Marketing Communication Plan For Freshmart - Essay.

For this project please select Freshmart (small vegetable shop) as a small business.

Option 01( over the phone) select the business wants to open a new store as a marketing communication problem. please use $60,000 as a budget.

Your plan should adopt an integrated marketing communications approach and include consideration for all elements of the marketing communications mix, including a brand

strategy, identification of target markets and key messages.

The exact structure of your plan is up to you but the following advice on key areas is given:

A brief situation analysis is required. Provide background information on the organisation, the rationale for the purpose of the plan, an industry and market overview.Also include the purpose of your plan that identifies what the problem is you are trying to solve.

Ensure your objectives are clear, as your marker will use these in conjunction with your target market and brand strategy, to assess the appropriateness of your recommended

strategies.

In compilation of your marketing communication strategies do not limit yourself to only consumer strategies; where possible include trade communication strategies as part of your recommendations.

Your campaign should be no more than 12 months duration. Throughout the expected duration of the campaign you will need to include evaluation strategies at times you feel

appropriate.

As a guide, your budget is $60,000 for the 12 months campaign. You can change the budget to suit your plan. As it is a plan, you need to include an executive summary, introduction and list of any references used. These sections fall outside the word limit. A conclusion is not required as we are trying to reflect a real world example.

Choose one of your marketing communications strategies that you have recommended and develop an actual communication piece that represents that strategy.

The marketing communication piece will be assessed on its appropriateness to reach the target audience, support your creative strategies, your brand message and the problem you are trying to solve.

It can be hand written or mocked up electronically. Your drawing skills or technology skills are not being assessed; the appropriateness of the communication and the message is being marked.

Current Market Situation and SWOT Analysis

Marketing communication Plan and Communication piece for Freshmart

When talking about marketing communication, this refers to a special means that are adopted by a variety of businesses with the intention of conveying appropriate messages regarding specific products together with brands that are fully attached to the businesses through a direct or indirect way (Bacile, Ye and Swilley, 214). Furthermore, it is used to persuade various customers for them to be able to purchase various products (Van Der Riet, 2017). On the other hand, a different medium that is adopted by any given business with the intention of exchanging various information related to their goods and services can also be referred to as marketing communication (Batra and Keller, 2016). In most occasions, marketers normally use marketing communication with the aim of adequately creating high levels of brand awareness across different potential customers. This is a clear indication that a good percentage of the brand's image gets created in the minds of customers that further helps them to come up with an appropriate purchase decision (Bobocea et al., 2016).

Freshmart is one of the most recognized small businesses where it has been able to gain high levels of popularity across different customer segments due to its capability of putting much focus on different types of vegetables. Moreover, Freshmart has been in a position of serving a variety of customers with a lot of vegetables that are always fresh thus making sure that high levels of customer satisfaction are adequately met (Ebitu, 2016). Through this strategy of providing the customers with quality products that are capable of meeting their expectations, the business has been in a position of offering high levels of competitive advantage across the entire market platform which has made it to attract a huge number of customers from various locations. On the other hand, the owner of the business is well versed with a good number of entrepreneurship strategies which has provided further opportunities to put a lot of focus on some of the best ways that can be adequately taken into consideration in order to dominate a better percentage of the market (Finne and Grönroos, 2017). Over the past few years, the small business has been able to put a lot of concentrations on its customers in relation to the kind of products and services that are given to them. All this time that the business has been in operation, the owner has been able to develop a clear understanding that the customers are the major core of the whole business and therefore, it is essential to try as much as possible to address their grievances (Gabrielli and Baghi, 2016).

Opening a New Store

Since the business is privately owned by one of my friends whom I have been in close contacts with over the past few years, I decided to interview him over the phone in order to obtain various information regarding the situational analysis of the business. He clearly postulated that one of the major strengths that are attached to this small vegetable shop is that it is strategically located within a local community where a lot of customers are able to gain access to a variety of its services. Additionally, there also exists some fitness centre around the business where a good number of individuals have always developed the habit of getting access to so for them to gain nutrition right after attending the gym. One of the best opportunities that the business is subjected to is that it is in a position of providing delivery services to various customers within the shortest time possible. Unfortunately, issues related to finance still remains to be one of the major weak points that are attached to the small business since it is a little bit difficult to borrow some funds from various financial institutions like the banks. Over the past few months, high levels of competition have been able to emerge within the market platform where several other small businesses have been set up within the area and are in a position of offering almost the same Products. This has, therefore emerged to be one of the major threats that Freshmart is currently going through.

This marketing communication plan is appropriately developed for various purposes as far as the small business is concerned. Firstly, it is well designed with the intention of coming up with a better brand experience that is more consistent by making it much easier to develop a clear understanding of a variety of information pertaining the target audience that is attached to Freshmart. Moreover, the plan is also designed to provide an adequate analysis regarding the current customers and why they have decided to choose the products and services that are originating from the business. As a result of this, the entire business is therefore focused on opening a new store that will be able to make it much easier to facilitate most of its service operations that are taking place within the industry.

The vegetable growing sector, for example, the one that is taking place within the Australian boundaries has proved to be essential since it is one of the major sources of food that is relied upon by millions of individuals located in different sectors (Godey et al., 2016). Additionally, the industry is known to have the capability of supplying a good percentage of fresh vegetables that are highly consumed in Australia and even goes an extra mile to provide a variety of inputs for a variety of processed vegetable products (Jemutai and Wambua, 2016). A good number of research have been able to postulate that vegetables are essential art of healthy eating since they are in a position of providing a wide range of nutrients together with fibre (Semeradova and Vávrová, 2016). Additionally, the production of vegetables emerged to be sixth highest value agricultural industry within the Australian boundaries where it strongly accounts for an approximated percentage of 7% of the total gross value that is associated with agricultural production (Kellaris and Machleit, 2016). A good percentage of production taking place within the industry has been channelled to quite a number of domestic markets which clearly indicates that the industry is focused on serving people at the internal level (Narayanan and Manchanda, 2019). The business, therefore, aims to capture the attention of different consumer segments across the market platform and to carry out this operation a perfect way it will be essential to open a new store. This will further provide an opportunity of reaching out to different customers by making it much easier to gain access to the business services without having to walk for long distances in search for its products and services (Saenko et al., 2016).

• Building strong and reliable brand awareness
• Target a variety of new consumers located in new regions
• Increase the overall sales of the business
• Enter a new market at the local level
• Enhance high levels of customer relationship

Marketing Communication Strategies

Since the business id highly focused in opening a new store, it will be essential to make good use of a variety of marketing communication strategies that will provide an opportunity of reaching out to a wide range of customer segments. This will finally scale up the overall sales that are associated with the small business. The following are some of the marketing communication strategies that the business needs to put into consideration in its journey of coming up with a new store;

• Social media platforms- It will be essential for the entire business to put a lot of focus on the social media platforms most so Facebook as one of the major marketing communication strategies that will be used to convey appropriate communication pertaining the business to various customers within the shortest time possible. Since a good percentage of the target customers are in a position of gaining access to the Facebook platform, it will be very easy for the business to market its products through this platform since the customers will find an opportunity of making more inquiring pertaining the business at the comment section.
• Providing the customers with VIP treatment-There is the need for the small business to adequately implement a variety of welcome messages which will further provide a fundamental opportunity to come up with a first impression that will appear to be more valuable. It is essential to adequately stress the value of the customers getting associated with the business brand
• Letting the customers be the best billboard of the business-It is essential for the business to try as much as possible to nature a sense of brand loyalty within the business boundaries. One of the best ways of doing this is by adequately implementing and sharing a vast range of user-generated contents (Royo-Vela and Hünermund, 2016). These are normally contents that are created by various customers on behalf of the business. Whether the content will be in the form of a customer photo or positive feedback, user-generated content will clearly represent the marketing dynamics of the entire business. According to research, a good number of consumers have been able to postulate that user-generated contents normally appear to be more authentic when compared to the traditional ads.
• Creation of trade magazines together with a trade website-The small business owner will need to come on board with a variety of adverts together with articles that will be in a position of bringing more eyeballs within the boundaries of the entire brand. At some point, adverts are likely to appear to be costly, but there is the need to appropriately speculate in order to accumulate.
• Relevant trade promotions on behalf of the business- The business needs to come up with various promotions and even go as far as offering a wide variety of incentives which will finally lead towards high levels of client motivation thereby boosting the level of their purchase rates as far as the business products are concerned.

The entire campaign will last for a total of ten months since this will be an adequate time of making sure that all the desired objectives are met within the time frame. Moreover, various evaluation strategies will be appropriately taken into consideration to make sure that the desired results are well attained. They majorly entail the following;

• Focusing on the customer responses and reactions-In order to evaluate the success of this plan, it will be essential for Freshmart to put a lot of concentration on the response given by the customers together with their reactions (Shen et al., 2016). Their responses can help to determine the type of reactions that the plan is able to bring on board. The use of surveys, together with general customer service feedback, can adequately reveal what the customers think of the business and its operations.
• Marketing reach expansion- If the marketing reach of the business will be in a position of expanding, then the effectiveness that is associated with the entire plan will automatically be the probable cause. A kind of marketing that is capable of penetrating into different new regions either through recommendations from various customers or even through a natural growth gives a clear indication of successful together with a popular product and experience (Schivinski and Dabrowski, 2016). At the same time, the expansion the business budget is another indication that the plan is perfectly working.

Elements	Allocated budget
Trade Magazines	$10,000
Trade promotions	$15,000
Direct marketing	$20,000
Digital marketing	$15,000

Conclusion

The ability of the business to open a new store is almost the same as penetrating into a new marketing region. As a result, this will require one of the most appropriate forms of communication to be taken into consideration in order to enable the target group of customers to develop a clear understanding of the kind of products that are being sold to them. A good understanding of the information that is related to the products will automatically increase the bond that exists between the customers and the business itself.

The use of social media platforms being one of the major marketing communication strategies that have been recommended for the business, there is the need of coming up with an essential communication piece that will be able to work hand in hand with this strategy to ensure that appropriate outcome is met within the shortest time possible. A good percentage of digital advertisers have been found to prefer the use of the Facebook platform as a marketing communication strategy. This platform will, therefore, be used to communicate with various customer segments due to its ability to be able to target specific demographics. Various campaigns will, therefore, be created across all the demographics. This will, therefore, made it much easier to separate both gender and age and even go an extra mile to target interests. As a result, all Facebook followers will be used to adequately create some skewed types of look-alike audiences in relation to the products that are chosen by the customers. Furthermore, it will make good use of the Facebook algorithm to come up with look-alike audiences that will be in a position of targeting various customers who are similar to Freshmart’s Facebook fans who have got a high probability of purchasing the product in the region where the new store will be opened. The Facebook platform will be further used to provide a wide range of information regarding the products that are likely to be introduced in the new areas that the business is planning to carry out its operations. This will majorly include the size together with the condition of the products that are being sold to the new target customers. As a result, this will make it much easier for the business to penetrate into the new region by coming up with a new store that will positively contribute towards diversifying its operations across different regions.

Facebook Advertising Strategy

References

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