Marketing Campaign Execution Plan

Introduction

West Midland Safari Park is a leisure wildlife safari park located in Bewdley, Worcestershire, England with presence of nearly 163 exotic animals and a small theme park. In the current COVID-19 condition, few changes are made to limit the gathering of people at a time within the park by allowing only pre-booked customers to be allowed to enter the premises. The organisation is highly involved in assuring enhanced safety to the leisure customers for which they promote enhanced cleaning activities at all level and ensured all their employees maintain safety protocol to ensure safe stay of the customers. The organisation allows consumers to roam mask free indoor, but promotes face covering to be must in Lemur Woods and Twilight Caves to protect the species and has limited animal feeding activities (wmsp.co.uk/, 2021). However, even after new changes, they are facing challenge to draw in adequate consumers after Covid-19 pandemic compared to before within the park to promote their business (Brock, 2021). If you are researching business dissertation help, exploring how West Midland Safari Park has adapted its operations amidst the COVID-19 pandemic can be an interesting avenue in place to explore.

Target Market

The target market for current marketing plan of West Midland Safari Park is segmented into two groups that are families with children and schools. This is because families along with their children wish to spend their leisure time near nature to ensure the children develop practical knowledge through fun activities and interaction with animals the reality about animals apart from theoretical concepts in books and cartoons (Davies et al., 2021). The schools are targeted as they initiate to look for field trips for class demonstration to children regarding animals indicating they are key customers (Naples and Tuckwiller, 2021).

Objectives of Campaign

SMART Objective 1: To increase leisure visits by 5% within September 2021 - March 2022

SMART Objective 2: To increase educational visit by 2% within September 2021 - March 2022

Marketing Campaign

In developing the market campaign based on the objectives for West Midland Safari Park, the marketing mix strategy is to be used. This is because it indicates the four main P’s of marketing to be involved to develop an enhanced plan that allows understanding of the products to be offered, price to be set, strategies to be made and in which place for its successful execution (Thabit and Raewf, 2018).

Product:

The introduction of new product offerings is to be made such as jungle themed birthday parties and anniversaries are to be organised within the premises of the park while ensuring no disturbances are made to the animals living in the area. This is because it would make the consumers feel the thrill of the jungle while enjoying their major leisure time in the parks. The other product to be introduced is night-time safari within the park with the help of guides to enjoy the thrill of the night with sighting of the animals in the dark. Moreover, personal celebrations and related decorations are made by the Park on the tree-houses and lodges to allow consumers to have better experience of stay in the area while leading their leisure days.

The introduction of interactive maps connected with the GPS of the visitor is to be installed within the premises. This is because it would direct and recommend the visitors to take the walking or driving route to their advantage to avoid crowding which slows down their ability to explore places within the park in time. For instance, if many individuals are watching the enclosed area for wild dogs in the Park at a time, alternative attractions are to be informed in the duration so that they use the time effectively and explore accordingly to later come back and watch the wild dogs in peace. Inclusion of detailed educational content of each animal present in the safari park and where they can be visited to be informed within the website for West Midland Safari Park. This is because it would boost more interest from the individual visiting the park about each animal to understand their actions (Cong and He, 2020).

Price:

A 2% increase in price of the ticket is to be made to cover the extra expenses needed to maintain Covid-19 precautions on the premises. This is because it would avoid increased financial burden to be made solely on the organisation which is currently facing lack of consumers due to Covid-19 condition. Moreover, inclusion of referral discount for the customers is to be made for bookings made at the West Midland Safari Park. This indicates that the current customers are to be provided with a minimum discount of 5% on the price of the ticket spend on using their referral code from previous customers who are friends and family. Moreover, more than five referrals made by single consumers would lead them to attain 50% discount on selected foods and beverages within the park for their next visit. Further, a free one-day visit in the park would be allowed for the consumers with reaches 50 referrals in 3 months. This referral discount important price strategy because it helps to identify the loyal consumers and increase customers while rewarding the loyal consumer to show them value and importance by the organisation (Lobel et al., 2017). The annual membership pricing is to be reassessed to increased by 1% for the Coid-19 condition to provide safety services to the potential members of the park.

Promotion:

The introduction of the new products in West Midland Safari Park is to be promoted through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This is because social media is actively used in the UK which is evident as there are 53 million social media users actively present in the country of all ages and mainly the young and middle-aged people as identified in January 2021. It is equal to 77.9% of the population in the UK and leads the country to be in 22nd position in the world according to social media usage (datareportal, 2020). Thus, in such condition, the promotion of new products and pricing of the West Midland Safari Park target consumers would allow each reach to them to be attracted to buy the products and increased leisure consumers of the organisation. The offline promotional strategy such as use of billboard advertising, leaflet distribution and newspaper advertisement are to be implemented. This is because it would help to reach the local target audience to influence them in visiting the park to ensure their leisure hours with enthusiasm and fun (Chiang et al., 2018). In the online promotion, real night and day videos of the safari park are to be shared to inform the target audience about the actions they are missing by not being in the place which would make them feel drawn to visit the area to spend their leisure days in happiness and joy.

Place:

In any market, reaching the consumers and making it easier for them to buy any products is the key aim of enhanced distribution or place strategy (Lim, 2021). During Covid-19 condition, to ensure safety of the consumers in the West Midland Safari Park, all tickets are to be sold online through authenticated booking site or website of the organisation. It is to be made available all over UK. A mobile application is to be developed separately for the park which would allows direct access for ticket booking and knowledge of additional action in the West Midland Safari Park for all consumers.

Success of Campaign

The success of the campaign is to be initially measured by counting the number of customers been drawn before and after the implementation of the marketing strategy through personalised survey in relation to the develop objectives. Thereafter, online and offline feedback from the consumers is to be taken to determine their level of satisfaction with the new introduction of products and pricing in the safari park along with identify the changes according to them are to be made for better attraction of individuals. This is because surveys and feedback help to gather in-person experiences of consumers to determine the exact success of the campaign and its determined goals (Fu et al., 2018). The success of the campaign is to be determined by interviewing selected members of School trips as it allows to identify their level of satisfaction with the current services.

Conclusion

The above discussion mentions that due to Covid-19 situation, the number of visitors at the West Midland Safari Park has comparatively decreased. In order to increase the number of visitors, new products such as personalised and private parties are to be arranged with new themes, nigh safaris are to be arranged and others. The referral discount is to be introduced and promotion of the new actions are to be made through social media and offline media like newspapers, billboards and leaflets. The target audience for the marketing campaign is two groups that are families with children and schools.

References

Brock, A., 2020, Visitors brand West Midland Safari Park 'complete chaos' over social distancing fears Available at: https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/visitors-brand-west-midland-safari-18955780 [Accessed on: 11 August 2021]

Chiang, I.P., yi Lin, C. and Huang, C.H., 2018. Measuring the effects of online-to-offline marketing. Contemporary Management Research, 14(3), pp.167-189.

Cong, L. and He, J., 2020. An emotional analysis of tourists in wildlife tourism scenic spots-a case study in Chimelong Safari Park. Tourism Tribune, 35(2), pp.53-64.

datareportal 2021, Digital 2021: The United Kingdom, Available at: https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-united-kingdom [Accessed on: 11 August 2021]

Davies, N., Sowerby, E. and Johnson, B., 2021. Assessing the Impacts of Engaging with a Touch Table on Safari Park Visitors. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens, 2(3), pp.370-381.

Fu, F.Q., Phillips, J.J. and Phillips, P.P., 2018. ROI marketing: measuring, demonstrating, and improving value. Performance Improvement, 57(2), pp.6-13.

Lim, W.M., 2021. A marketing mix typology for integrated care: the 10 Ps. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 29(5), pp.453-469.

Lobel, I., Sadler, E. and Varshney, L.R., 2017. Customer referral incentives and social media. Management Science, 63(10), pp.3514-3529.

Naples, L.H. and Tuckwiller, E.D., 2021. Taking Students on a Strengths Safari: A Multidimensional Pilot Study of School-Based Wellbeing for Young Neurodiverse Children. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(13), p.6947.

Thabit, T. and Raewf, M., 2018. The evaluation of marketing mix elements: A case study. International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies, 4(4).pp.56-89.

wmsp.co.uk 2021, Covid-19 Updates: West Midland Safari Park, Available at: https://www.wmsp.co.uk/safety/#1604401744210-de11fdc0-b53c [Accessed on: 11 August 2021]

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