Marketing Principles in Business Practice

Introduction

The report aims at understanding the principles of marketing and the real life practice of marketing in a business firm. Initially the roles the marketing function of a business plays in achieving business objectives are discussed. Then marketing strategies, market research & segmentation methods and the principles of digital marketing along with channels used in digital marketing are discussed. Finally a marketing plan for the introduction of a new burger item for Burger King UK has been described with the strategic objectives, budgets of the marketing project and the strategies to effectively monitor and control the marketing project are discussed.

Task 1 Understanding the role of marketing in business

Role of marketing in achieving business objectives

Every business has its own objectives depending on its nature and purpose of initiation and the business uses many tools, techniques and strategies to achieve those business objectives. In doing so, a firm must use different marketing tools and techniques to achieve business objectives. The marketing department or function of a business plays many crucial roles in aiding the business to achieve its intended business purposes. The roles that marketing play are discussed here.

The most important stakeholder of a company is its customer base. The people who by the products or services of this company and the people thorough whom the company make business are its customers and all the activities of the company are centred on. Marketing helps the firm reach out to its customer, inform them about its products and services, make the customers buy the products and create a sustainable relationship with them. The firm also communicates with its customers and other stakeholders about its value proposition, performances and corporate social activities using the marketing tools that it has. This aids the firm in maintaining its image and reputation in front of the public and customers. However, if the firm wants to grow a new customer segment, it must use the market research tools such as survey, primary research, secondary research, trend analysis etc. to identify and analyse the potentiality of a new market segment and then grow customer base. Marketing helps a business to brand itself through promotions, advertisement and having interaction with the customers. The more engagement the business can make with its customers, more publicity and brand recognition it will enjoy. Whenever a business wants to enter into a new market or it wants to expand its share of the market, it needs to get assistance from its marketing department. In doing so, it is required by the firm to do market analysis and research to find out the most appropriate market segment for it to enter into and expand its business operations. However, marketing also assists a firm to increase its sales and thus its profits also. Marketing functions ensure that the customers get notification about all the goods and services that the firm is offering to its customers including the special offerings that it has for its customers. This communication and engagement guarantee the purchase by the customers, increase of sales and boost in its profit. In addition to all these roles that marketing play in aiding a firm to achieve its business objectives, it assists the firm to improve its service quality, gain competitive advantage and increase the customer satisfaction (Chang, Park & Chaiy, 2010).

External factors that influence the marketing in business

The tools and techniques that a firm uses and the way it plans its marketing strategies mostly depend on the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors. Political factors are the conditions and issues related with the government’s interventions. There might be situations where the government requires the firm to not perform any specific activity for example prohibiting the foreign trade. This would result in not planning for international marketing campaign by the company. Economic factors play a vital role in the operation of a business. If the economic condition is in recession period, most of the business will experience difficult times in terms of procuring raw materials and selling products and services to the consumers. Because, during the recession period, consumers will be reluctant to buy more. In such a situation, marketing campaign will be ineffective in increasing the sales of the company. Social factors also play a significant role in determining the way a firm should design its marketing campaign and strategies. The consumer behaviour, the values and norms of the people of any market segment, the living standards and societal cultures influence the marketing policy of a company a lot. For example, in recent years, women are getting involved more in decision making and other activities than what they used to do in the past. This particular phenomenon opens up ample opportunities for the firms to design marketing campaign and make engagement. Technological factors is another deciding factor for the firms in designing their marketing strategies. More advanced the community is, more use of technology in marketing campaign will be. For example, Netflix is using streaming to engage its customers.

Legal issues such as laws, regulations etc. influence the marketing activities of a firm. For example, if any law or regulation prohibits the firm to produce and market any product or services, marketing campaign for that particular product would be ineffective. The condition of the environment of the areas where the firm operates influence the marketing activities of the frim to a great extent. For example, if the weather, climate, tourism, agriculture, availability of raw materials in a particular area support the production of any product, the firm is expected to design its marketing campaign based on that product (Madahi & Sukati, 2012). However, besides these 6 external factors the marketing activities of a firm also depend on the nature and activities of pressure groups or the competitors and the five forces of porters. A firm must have clear idea of what its competitors are doing to be able to set the right strategies. If the firm is in a dominant position over its competitors, customers, suppliers, the firm will enjoy less pressure on investing in marketing. One the other hand, if the threat of substitutes, and the threat of new entrants are high, the firm must be aware of these issues and invest heavily in the marketing activities in order to ensure its recognition by the customers and its position in the market. The marketing of the business might depend on some of the external factors like competitors action. It is important for the business that while taking any of the marketing objectives they must take into account the possible responses of competitors. The factor such as the change in exchange rate might be one of the factors that impact the objectives that are set for the marketing in business. The change in the rate of recession also impacts the marketing performance for most of the companies. The sudden change in any of the market-dynamics like market-size, growth and that of the segmentation can influence the objectives planned for the marketing. The market in which the growth is high likely to support the development of new product (McDonald and Wilson, 2016). The competitive environment is one of the biggest threats that can impact the objective of marketing for any business. The change in the technological application also modifies the marketing mix like the way the company promotes the products or services. The revolutionary changes that were brought by the technologies like internet, allows marketers to promote and sell product through new medium of internet like Digital marketing. Thus it is one of the external factors which can influenced the marketing objectives for any business as they can ward off threats using this (tutor2u.net, 2020). It is the responsibility of marketers to understand or monitor the activities of every competitor as they can change the entire position. For example take into the consideration two most reputable companies Coke and Pepsi. Each of them tries to capture market by convincing their group of customers in market that their products like soft-drinks are better than others. Their aim is just to protect the reputation or market shares that they have in market. Thus both the companies had targeted the cola drinkers who want the flavour of more cola and little calories and Coke produces a product coke C2 while Pepsi named one of the cola drinks as PepsiEdge. But as a result both the products had been failed to create an impact on market. The reason is because the substitute product like fruit drinks that is made by Nantucket Nectars reached faster in fast food restaurants and had replaced other cola products. Thus this situation arises because both the companies Pepsi and Cola have not watched activities of other competitors in market (2012books.lardbucket.org, (2020).

Role of marketing in non-profit organization

Each and every organization that deals with people requires some sort publicity in order to get recognized by their desired audience. In doing so, the firms and organizations use marketing and different strategies in order to communicate with their customers or audience and make engagement with them. Thus, marketing is essential for the not for profit organization as well. The roles that marketing play in non-profit organization are discussed below.

In most of the cases, the role that marketing plays in non-profit organization are similar to what it does with the profit oriented business organization. For example, alike business firms, a not for profit organization also requires to get recognized by its customer base or audience. In order to achieve this, a non-profit organization must use marketing tools and techniques to promote its activities and build community awareness about itself and its activities. Moreover, alike a business firm, a non-profit organization also needs to maintain its relationship with its customers and sustain its public image. And these can only be done by doing promotions and other marketing activities. However, besides the normal role that marketing plays in a business and a non-profit organization, there are some other roles that it plays for the non-profit firms. For example, for the activities of organization who work to build up health awareness and work for ensuring better health of the people such as Transparent Hands of UK, marketing is essential to execute the health campaigns that this organization arranges. By providing necessary information through marketing and campaigns, Transparent Hands will be able to change the attitudes of the local people towards any health issue. Marketing also assists the not for profit organization to generate income from the donations and charity activities from the donors. Because, in order to get donations and other financial helps from the donors, the good deeds and welfare activities for the organization must be recognized by them. Marketing plays a vital role here by providing and communicating necessary information to the targeted audience such as donors and charity organization. Moreover, in the political parties’ social and promotional campaign, marketing plays a significant role. Those parties position themselves and communicate with the people about their commitments and development plans using marketing and promotional campaign. The more successful a political party is in marketing themselves, the more chance it will have in becoming successful. For example, in the most recent Prime Minister election of UK, even being in the conservative party of Conservative and Unionist Party, Boris Johnson won the election because of his heavy promotional campaign and successful self-marketing (Sajid, 2016).

The way marketing strategy supports the sales function of a business

Both the sales and marketing function of a business are integrated with each other. The way a company designs its marketing strategies and performs its marketing functions mostly decides how much sales it will enjoy. Thus, the marketing strategy plays a vital role in supporting the sales function of a business. The marketing strategy can be useful in creating as well as maintaining the brands of the company. The effective marketing strategy can also be helpful in getting accurate lead generation through which the business can generate high level of profit. The most essential strategy that is used by the marketing is creating awareness about product and services through campaigns related to branding and advertising. It is difficult to encourage any person for purchasing the product through direct advertisement and it needs clear communication through campaigns. It can be said from the AIDA Model (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) that awareness or attentions is the first step to improve selling of products and services. It is done through different marketing campaigns that are created to attract more customers from market. The effective marketing strategy also helps in large number of lead-generation through different technological applications. The marketing strategy which is used by the company always buy list of leads from the group of data companies. The sales become easier once the marketing team generates the essential information like Pin Code, Age, and profession from customer. Now through this the correct target audience is compiled and targeted in market by the company. The application of CRM to identify actual area where the marketing can be done helps in generating more sales and to identify which customers needs to be focused more. The different classification of marketing like social media marketing, Email marketing and Content marketing helps in getting more number of leads and from there most of the companies gets higher opportunity to sell the products (Orlova and Bodrilova, 2018). The marketing function establishes proper allocation of responsibilities in the marketing and sales function, defines the process of performing different tasks and determines the goals of different segments of the function. This ensures that the right task is assigned to the right personnel and every task is performed properly. Also each department of marketing and sales function has specific and relatable goal ahead of them. All these together ensure smooth functioning of sales department of a business. The marketing strategy also determines the communication and messaging process. It helps determine to whom to communicate for which purpose. Moreover, the marketing strategy establishes the common tracking system of performances and reporting system of each of the person involved in the marketing and sales function. This ensures the proper completion of each task and proper monitoring of the performances of all the people involved in the sales and marketing functions.

However, marketing of a firm also provides insights about the areas where the firm can improve or do better. This information is obtained using the market research techniques and tools of marketing to gain insights from the market. In this way, a firm can improve its performances, satisfy customers in a better way and thus can increase their sales to a greater extent. Marketing function also integrate the marketing content with the sales cycle. This means when the business has cyclical nature in its sales function. The marketing strategy designs and prepares its promotional and marketing contents aligning with the cyclical variation in the sales department. For example, when the winter season requires the firm to sale more warm cloths, the marketing function also designs marketing contents focusing on the winter season and warm cloths. Last but not the least, the sales department of a firm gets very useful insights from the data and intelligence obtained by the marketing department from the market and industry analysis (Rodriguez, Peterson & Krishnan, 2012).

Task 2 Understanding marketing principles

Slide 1

The first and second most comprehensive and vast element of marketing process is the Marketing Audit and the Environmental analysis. In some viewpoints, all other elements of marketing process are also included in the marketing audit process. Marketing audit is the process of evaluating and assessing the external and internal marketing environment and the current marketing performance of the firm. The external or macro environmental audit includes analysis and audit of the political factors, economic factors, social and cultural factors, demographic factors, environmental factors and legal factors. The audit of the internal factors include the audit of the marketing organization, marketing function and marketing system that the firm uses in doing the marketing activities. The current marketing performance audit includes the assessment or audit of the current marketing strategies’ performances, goals and objectives. In this process whether the existing marketing strategies are meeting up the desired standard of performance or not, whether there is any area of improvement or not are analysed. For example, in the marketing audit of Burger King UK, the company found that even having favourable external environment, the company lacks efficiency in its marketing system and has many areas to improve the current marketing performance. And the audit must be comprehensive, systematic, and independent of any kind of influence and biasness and on a regular and periodical basis (Kerin & Hartle, 2015).

Slide 2

The third most important element of the marketing process is the SWOT analysis of the firm’s marketing strategy and the firm itself. Through this analysis the firm identify its internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. For example, the SWOT analysis of the marketing department of The Burger King UK identified that the strong supplier relationship is its strength, unsystematic customer service is its weakness, growing demand for fast food in the UK is its opportunities and the increasing competition by McDonalds and others is its threat.

Slide 3

However, after the auditing, environmental and SWOT analysis, the next step is to set aims and objectives. In this process the firm needs to set up goals in front of its employees and managers that are SMART. For example, the marketing department of Burger King UK sets that their next goal is to increase their sales by 50% within next 10 months. In this case, this goal is specific, measurable, attainable, relatable by the employees of the marketing and sales department and timely as it is to be achieved within 10 months. After setting up the goals and objectives the firm is required to plan on how to execute strategies to achieve those goals, to identify possible options available to use and to analyse the possible constraints as well. For example, in case of Burger King UK, they identified that their goal of increasing sales by 50% can be achieved by dividing different responsibilities to different people and they have possible options such as increasing marketing or providing training to the employees or by increasing product variety. In executing these plans the firm needs to deal with constraint of limited financial resources allocated to this department. other different elements of the marketing process can be situational marketing analysis that consists of marketing segments in which the company needs to identify that actually which needs of customer they have to satisfy. For example the single automobile sector is unable to satisfy the need of customers in terms of superior fashion and thus some individual wish to meet their personal transportation need with something other than automobile personal transportation like any form of public transportation. Thus it is needed for the automobile sector to identify different preferences for the list of groups or the segments of customers. The situational analysis includes many factors such as SWOT analysis, Porter’s five force analysis and many others. The SWOT analysis is the tool which can be used for identification of strength and threat lies in the market of business. The situational might help the business to get better idea about the factors that can influence the future. The marketing objective is the other element of marketing process. It is the goal or objective set by company for the products and services. This is important as it shows that whether the company will get benefited through these objectives or not. It is necessary that the objectives must follow the SMART Criteria for the objective. The objectives must be specific and one can be measured within time. For example it can be like the company can aim to generate 70% lead from the internet for marketing. Marketing Strategy is the other element of marketing process and STP (Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning) approach can be useful for the company to evaluate marketing of product and services. The other most important element of marketing process is marketing mix that can be used to accurately attain the objective of business. Marketing mix consists of seven different categories which can be used in the company for the identification of market and competitors. The categories are Place, promotion, product, place, people, process and Physical evidence.. The marketing mix planning consisting of sub-stages like product development in which the marketing team communicate with the customer about decide or feature of any product. The packaging and branding also comes under this element off marketing process in which the marketers needs to think that what packaging will be most approaching to the customers. The most important element for marketing process is implementation and control and control is subdivided into annual-plan control, efficiency control and strategic control. In the annual plan control the company performs sales analysis to understand the deviation of actual sales of company from expectation. The companies can compare the actual sells with that of total market sell. The annual plan control includes calculation of profit to assets ratio as well as sales to assets ratio. Then finally after analyzing the actual sales status of company the preventive measures can be taken to manage the sales in weak area.

Slide 4

There are mainly 5 types of market segmentation methods are used. Those methods of market segmentation are discussed below.

Demographic segmentation is the most widely used segmentation method where consumers are divided based on their age, occupation, income level, family size, gender etc. In this segmentation, the firms selects the consumer segment of any particular trait and serves their most obvious needs. Age is the most frequently used trait in demographic segmentation. Because, with the age, the demand and habits of consumption vary to a great extent. For example, the youths of UK are more interested in fast food, whereas the adults and senior citizen are more interested in healthy food. Thus, marketing department can focus their marketing campaign and strategy on this demographic traits of different age groups. In socio-economic segmentation, the consumer base is divided into different segments based on their socio-economic condition and status. Mainly the education, income level and occupation are parameters of categorizing socio-economic condition. Based on these three parameters, the consumer segment can be divided into Upper class with higher income and higher education, Upper middle class with middle level income & mid-level education and lower or working class with least income and least level of education. For example, The Times and the Sun use thee segmentation. The Times target the sophisticated and educated groups using sophisticated vocabulary and design The Sun targets the middle and lower class people using simple vocabulary and layout. In geographic segmentation the consumer segment is divided into different parts based on their geographic location. The geographical differences play a vital role in determining the taste, choice and buying pattern of consumers. Usually, the people of same geographical location possess similar taste and behaviour. Thus, firms and marketing department can easily decide how to target and engage which segment of consumer. For example, the consumer of sub-continent prefer colourful cloths with various designs. On the other hand, the consumers of European countries prefer simple clothing. In psychographic segmentation divides the consumer segment based on their intrinsic attributes such as values, motivating factors, attitudes, lifestyles, interests etc. This segmentation allows the firms to target any particular segments of consumers with same psychographic attributes and serve them properly. For example, the people living in a megacity will have different life styles than that of the people who live in any remote area.

The last but not the least is the behavioural segmentation that many business firms use in segmenting their consumer segments. In this segmentation the firms measure the attitudes, behaviours, preferences and loyalty of the consumers. Based on their priority and preferences the marketing departments design their marketing strategy. For example, there will be many consumers who are loyal to any particular products or services. The companies can target their loyalty and design their campaigns accordingly (Wedel & Kamakura, 2012).

Slide 5

Digital marketing is the one of the most used concept of modern day business world. The marketing strategies that today’s firms execute are different from what the firms used to execute few decades ago. The modern day marketing includes many tools such as SEO, Pay per click, Display promotion, social media marketing, email marketing and SMS marketing. The use of these tools for business must follow some basic principles. Those principles are discussed below. The first principle is to decide how much to use the digital marketing tools and how much to use the traditional marketing. The ratio of these two products depends mostly on the nature of the business and its products. For example, if any firm is totally online based, then it doesn’t need any offline or traditional marketing tools. But this kind of firm is still very rate. On the other hand, if the firm has operation in both online and offline, then it requires to use both traditional and digital marketing tools. Thus, usually both kind of marketing tools are used. And still the need to use community engagement, face to face marketing exists to a great extent. The second and third principles are the timing and content of the marketing. It indicates the appropriateness of the marketing strategy in terms of timing and appropriateness. The success of a marketing tools depends on how well it is designed and executed. For example, cyclical business requires different types of marketing tools for different seasons and for different audience. During the winter season an apparel business firm must design its promotion differently from what it does during the summer season. The firm must be able to maintain its currency of digital marketing material in order to be successful in the marketing campaign. This principle is concerned with the improvement of the marketing content with lapse of time and trend. An obsolete marketing content won’t be able to create much of hype that a trendy content wold do. However, last but not the least important principle of digital marketing is the proper allocation of time, effort and budget for marketing tools and campaigns. How much money the firm must invest in designing a marketing content, how much effort and how many people should be assigned in executing the marketing campaign and how much effort tis to be exerted for the marketing campaign must be determined based on the magnitude and significance of that particular products or services and the potentiality of the customer base associated with the product (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012).

Slide 6

Market segmentation is one of the most important acts of the business that are operating currently in today’s world. Market segmentation provides multiple benefits to the firms that serve their targeted consumer segment rather than targeting all the consumers. The benefits of market segmentation are discussed here. Market segmentation helps the firms identify the customers with the needs that match with their offerings and products. Thus, the firms are able to serve what the customers are really in need of. For example, the Burger King UK identified the varied taste patterns of the youths of UK and it designed its products according to their choices. When the firm is able to serve the actual needs of the consumers, it becomes able to retain more customers then what it would be able to do if it wasn’t able to meet their demands. Thus, higher customer retention result in greater sales volume. The loyalty of the consumers gives the firm to charge premium pricing which ultimately results greater profit earnings for the business. There are basically many benefits of segmenting the markets like it increases the focus of a business or company on the market segments. Like the automobile company started focusing on the small car segments. This can be said as the approach in which the company change its focus to get better result in future. The marketing segments also helps in increasing the competiveness like if fashion company focused more on youngsters then equity with the youngsters will be very high which will bring more profitability (Mamoon and Legese, 2018). The customer retention can also get improved through the life cycle for customer. The customer life cycle segmentation is mostly followed on Airlines and hospitality sector to increase customer percentage. Even in India, Titan is one of the products which are planned analyzing the life cycle of customer and following market segmentation concept. Segmentation of market also enhances the rate of profitability for business by affecting brand recall, customer retention, and brand equity. The high profitability of brands like Nike is just because of segmentation like they target segments only which have no need to do bargaining or any negotiation (marketing91.com, 2020).

Market segmentation assists the firms to make greater engagement with the consumers by targeted marketing communications. This process builds effective relationships between the consumers and the firms itself. By this way firm can identify more insights about the consumer behaviour, taste patterns and market insights that would help the firm to identify the areas for improvement and grow faster. Thus, market segmentations create greater growth opportunities for business firms. As already discussed, market segmentation provides ample opportunities and scopes to a firm to improve its service quality, develop good relationship with the consumers, and grow in a better way. And if any firm can utilize these properly, it will be able to create brand loyalty among the consumers and the demand for this company’s products will increase, so as the customer base. In this way, firm will be able to gain a greater portion of the market share (Weinstein, 2013).

Slide 7

In many cases, it is seen that a business sometimes finds it difficult allocate extra time for doing market research activities and design marketing process effectively. It is because, firms are more operation and immediate result oriented rather than adopting a long term sustainable marketing strategy. The success of a marketing strategy also depends on the level of expertise the firm has and the amount of budget it allocates for designing the marketing process. These two are interrelated to some extent. When the firm lacks expertise creating effective marketing campaign, it can outsource or hire expert people to assist in its marketing campaign. But due to limited budget the marketing. For example, the Burger King UK failed in its marketing process due to limited allocation of budget. As a result, it failed in promoting its new products with appropriate contents. Thus, it failed to generate enough sales (Noe, Hollenbeck & etc., 2017). Thus, the most common challenges which is faced by the business in marketing are listed as below

Lack of marketing plan and online presence: There are many companies who don’t have the ready marketing plan and they start marketing without knowing when to sell it or which product they must advertised to encourage the higher value of sales. The good online presence indicates business that is active every time for reply and website must be functional for business. This is the biggest mistake done by most of the companies as they remains outdated with their website which is not user friendly and unnecessary articles and photos are published.

Wrong use of social media platform: There is lots of business who don’t even comment or reply to complain or query of any audience in social media platform. The company starts ignoring legitimate complaints, questions or concern as the biggest mistake. This affects the behavior of customer with business and they might leave the service in future.

Not updated with latest trend or technology: As in such a world where technology plays a major role, there are some of the companies who uses traditional concept of marketing to reach customers like print advertising, television ads and direct mail. This is one of the challenges that most of the company faced because it is difficult to get customer through it in the world of digital marketing and social media marketing (firstbeaconadvisors.com, 2020).

Moreover, a firm also has to deal with appropriate pricing and matching of the products to its customers and fitting its products and marketing contents with the buying and selling cycle. If the firm fails to match its products with the consumer demands and over charge its products, it will fail to generate desired sales. For example, few years back Burger King introduced a gourmet burger for the students which was of premium quality and thus it required premium pricing as well. But the firm failed to recognize students prefer to have products with reasonable prices. Thus it failed to generate expected sales of that product due to inability of matching products and prices.

Task 3 Understanding marketing methods

Marketing research methods

In doing market research activities and designing an effective market strategy, a firm needs to research and analyse the market data and conclude to meaningful market insights. In doing so, there are many research methods available to a firm. Those research methods are discussed below The most basic types of market researches are the primary research and secondary research. In primary research the firm or the researcher collects the first hand raw data from his/research. On the other hand, in secondary research, the researcher collects data that was previously collected and merged by a third party such as government organization, foundation, agencies etc. and this data can be obtained from newspaper, journals, text books, websites etc. The data collected from primary research is more reliable and more costly. In contrary, the data collected from the secondary research is less reliable and less costly.

Another dimension of categorizing research is to divide into qualitative and quantitative perspective. In qualitative research, the researcher collects non-numeric data such as opinion, observation, judgement, case studies from the respondents. On the other hand, in quantitative research, the researcher collects numeric data such as age, size, number of units sold, profits, growth, number of operations etc. However, in collecting qualitative or quantitative data from the primary source the most common used method is to use the survey questionnaire. In this way, the researcher puts necessary questions as per his/her need in the survey form and asks the respondents to fill that up. The questionnaire might include multiple choice question, open ended question, demographic question, rating scale question etc. In this way more information can be collected within a short period with limited cost. However, the researcher might want to collect data in a more sophisticated way by interviewing the candidates. Interviews can be conducted in three ways such as structured, unstructured and focus groups. In structured interview, all the candidates are asked similar types of questions and in a set standard. In this interview, the questions are close-ended. Thus, this interviews require less time and provide less in-depth analysed data. On the other hand, unstructured interview don’t have any set of rules or fixed structure. The interviewer can ask any kind of relevant question based on the necessity of the situation. This provides more detailed information with more cost and more time consumption. Another way of conducting interview is to arrange focus group interview where more than one interviewees are kept present together to discuss any particular topic with the interviewers. The interviewer or the researcher then notes down the necessary findings. However, besides the above mentioned research methods, data can be collected by observing a certain place, people or segment. In this method, the researcher observes the research target and list down his/her findings. Experimentation has the same procedure of collecting data by experimenting a certain element. All these methods can be used by implementing sampling methods. Sampling is the process of selecting a particular set of respondents from a large number of population that represent the population properly. The research methods then can be applied to the sample. Last method conducting research is called ethnography where the research is conducted in order to collect information about the people and culture of particular society. This includes qualitative data collection with a thorough study (Daymon & Holloway, 2010).

Evaluation of different channels used in digital marketing

Digital marketing is one of the mostly used techniques and tools that modern day business firms use to do their marketing activities. Digital marketing can be implemented using many channels and mediums. Those are discussed below. Business firms can use the IC services such as SEO, PPC & Responsive website. SEO is the acronym of search engine optimization. In this way the business firms can increase the rank of their website in the search pages of the users and consumers. It is utilized through the existing search engines such as Google, Yahoo etc. In this organic way, website traffic of the firm increases in a steady manner, the cost of acquiring this channel is comparatively low and ROI is higher.

The main disadvantages are lengthy time to get results and it doesn’t always work for every firm. The second IC service is the Pay per Click. In this process, the firm pays the owner of the website each time the visitors click the advertisement of the firm. The advantages of this channel are it provides results very fast and it can be customize according to the convenience of the firm. The disadvantages are that it requires a good level of expertise to set up effective advertising contents and click on the link doesn’t always lead to sales. The last IC service that firms can use is creating a Responsive website. This website allows the firm to design one website and make it such flexible that it gets fit into any of devices used by the consumers and users. The main advantages of this channel are that it offers great experience for the user and the firm can track the users more efficiently. The main disadvantages of this channel are that it requires loner time to get result and it is difficult to navigate such a complicated website interface. However, another channel of using digital marketing is the use of social media. Firms can advertise themselves on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc. They can also use the technique of viral marketing in social media platforms. This channels are comparatively of very low cost and can provide greater reach. Firms can also use email marketing such as newsletters and personalized letters. This channel doesn’t reach many consumers but it is very effective when used to any particular users. Beside all the channels discussed above firms can use the channel of hand held device that are used by the consumers and users. But there are some issues associated with this channel. In this channel there is security risk for the information of the users of the device Moreover, this same technique is used by mane firms which results in a cluttered market that overcrowds the device of the uses with hundreds and thousands of advertisements. That is why the uses are nowadays using the add blockers to stop the advertisements from the firms. This process also requires much more costs for the advertisement than the traditional channels (Leeflang, Verhoef & etc., 2014).

Ways to overcome the challenges of digital marketing

With the development of marketing tools and techniques the challenges and problems are also growing and changing rapidly. In executing the digital marketing strategy the firms face many challenges. Those challenges and the ways to overcome them are discussed here. The first challenge is to be able to budget appropriately that most advantage can be gained. To overcome this challenge the firms need to use more automation system in their operation. They must allocate financial and non-financial resources properly according to the priority of the firm. Lastly they must also monitor the effectiveness of the current budget and alternate periodically. The second challenge of digital marketing is to be able to build a team that can fit with digital technological environment and is always ready to innovate and change according to the needs. To overcome this challenge the firm need to develop an integrated team that the members can work effectively at any place at any situation. The firm must provide training and up skills the employees to improve their performance and obviously the firms must promote innovation and openness in their culture.

The third challenge is to be relevant in this continuous changing environment. The firm must be able to come with contents that are suitable for the current environment and trends. In doing so, they must promote innovation and they must invest much in research and development. The last challenge is to have effective customer data management system. In doing so, the firms must use the best technology in storing and analysing customer data, have effective data management strategy and regularly monitor & update the data (Turban, Bolloju & Liang, 2011).

Task 4 Developing a marketing plan for a specific product or service

Strategic objectives

Burger King is one of the largest fast food chain shops in the world. It serves in more than 65 countries all over the world. The company is planning to launch a new burger item for the consumer of the UK who are of middle class and lower middle class socio-economic condition. The detailed marketing plan for the newly introduced product is discussed below. In introducing a new item a company might have many objectives. The Burger king has a few strategic objectives as well in introducing a new burger item for the middle class consumers. The first strategic objective for the firm is to introduce a new product which is a new burger item specially made for the middle class and lower middle class consumers. The firm also wants to enter into a new market segment by introducing this product. Because, the burgers of Burger King are usually gourmet and the people from the upper class of the society with higher purchasing power are their regular consumers. By introducing this product, the company is trying to enter into a new market of a different socio-economic status who will be offered a burger with a reasonable price within their buying power ((Wilson & Gilligan, 2012).

Moreover, the firm also wants to expand its market share by offering a low cost burger to the existing consumers. This new product will attract the students who are already buying their products. Thus the current market share will be increased once the new product will be introduced. Another objective of the firm is to increase the sales and profits. After the introduction of the new low cost burger item, a new customer base will be captured. Thus the overall sales of the firm will be increased and so as the profit. The launch of the new product will also help the firm to enhance its reputation. The convention that only upper class consumers are able to buy from Burger King will be washed away. A new customer base will help the firm enhance its brand image and this will convey the message that Burger King not only serves the upper class of the society but also other classes of the society. This is how the launch of new product will enhance its reputation.

Target markets

The newly introduced products will be offered and targeted to a specific people or consumer base in the UK. The market segmentation and the target markets for the newly introduced products of Burger King are discussed below.

As per the diagram, the Burger King UK will be using age and occupation from the demographic segmentation. The students of schools, colleges and universities will be targeted. And in terms of age people whose ages ranging in between 12-25 will be targeted for this new burger item. In terms of geographical segmentation the whole UK has been divided into different areas such as Edinburgh, Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, London etc. As amongst these areas, Liverpool has the highest number of middle and lower income class and the firm is targeting the lower and middle income class consumers, the targeted geographical. In terms of socio-economic groups, the whole consumer segment or the population of UK are divided into three different classes. Those are Upper income class, middle income class and lower income class. According to the strategic objectives of the firm, it is targeting the middle income and lower income class people of the UK who mostly live in Liverpool and Manchester. In terms of psychographic segmentation the whole consumer segment can be divided based on their life styles, values, interests etc. The residents of Liverpool are comparatively of less wealthy. Despite this they have the trend to consume fast foods than the residents of any other areas of UK. This particular interests for fast food and burgers of the residents of Liverpool has made the Burger king UK to select Liverpool as its targeted area for introducing the new cheap priced burger items. However, the firm will not just stick to serving their foods to this one particular area. Rather, if this particular area’s consumers respond to this new product positively, the firm will go for expansion and introduction of this burger items to the outlets of other areas of United Kingdom (He, Brinsden & MacGregor, 2014).

Consideration of factors relevant to the implementation of the plan

Barriers and ways to overcome: To implement the whole marketing plan the firm must consider some specific factors. Those factors are discussed here. The first consideration factors are the barriers to implement the marketing plan. Some of the most prevalent barriers are discussed here. First barrier that the firm has to encounter while implementing the marketing plan is that sometimes the marketing remains isolated form the operation of the firm. This hinders the fast execution of the firm. To mitigate this, the firm needs to take steps in integrating the marketing with the operational activities. The second barrier is the organizational barriers that exist in most of the cases. It’s seen many times that the marketing department doesn’t get proper supports and aids from many top level executives in implementing any new project. To overcome this problem the firm needs to restructure the organizational hierarchy and promote a gaol orientated culture among the employees and managers. The third barrier that the marketing department will face is the absence of in depth information about the consumer and market. To overcome this barrier, the firm must invest and focus more on research and development activities. Another barriers that the firm will encounter is the lack of knowledge, experience and expertise of the people who will be involved in implementing the strategy. To overcome this barrier, the firm and the marketing department must give those people proper orientation of the marketing project, training and learning materials to enhance their knowledge and skills. And the firm may also assign the experienced and skilled personnel in implementing this project.

Monitoring and controlling: The success of a marketing plan depends on how well it is being monitored and controlled after being launched. The Burger king UK can implement the following discussed monitoring activities to ensure the effectiveness of its marketing project. The firm can monitor its performance by comparing the sales that it has been able to make with the sales that it intended to make at the beginning of the planning. This will give the firm whether the plan is working or not. The second controlling strategy is to listen to the customers and monitor their feedbacks. These feedbacks from the customers will provide the firms with the opportunities to improve its products quality and serve the customers better. The third controlling activity for the firm can be to monitor and control the spending. Financial resources is the main element that help the firm execute any project successfully. By controlling the expenditures properly, the firm will be able to ensure efficient and proper use of resources. The last but not the least controlling strategy for the firm would be to regularly monitor the effectiveness of the marketing strategies and make necessary changes that will help the firm to eliminate the ineffective marketing strategies. It will also help the firm to stay relevant (Kotler, Burton & etc., 2015).

Conclusion

The report ends with the preparation of a marketing plan for the new product launch of Burger King UK. Regardless of the type of business or products, each and every firm must follow and maintain proper procedure to be successful in implementing a product launching and marketing project. The people involved in implementing marketing project must have sufficient knowledge and experience in marketing. And the firm must also be able to identify the most relevant strategic objectives, derive the right and accurate marketing budget, and be able to effectively monitor and control the project.

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