measurable pricing of the product has also been described in this context. Apart from the macro analysis, the evaluation also focuses on the analysis of the competitors in the market.

Analysis of the potential customer for a particular product and its target market is an essential factor for any business operation (Yang et al. 2016). The proper marketing strategy also has a great importance in the overall selling of the product which, in turn, creates a new path for revenue generation for the company (Liu and Guo 2017.). In this context, an STP analysis has been done to give a detailed idea on the market segmentation, targeting and positioning of Kiddo in the selected market.

STP analysis is an analytical tool that provides a business operation for segmenting the market according to the potency of the customer base (Lv et al. 2015). On the other hand, this analytical tool helps to develop the strategy for product development followed by a suitable marketing mix.

The entire market can be segmented as per the needs, popularity and the ratio of demand of the Kiddo product. The kids, who are under 3-10 years of age, are the primary customers for whom their parents are worried. The children who belong to this age group require constant monitoring to attain their overall growth. From the stress factors to health illness, a degree of fitness,  to water consumption, daily activities - everything needs to be monitored at this particular age. Kiddo enables the parents to control all these factors through the monitoring of a simple mobile application where a parent can notice their kid's health details despite being at work.

The market segmentation can be done as per the child's age group and their percentage within a selected market. This factor maximises the probability of selling of Kiddo in a faster and massive rate. The market segmentation follows the demographical pattern and the psychographic segmentation. The demographic segmentation can be done based on the ethnicity of the product. The helpfulness of the product and the addition of values in lifestyles define its psychographic segmentation. The feature that enables parents to track the wellness and development of their children remotely adds real value to the product as it brings about a positive effect on the lifestyle of both the parents and their kids.

Segmentation of target

After the market segmentation of Kiddo, it is important to understand to analyse the target market where not only the selling potential is high but also the demand and popularity of the product on comparison to other wearable devices available in the competitive market. The primary target market can be either the locality where the majority of the parents are working, or it can be the parents who are single.

In that case, the target audience or the customers can monitor their kids when they are at work or outside, and this would enable them to do their work without any apprehension. Those parents whose kids belong to the 3-10 years age-group, constitute the potential customers, as they are more likely need to take care of their children proactively at this particular age. While the target market analysis also involves the potential sale and the percentage of the revenue generation and from the data of segmented market, it also helps determine the target customers according to their size and potency. The major size has been observed in the segment where the majority of the kids fall under the age group of 3-10 years old.

 For developing the total sale and the amount of revenue, the proper positioning of the product into the target market plays an imperative role. The positioning of a particular product involves the analysis of the uniqueness of the product, value proposition and the brand reputation (Page 2015). In the case of Kiddo, it is evident that the product is new, as per its technology and as per the way of its use. On the other hand, the faster technology based and mobile application based wearable device helps parents to monitor their kids and take care of them accordingly. This feature adds real value to the lifestyle of both the parents and their kids in two ways - the parents feel assured about their kid's health based on the reports, and it also helps address the health issues of the latter. Although the brand reputation of the product is not that high, a proper marketing strategy can bring the product into a good position within the competitive market.

4P's is an analytical tool that helps analyse a marketing strategy where it defines the details of the product and services and the values that the product offers to its customers (Robson and Soh 2016). This tool focuses on the four aspects of the place, product, promotion, and price.

Place: Place is an essential factor for a business operation. A product's profit depends on the place where the business operation fixes its target market (Xu 2015).  If the target market of a business is a non-residential area, its growth rate would be slow; the target customers of Kiddo mainly depend upon the working parents and their children. Thus, it targets the residential place where maximum people are the working parents, who need to take care of their child's health.

Product: The product Kiddo is a wearable device for kids by which the parents may check their children's activity, health, and sleep levels. The product is both efficient and user-friendly. Thus, while the market value of the product is rapidly increasing, it has also made a good impression in the global competitive market.

Targeting

Promotion: As Kiddo is very popular among the working parents, the objective of the product's promotion is to boost its popularity via advertisements in the social media or through flash ads. It is expected that this step would attract the attention of the target customers in buying the product, thereby increasing the overall revenue generation of the company.

Price: Price is a vital factor for the marketing mix definition - it is the amount which a customer pays to purchase a product. Side by side, it is an important factor with regard to a marketing plan as it decides the business profit and survival (Chambers et al. 2017). Changing or modifying the price of the product affects the demand and sales of the product and also impacts the whole market or the overall market strategy. Despite the fact that a 3% Goods and Services Tax was applied to businesses on 1^st April 1994 (Shin et al. 2017), it has further increased by about 7% from 2007 (Strauss 2016). What it means is that the price of Kiddo has also increased, which is likely to reflect on the marketing value of the product in its target market. On the other hand, the Government of Singapore considers the tax rate in comparison to that of Australia, which has 10% of GST tax (Hofacker et al. 2016). Thus, in the local market, the value of the product is comparatively lesser than the international market value.

Marketing is one of the important aspects which impact the entire project plan done for a product manufacturing. A proper marketing plan is an actual strategy to create awareness among the customers and ultimately taking responsibility for the total product distribution among the target customers (Fotopoulou and O’Riordan 2017).

It has been observed that Kiddo is not very popular for its advertisement or any other marketing process. It has only the great product value alongside its popularity among the customers which needs to be increased to create more awareness to promote the purchase demand of the product. Thus, the primary objective of marketing strategy is to build awareness of the brand among the target customers. The marketing strategy needs to be analysed through the use of an analytical tool.

• Total sales unit of the product:The total sale of the product is about 30k annually. The company gets a good target market to increase its sales. Thus, the product gets significant achievements in terms of the number of sales.
• Revenue of the product:The price of the product Kiddo depends on the target market. The price is $129, and the product mainly sells at famous bookstores, online sites, enrichment center and so on. The program of promoting the product is also carried out on social media. Thus, the revenue of the product is in a better condition, and the growth is increasing rapidly; the sales revenue of the product is ($129×30k) that is $4,905,318.99.
• The number of reaches required:The number of reaches necessary for the company to achieve the sales targeted is near about 1 million.

The SMART objective is a significant analytical tool that helps to critically analyse the business strategy (Katila et al. 2014).

S-Specific- For Kiddo, the product is particular, and as per the features, the customers and users are also very accurate (Scheg and Stangl 2017). The users are 3-10-year-old children, and the target customers are the working parents. Therefore, the target market, target customers, and the users are unique for Kiddo.

M-Measurable- The primary objective of the wearable device Kiddo is to allow parents to monitor their children's health condition, pressure, weight, stress level, activity level, time of sleeping and overall fitness, the amount of water that their kid takes per day and the sickness or the degree of illness. Everything can be measured through wearing the device on the kid’s body.

A-Attainable- As the Kiddo wearable device has a great value for the customers and it is also helpful for those parents who have to work and cannot provide much time for their children, they would prefer this product. Thus, it can be said that upon the real promotion of the product, it would hog the limelight among customers and would be appreciated. Therefore, Kiddo is attainable.

Positioning

R-Relevant- There are few more products which show relevancy with Kiddo, but its unique features and way of monitoring are different and realistic.

T-Time-bound- The product has great value and new in the market. The need of the parents is to see their children healthy, and thus this product would be a good choice. Thus, this product will not take much time to get the popularity within the market.

Product strategy is an important aspect of evaluating the life cycle and the further development of the product. The product strategy analysis enables a business operation to measure the product's valuable impact on the target customers which is the ultimate objective of any business (Schegg and Stangl 2017). This product strategy defines the outline form of the product and the outcome among the target customers (Hoffman and Offutt 2015). For Kiddo, the product strategy is to explicitly measure the health parameter of a kid which can be monitored by their parents.

This can be done by using the mobile application, which shows the progress reports about the child's health. On the other hand,  Kiddo is a new and valuable product which will be needed by almost all working parents with kids who are 3-10 years old. In that case, the product strategy of Kiddo set by the company allows the target customers, especially the working parents, to have a purchase decision for Kiddo which creates a huge customer base, and the company gets a new source of revenue generation. This product is acceptable from all the elements of product strategy like good product value, services and the reasonable pricing of the product.

Customers think of a product as a physical item which they can buy it.  Thus, for the proper analysis, product 3 layers concept is relevant to a product. The tree layers are described below.  

• Core product: It is not a physical or a tangible product which means that customers can not touch it. The core product is the net benefit of the product which makes it valuable to the consumers. Kiddo is also a core product by which the customers get profit, but can not touch it physically.
• Actual product: It is a physical and tangible product so that it can be touched. Kiddo is not a tangible product like a real product.
• Augmented product: It is a non-physical section of the product. Although it includes lots of added value, the customer may or may not spend a premium. Kiddo is an augmented which may need servicing either by paying for it or may not need it at all.

Place strategy defines the dustribution process of the product in the target market. For Kiddo the distribution channel would be as follows:

The direct distribution process would follow the distribution of Kiddo from the manufacturer to the Consumer which can be done through the word of mouth distribution. On the other hand, the indirect distribution can also be done where the product will be distributed to the retailer and then to the target customers.

As retilaers the company can distribute the product in the famous bookstores, online sites, enrichment center and other places from where the customers can buy the product.the product can be distributed within the target market in three marketing process and these are conventional, vertical and horizontal process. These processes would allow the distribution of Kiddo either through an involvement of third party (CMS) or retialers, or directly from the company’s franchisee to the customers (VMS) or the horizontally thorugh the representatives (HMS). The chances of selling through VMS are less or nil.  Following is flow chart of the distribution.

The number of intermadiates would be as follows:

• Intensive-More than 100 outlets
• Selective-20-100 outlets
• Exclusive-Less than 10 outlets
• Disintermediation-Online

Based on the above factor analysis, it can be said that distribution of Kiddo would follow both the intensive and disintermediation process.

4P's Analysis

 Based on the PLC analysis which shows the growth curve of a product, it can be evidently said that upon introduction of the product into the target market this would create a great craze among the customers as the ethnicity and helpfulness of the product is very high. Initially, when it is introduced, the growth and maturity have a high probability of having stability. But the chances of decline the value and demand of Kiddo are less with the comparison to other products as it has created a good value system among the customer and has the potential to sustain on a long-term basis.

 The product value proposition mainly defines that why a customer will buy a product (Park et al. 2017). Based on analysis it can be said that Kiddo has the high potential to be marketed and sold among the target customers because of its high degree of usefulness where a parent can simply monitor their child's health, and this is the main concern of every parent.

The pricing strategy increases the sustainability of a product through increasing the customer’s purchase decision (Fu et al..2017). Though Kiddo has no such competitive market but has few products that possess similar features. Upon analysis and keeping all the factors in mind, the price for Kiddo that has been set is $129, and this can be sold through different sources like a bookstore, enrichment centers and much more.

The promotional strategy mainly focuses on the product promotion through which it can be easily penetrated into the target market. Following are some promotional elements that help to market the product (Hoffman and Offutt 2015).

3.8.1. Advertising: For advertisement, rather than traditional advertisement the flash advertisement on the social would me effective as in recent era that has become the most achievable way to reach to a maximum number of customers within a short span of time. Even from the likes or preferences given by the customers also helps the company to analyse a new target market.

3.8.2. Direct and Digital Promotion: Digital promotion defines the way of digital marketing of a particular product through web pages, websites or mobile application based services. Thorugh this from one target customer or user another customer can be made as a potential customer can share their experience with their known one (Scheg and Stangl 2017).

3.8.3. Personal Selling: The Kiddo product can be sold through the involvement of the direct seller who can directly demonstrate the Kiddo’s application and use to the target customer.

Conclusion 

Kiddo is a wearable device which helps the parents to monitor their child with regular health care. The latest technology based device can be easily worn by the kids, and its look is quite attractive to them. Through the use of a simple mobile application where a parent can monitor their child through the health check board which shows the analysis of different health parameters. As this product has great value on the lifestyles of a Kid and as well as on parents, thus, the minimal promotion of this product can make it popular among the target market.

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