Marketing Plan for Selchester Arms Hotel

Discussion

What a Business Can Do Better Than Competitors? 

What a Competitor Can Do Better Than The Business? 

How The Business Can Take Benefit From The Opportunities Available In The Market? 

How The Business Should Respond To The Changing Environment? 

The procedure involved in measuring, altering and measuring for the purpose of improving the efficiency, revenue and overall reputation of an organisation is known as a business improvement (Wood and Jobber 2016). The purpose of the paper is to construct a marketing plan for responding to the need for business improvement based on the organisational information in the case study, Selchester Arms Hotel. A comprehensive document which frames the outline for marketing efforts and advertising for short-term and long-term success an organisation depicts the concept of a marketing plan. The paper will be concluded by presenting a summary of the recommended actions and aspects of the chosen business.

The purpose of the hotel business, Selchester Arms is to offer a warm, well-maintained and at-home atmosphere for the travellers with the complementary vibe of the countryside. The business should aim at creating an experience rather than only focussing on the stay. The experience should cover the activities of the locals, willing participation at the community services, conducting local cultural programmes and improves the value of their presence with authentic local cuisine. The mission of Selchester Arms can be, ‘To create an exquisite experience for the travellers with the amalgamation of a comfortable stay, authentic food and local culture of Selchester village”.

Selchester Arms marketing ideas can be based upon the mission of the business. The potential marketing ideas that can directly influence the goal of attracting travellers for the stay, food and experience at Selchester are as follows:

Creating virtual tour of the hotel: Offering virtual tour through social media platforms and website can help in demonstrating the actual picture of the values and offerings amalgamated for the target market in the village of Selchester (Hansen and Juslin 2018).

Conducting digital advertisement: The advertisement campaign in digital platforms for the hotel business can include the USP (Unique Selling Proposition), which is the experience of ‘living like a local’ with the photos and videos of the cultural heritage and local practices in which the travellers can be a significant part (McDONALD 2016).

Scavenger Hunt for live promotion: Marketing the services can be extended to the actual arrival of the travellers rather than limiting the promotion till the virtual engagement. Scavenger Hunt can be treated as a program of demonstrating the offered features, property tour and the experiences which can be lived like a local of Selchester.

Business Mission

Offering local events and occasion calendar: The local events and occasions of the village can be listed or highlighted in a specialised calendar for the potential customers of Selchester Arms (Kotler et al. 2017). The calendar can help the customers in planning their vacation based on the preferred time of the year in Selchester.

Creating a loyalty program: The loyalty program for the travellers will encourage their repeated visits, for a different occasion and unique experience with every visit (Zheng and Forgacs 2017).

Constructing packages for the occasion: The booking packages can be categorised based on the occasion of booking such as friends and family reunions, office meetings and weddings.

Firstly, the hotel business needs to invest in technological advancements, salesforce and record-keeping software for incorporating efficiency and security of data management.

The hotel business should focus on product development by adding services to their core business for an ultimate experience.

Demonstrating efficiency by recruiting specialist in treating the client with warmth and immediate response.

The business expansion of Selchester Arms Hotels can be enabled through the amalgamation of digitalisation in the reservation and transforming theme in restaurants and sports facilities (Murphy, Chen and Shapiro 2017).

Co-creation can be another marketing tactics to improve the business practices based on customer involvement and feedback.

Strengths- The business can offer the unique experience along with the comfortable stay combined with the local influencers such as the culture, countryside experience and occasional practices. The medium-sized hotel business can use its expertise of offering services in various areas such as hotel, restaurant and sports facilities for a complete experience building exercise directed towards the audience. It also allows for occasion-based bookings.

Weaknesses- The main weakness of the business, for which the company is struggling, is keeping a record for the business practices and customer data. Another weakness can be the incorporation of innovation and values for sustaining in the competitive market.

Opportunities- The business can undergo product development by adding values through innovative services and experience building exercise. The business result can expand its business in terms of staying options, by establishing rentals, tiny house experiences and cottages.

Threats- The business should start spending in digitalisation and technological up-gradation for creating a complete valuable experience. The company needs to involve consumers in creating a positive experience through promoting the brand virtually and traditionally.

Product- The offerings of Selchester Arms focuses on services with respect to the stay, restaurant and sports centre. The service offerings will expand its boundaries for the purpose of offering unique experiences accompanied by existent service offerings. The offerings will focus on creating an atmosphere, where the travellers can ‘live the life of localities’.

Price- The pricing strategy for the hotel business can be occupancy-based dynamic and guest segment-based pricing. For introducing the newer offering of experiences, the hotel business can adopt premium pricing for portraying the quality of the services. The occasional packages will include occasion-based pricing.

Place- The point of delivery of services will be from Selchester, a village or countryside in England. The service delivery will be enabled through the trained hotel management staff or specialists.

Promotion- The promotion of the services of Selchester Arms will be majorly dependent on digital and social media (Siakalli, Masouras and Papademetriou 2017). The company can conduct a digital campaign named, ‘live like a local’, in which the promotional campaign will enable the participation of the customers. Virtual tours and reflection of experiences from events and local practices will attract the attention of the target audience (Honerkamp 2020).

Conclusion

Therefore, it can be concluded from the paper that Selchester Arms is facing various challenges that is directly impacting its potential of sustaining with the increasing competition. The identified issues with the hotel business can be addressed by the adding service values, unique selling proposition, improved operational and promotional activities

References

Hansen, E. and Juslin, H., 2018. Putting together a Marketing Plan. Strategic Marketing in the Global Forest Industries.

Honerkamp, Y., 2020. The Marketing Effectiveness of Social Media in the Hotel Industry [Summary].

Kotler, P., Bowen, J.T., Makens, J. and Baloglu, S., 2017. Marketing for hospitality and tourism.

McDONALD, M.A.L.C.O.L.M., 2016. Strategic marketing planning: theory and practice. In The marketing book (pp. 108-142). Routledge.

Murphy, H.C., Chen, M.M. and Shapiro, T., 2017. Digital marketing performance: How effective are the tactics and metrics used by hotels?. CAUTHE 2017: Time For Big Ideas? Re-thinking The Field For Tomorrow, p.255.

Siakalli, M., Masouras, A. and Papademetriou, C., 2017. e-Marketing in the hotel industry: marketing mix strategies. In Strategic Innovative Marketing (pp. 123-129). Springer, Cham.

Wood, M.B. and Jobber, L., 2016. The marketing plan handbook. Pearson.

Zheng, C. and Forgacs, G., 2017. The emerging trend of hotel total revenue management. Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, 16(3), pp.238-245.