Developing Effective Marketing Planning and Strategies for a New Startup Business

1. Introduction

Strategic marketing planning is the process that an organisation undertakes to engage the target audiences, build strong bonding, and retain the customers across the market in order to capture the value in return (Yao et al., 2019). The organisations try to develop marketing planning by arranging capital by engaging the marketing team and other operational managers so that it would be possible for the firm to increase visibility in the market and promote the organisational products and services strategically. Through this study, it is possible to develop marketing planning for own business in order to design effective promotional practice. The study also provides a scope to conduct STP analysis and develop SMART objective for the new start up business in order to arrange capital and develop successful marketing plan in near future for promoting their services across the UK market and achieving future success.

2. Role of Marketing

Overview of the business idea and current trend

The new business idea is about opening a clothing retail shop, where the entrepreneur is looking for providing the best quality and designer clothing and accessories to the customers. The organisation will promote designer clothing in the market of the UK. It would be the private firm and the entrepreneur arranges funding through private investment and bank loan for setting up the business. As per the recent market trend, the customers prefer to wear fashionable outfits and also summer friendly clothes with quality raw materials. The new brand will aim at managing the quality of the clothes in order to attract the audiences and also increase varieties in clothing and accessories to target the people, who are willing to wear fashionable and designer outfits.

As per the recent market trend, there is high demand for the organic clothing and accessories, and it further influences the entrepreneur to design the activities of the business and attract the audiences successfully. The current market trend in the retail clothing industry includes promotional activities, product variety and developing distribution network in order to manage the business operations efficiently and this led the leader to open the clothing brand. For example, the retail clothing organisations such as Tesco and H & M also focus on promoting their brands through organisational website promotion and managing their customers by online e-commerce business activities in the recent pandemic situation. Moreover, the firm Sainsbury’s is also another famous retail organisation that focuses on providing the best quality products and services to the customers at affordable price rather than investing in promotional planning. This recent marketing planning and digital transformation of the business will influence the entrepreneur of the new business to start up the operations through creativity and technical innovation as well as led the business owner to establish a successful clothing brand.

Role of marketing in organisation

Marketing strategic planning is playing an important role in starting up the business and establishing the firm efficiently. The marketing tactics are useful to promote the brand and increase brand visibility in the market, so that the customers can acknowledge the available products and services of the organisation and make purchase decision as per their needs and preferences. It hereby helps to increase the sales volume of the organisation by retaining the customers. Launching new products and developing brand identify are also possible under effective marketing planning, where marketing tactics provide a scope to the marketing management team to conduct market research and develop suitable planning. The marketing planning is also important to grow market share and create stakeholders base to run the business in a systematic way (Yao et al., 2019).

Hereby, the marketing planning is playing an important role for the new business start-up, where it provides a scope to create brand identify in London and improve brand visibility, so that the customers can acknowledge the products and services, provided by the organisation. Marketing planning includes product design, pricing strategy and promotional activities which reshape the new firm to start their operations in the market. It is also playing a crucial role to promote the products and services and also enhance market communication, where the organisational representative can engage with the customers and interact with them for retaining more clients across the market. Hereby, the marketing activities are beneficial for the new firm to establish their operations and strengthen their stakeholder’s base to operate efficiently. The major stakeholders include the employees, producers and suppliers of the quality clothes and accessories, distributors, staff members, font desk management team, operational head, managers and customers, who contribute in the business to maintain operational efficacy and secure future sustainable development.

Evaluating the function of marketing

Marketing functions are beneficial for the organisation to adopt innovative strategies to run the business operations strategically and increase brand identity in the market. The major functions of marketing are such as channel management, information management, and products service management, promotion, selling, pricing and placing. These are the major functions, through which the new business can establish their operations and work efficiently to serve the customers with the best quality clothing and accessories. The new start-up firm is looking for establishing their shop in London and expand their operations across the UK markets through dig8ital transformation of the business. In this regard, products service management is crucial function, where the marketing department cooperate with the production department, in order to check the product availability, maintain stock of the products and provide important information related to products and services to the customers so that the clients can make effective purchase decision (Khan, Fatima and Matloob, 2019).

The pricing strategy and market information management are also important where the marketing team tries to collaborate with research and development team and operational head to set the affordable price so that the customers can buy the products. Channel management and promotional activities are handled through partnership working practice between marketing team and technical department, where the technicians maintain online business channels and organisational website and provide back up support so that the front desk staff can handle the clients and deliver the best quality services as per their expectations. Hereby, there is interlinking between different departments, where partnership working practice will be helpful to manage the marketing functions.

3. Marketing Mix strategy

Evaluating marketing planning process

Marketing planning process is important to be followed effectively, in order to develop tactics of establishing the brand, choosing right products and services as well as targeting the customers for maximising the organisational sales volume. It is important to develop organisational mission and corporate objectives. The new business develops the mission of becoming a renowned clothing brand in the UK by providing the best quality clothes and accessories to the customers. The market audit and marketing objectives are the further stores which are required for the new firm to design the marketing planning for meeting the strategic mission (Mothersbaugh et al., 2020).

After developing marketing strategic planning, the new firm must focus on forecasting the results of the marketing planning, developing marketing budget and create alternative planning to achieve future success. This process is beneficial for the new clothing firm to evaluate the marketing tactics and review the sales volume and profitability.

SMART marketing objective

The SMART objectives of the retail organisation Sainsbury’s for developing strategic marketing planning are such as,

To increase the rate of customers retention across the UK markets

To maximise profitability through delivering the best quality clothes and accessories

To create values for the stakeholders of the business

To establish the brand in the UK market through digital transformation

The above mentioned objectives will be considered as SMART as,

Comparing marketing mix in retail industry UK

Marketing mix strategic planning provides different components to create good planning to establish the business and run the operations strategically in the market. The components of marketing mix are such as, products, pricing, promotion and lacing. The proposed marketing planning will be,

Product

Product strategy is mandatory for the new organisation to maintain the stock of the products and provide the best quality products to the customers (Kang and Kim, 2017). In this regard, Tesco is big competitors of Sainsbury’s and Tesco focuses on developing product differentiation strategy, for delivering vast range of products and services to the customers. The organisation in this regard manages diverse range of clothing products in the shop, so that it can meet the customer’s preferences. On the other hand, Sainsbury’s arranges stock of the designer clothing products and other retail products for both male and female as well as for the kids, so that the customers can find diverse range of products as per their expectations.

Price

Premium pricing policy is essential for the organisation to set effective price ranges according to the product quality and designs (Rutz and Watson, 2019). Tesco develops premium pricing policy. As compared to this, Sainsbury’s sets affordable price in order to retain more clients across the UK markets. It is also important to provide discounts and seasonal offers to the customers during Christmas and other festivals. Sainsbury’s tries to set affordable prices as per the raw materials and quality of the products; where for the customers can choose their basket accordingly.

Promotion

Brand promotion provides a scope to the new firm to develop good marketing tactics and promote their products across the UK market in order to target the customers and retain them for long run (Varadarajan, 2020). Tesco mainly utilises the social media for advertising their products and services. Social media is considered to be an effective platform for two way communication and increasing visibility of the organisation. It is beneficial for Tesco to promote their business through Facebook, where the firm creates Facebook page and social media advertisement and social campaigning, which are best strategies in the recent years to engage with diverse social communities and enhance the market communication. Through the Facebook Page, direct telephonic calls and posting comments, the customers can engage with the business and place their orders accordingly as per their requirements.

The organisation Sainsbury’s creates official website and update the customers with latest news, product availability and pictures of the products. The customers can review the products and services provided by the firm and check their sustainable solution towards organic clothing range and other retail products (Ali and Anwar, 2021). This is also beneficial to create customers base in London and provide them online services to choose the right product and make the purchase decision. On the other hand, it is mandatory for the organisation Sainsbury’s to create mobile application and promote the apps through Facebook and other social media such as Instagram and Twitter, where it would be possible to attract the audiences and provide them the link of the mobile apps, to review their products and services. These are the major promotional practices, through which the firms Tesco and Sainsbury’s in UK retail sector establish their business and promote the products across the UK market.

Place

Placing the clothing products and accessories in the UK market is necessary for the company in order to increase brand visibility and expand their services (Key and Czaplewski, 2017). For successful placement of the clothes and accessories across different markets of the UK, Tesco strengthens their supply chain, so that they can arrange products and maintain its stock and they mainly focus on online e-commerce services for expanding their services across the countries. The customer can order the products online and get the delivery at their place within the specific time. On the other hand, Sainsbury’s hires experienced distributors for the business to distribute the products within effective time and also the firm expands their business through store establishment. Hence, managing the supply chain and distribution network is mandatory to conduct the online business and promote the brand successfully.

4. Marketing Planning for an organisation

Target market by STP analysis

The organisation Sainsbury’s, being the second largest retail brand in the UK focuses on market segmentation and targeting in order to retain the right customers and deliver them, the best quality products and services at affordable price. The market segmentation and target are conducted through in depth research and development, where the marketing team is able to acknowledge the taste and preferences of the local buyers, and it provides a scope to the new business to analyse the market trend and target the customers, where the entrepreneur of Sainsbury’s is successful to retain them for the organisational products and services. The segmentations are based on occupation of the people, income status, demographic factors and locations. The new retail clothing organisation will target the people who are engaged with services and also target the teenagers, in order to provide them designer outfits and clothing.

As per the income status, the customers in medium and high income class will be targeted, so that they can afford the organisational products and services in long run (Stoychev, 2020). Sainsbury’s is looking for the medium and high income class customers to promote the latest and designer clothing and accessories and retain them in long run. Targeting family members is another strategy of the new business firm, where Sainsbury’s is able to provide diverse clothing products for the teenagers, middle aged people and also old age people. Targeting the bachelor students and employee are helpful for the firm in order to promote the quality clothing products to them and influence their purchase decision making behaviour. The business mainly focuses on increasing stock of the latest outfits, fashionable clothes and accessories as well as daily used products and consumer necessities, for which targeting the office goers and student in college and universities will be helpful for the brand to strengthen their customer’s base. As per the locations, the people in urban areas across the UK will be targeted, who are willing to make effective purchase decision as per their preferences and new market trend. Additionally, targeting the friends group and social communities is also beneficial to promote the brand and increase its visibility in the market.

Marketing implementation plan

In order to meet the strategic objective of Sainsbury’s, the organisation focuses on allocating the resources, including financial, human and physical. For the physical resources, the company needs to set up the store at London for showcasing the products, where the customers can visit and make purchase for the quality clothing and accessories. Moreover, the company Sainsbury’s also arranges warehouse to handle the stock of the products and maintain its availability to serve the customers in time. There is Information Technology infrastructure in the organisation for managing the digital data and handling the clients online (Hult and Ketchen, 2017). For financial resource, Sainsbury’s invests on own capital and rise funding for running the operations in a systematic way. The human resource management is mandatory, where the firm hires experienced employees to handle the marketing activities and serve the customers efficiently. Sainsbury’s focuses on expanding their services through online e-commerce services to serve the online customers. There are word of mouth and television advertisement through which Sainsbury’s aims at managing their clients and delivering the best quality products.

It is hereby important for the new business to develop timeline for the new clothing business to follow the activities and arrange adequate capital for achieving the strategic objectives.

Promotional budget

Promotional budget of opening the clothing brand must be predicted so that the entrepreneur of the new business firm can arrange adequate capital and invest in the marketing department for developing the above mentioned strategies (Micu et al., 2017). Through the above mentioned strategic marketing planning, it is possible for the new organisation to expand their business across the retail industry and increase firm’s visibility in the market and expected expenditure will be represented further.

Evaluating control and evaluation techniques

Key performance indicators of are the factors that help to control the marketing planning and evaluate the activities in order to analyse the impacts of the marketing strategies on the business activities (Li, Larimo and Leonidou, 2021). The key performance indicators of Sainsbury’s are such as customer retention rate, yearly sales volume, profitability, efficiency of the firm in serving the clients and service creativity and innovation. Through these indicators, it is possible to analyse the effects of the marketing planning, where the entrepreneur is looking for maximising the business performance in long run in order to sustain in the retail industry of the UK. In such context, it is important to enhance internal communication through group discussion, partnership working practice, maintaining organisational notice board, arranging general meeting and sending email, so that the entrepreneur can manage the internal stakeholders including managers, operational head, employees, and other staff members. Through collaborative working practice, it would be possible for the new brand to implement the marketing planning and allocate the organisational resources for controlling the marketing planning in order to achieve the future success by establishing the clothing organisation. It is also necessary to conduct in depth market research and gathering customer opinion through client portal, so that the management team can evaluate the business strategic planning to meet the customer’s expectations and run the business efficiently.

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