English
中文Executive Summary
Air marketing is a marketing consulting company that carries out media consulting in companies. The company has a wide range of portfolio including the music industry, catering industry, leisure industry and manufacturing industries. Air Marketing has been successful in the past years, but with the growth of the internet and other means of advertising and communicating with customers, the company’s competitors have become a serious threat to the company. Competitors have build stronger communication links with customers and have developed long relationships with these customers leaving Air Marketing with the no choice but to try to meet up with these changes.
The company has a strong portfolio of well experienced personnel who have had and average combined experience of more than fourteen years. This gives the company a good strength to be able to meet up with challenges and serve their clients better. The target market for the company is unlimited as they can offer their service to companies all over the world. There is the opportunity of a large market available to Air marketing and technology the company can use to reach its customers and let them know about the services they offer. With this technology and the need for consultants during periods of economic downturn, the company has the tendency to reach its clients and attract new ones in order to grow. Setting up promotional strategies for marketing is very important for the company to know the right means to reach its target market.
1. Current Company and Environmental Review
1.1. SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis is used by companies to analyse with internal factors (Strength and Weaknesses) and external factors (Opportunities and Threats) in a company in order to compare them and come out with appropriate marketing strategies (Kotler and Keller, 2006; Oxford University Press, 2007).
Strengths are those strong positive internal factors are company has built over a period of time that can be used as a tool to create strategies or reduce and eliminate threats (Oxford University Press, 2007). One of the greatest strengths of Air Marketing is has worked with a wide range of international companies like Compass Group (catering company), Museums, hotels (holiday Inn), restaurants, bars and touristic areas, developing products and promoting them (airmarketing.co.uk, 2009). They also have a wide range of services that they offer to customers which include; formulating marketing strategies, designing promotions, customer relationship management, direct marketing, and public relations and branding (airmarketing.co.uk, 2009). Strength of the company is their stuff combine experience. The staffs are very qualified in the field on marketing and what they do best. They have an average personnel experience of about 14 years.
On the other hand, weaknesses are those internal negative aspects that make a company weaker and should be controlled by the (Oxford University Press, 2007). One of the weaknesses they face this that they are not well advertised. The company’s website, www.airmarketing.co.uk, is a very simplified website and does not give much information about the company. The website does not show images of what the company can do or examples of what they have done in the pas with other clients. As a marketing company, more is expected to be shown on the company’s website.
Opportunities are external factors a company can take advantage of in order to improve on its operation and increase performance and efficiency (Coulter, 2003). Marketers always say marketing is the most important department in a company because if a company manufactures a product and does not know how to market it, the product becomes useless. There are many companies today that will need the service of Air Marketing and therefore giving them the opportunity to gain more clients. With the economic downturn, most companies are trying to maintain their customers and even get new ones to buy their products and services with the help of a company. There is also the opportunity of technology and marketing media. The company can take advantage of the internet facilities to market themselves more to other companies. This can be done through internet advertisement, which will be discussed in details later in this report. Companies use their strength to take advantage of opportunities so as to control their weaknesses.
Threats on the other hand are those external factors that might affect the company negatively (Kotler and Keller, 2006). The company’s greatest threat like any other company is its competitors. There are so many companies like, the London Marketing Group, Omnicom Group, WPP group plc and Enterprise IG (does mostly brand consulting. These companies are really large marketing consultants in the UK who also provide services to international companies. Marketing competition and the attractiveness of a market can be evaluated using Porter’s five forces of competition; which is used by companies to analyse competitions in an environment and use their available resources and information from the analysis to take advantage of opportunities presented and minimise threats. They also face threat as a consulting company because companies would rather employer marketing directors to provide services a consulting company would prove and also build up the company’s strengths. This is another threat because it might limit the number of clients the Air Marketing might have. Threats to accompany can lead to the company’s weaknesses.
1.2. PEST Analysis
This model is used to analyse the external environment for those external factors that could affect the company positively or negatively and could lead to opportunities or threats (Kotler and Keller, 2006).
Political instability and government policies also known as political factor in the PEST analysis can also influence how a company operates in a particular (Onkvisit and Shaw, 2004). Located in the UK, the political situation is favourable for this company.
Economic Factors are external factors such as; customers purchasing power which depends on the customers’ income, credit available savings and inflation and their influence on the company (Kotler and Keller, 2006). This helps especially in periods of economic downturn to determine consumer behaviour and purchasing power to know what kind of service to provide to customers and how to distribute such service. Inflation plays a big role in borrowings. The inflation rate in the UK has caused a fall in interest rates meaning companies can now borrow money for investments in their companies or other profitable projects at a very low interest rate
Social factors are very influencial external factor to a company and also determine the customers’ purchasing power and includes taste, norms and values, social the acceptance by the society (Kotler and Keller, 2006). In this case Air marketing would have to know if companies’ style of marketing have changed and also if their target groups have also changed. The question here is has the client gone international and therefore needs a company that can help it achieve its international goal (change in style and taste)?
Technological factors deals with the changes in and availability of technology and how it can affect the company (Kotler and Keller, 2006). As a company developing in a technologically advance country, the company should look at those technologically advanced means of communication and advertisement. They should also be up to date with new forms of marketing technologies like software, and other forms of technology to advertise their business.
1.3. Market Segmentation
This is artificially grouping identified customers with significant of identical needs to help in designing strategies for a company (Wedel and Kamakura, 1999; Kotler and Keller 2006). Air marketing can segments its marketing using geographic segmentation. This means dividing the market into geographic areas which include nations, regions, continents and towns (Kotler and Armstrong, 2001). Their market can be divided using these segments. Continental markets will include grouping clients in USA and South America as a segment and those in Europe as another segment. Market segmentation helps to identify each customer’s needs separate from those in other segments. Marketing strategies and branding for clients in the Americas would be different from those in Europe because of their differences in customer behaviour. Continental segments can also be subdivided in to countries marking it even easier to reach client’s needs. This would help the company to target particular markets they are interested in and that are profitable.
2. Marketing Mix Strategy
The diagram below shows the stages through which company can go through to improve on their marketing strategies and activities to achieve both short term and long term marketing goals.
This model was first created in 1984 by James Culliton showing a controllable marketing variables that can be used to appeal to particular target markets that could be presented as the 4p’s of marketing, which include; product, price, promotion and place (Kotler and Armstrong 2001; Baines et al2008)
2.1. Product
Baines et el (2008) describe product as goods and services a company can offer to its target customers consisting of quality, shape, design, variety, structure and brand name (Baines, P. et al 2008). Air Marketing offers marketing service to companies mostly in the UK and other countries in Europe. The company can use its product strategy to create a competitive advantage in the market where it operates. With so many competitors, they can create a service low cost strategy of a differentiation strategy to build a competitive advantage. The company can create a differentiation strategy by providing first hand services to companies and help them follow up on the success of the strategies implemented. This will create customer loyalty and satisfaction and therefore a competitive advantage over their competitors.
2.2. Price
This strategy deals with what the company is asking the customers to pay for products and services offered to them including credit terms, discounts allowed, payment periods and allowances. This strategy can also be used to create a competitive advantage for Air Marketing (Kotler and Armstrong, 2001).
Low cost strategy to build a competitive advantage; by creating a low cost strategy, the company will be able to lower its consultation fee to its client
2.3. Place (distribution)
This strategy gives answers to the question on where customers can get access to the company’s services (Kotler and Armstrong, 2001). This strategy is implemented after promotion has been carried out in the company. Air Market should expand its services would wide to Asia and other parts of the world. The world is growing today like one economy where the effect in one country can effect the world as a whole. Therefore, companies should be able to expand their services and world globally.
2.4. Promotion
This is the most important part of Air Marketing because of the threat of competition it is facing in today’s market. With the right promotional strategy, the company can achieve a lot and grow.
Promotional strategies deal with how companies is going to communicate with its customers and through what means, and also how customers are going to get information about their products and services (Kotler and Armstrong, 2001). This includes; personal offers, advertisements, sales and public relations (Kotler and Armstrong, 2001). The growing competition in consulting firms today would mean Air Marking will have to improve on its promotional strategies to reach more clients who need their services. There are a number of promotional strategies the company can use.
2.4.1. Advertisement using websites
The first thing the company has to do is to improve on their website. The website of the company should be improved by putting videos and some visuals. It should contain previous projects the company has carried out and how effective these projects have worked. Most websites today are accessed because of the way they are presented. Most people would rather watch videos than reading words from a web page. Pictures and videos would show the quality of work the company can offer including feedbacks from clients who have used their services. As a marketing company, Air Marketing has to show an example of good media marketing to its clients. There should also be a section where clients can estimate their cost using options the company would provide.
The figure 2 above shows the company’s website at the moment and figure 3 shows what the company’s websites should look like. From the figure 2 above, we can see the site contains very little visuals and information about the company. There are other websites that are frequently visited by a lot of people and they include; eBay, play.com and other websites where people go to shop. These are good sites where Air Marketing can advertise their products. They can also negotiate with existing clients to advertise their service on the clients’ websites. Advertisements via websites like YouTube not reach the right audience because only few people will go to YouTube to look for adverts for a marketing consulting firm.
2.4.2. Emails to Companies
Another way of getting to clients by sending emails to companies the company knows would need their services. This can be done using company’s websites and sending emails to advertise your services. Emails can be sent directly to the heads of companies making direct contact with them and therefore giving an overview or how the service could be useful to their companies. Companies respond faster to direct contacts.
2.4.3. Direct marketing and Word-of-Mouth
Direct marketing is also possible for a company like Air Marketing. Their consultants can market their services by visiting companies and telling them about what they can offer. This is a good way of marketing especially to entrepreneurs. This shows how dedicated the company is and how it wants to know its clients personal and for the client to know them in person. This might lead to a positive word of mouth where the client recommends Air Marketing to another company because they can see how dedicated the company is to meet on personal basis.
Other forms of marketing are through the radio and news papers. Television adverts are not really going to attract more customers when it comes to a consulting company. They also cost too much and the company might now benefit from the cost of advertising on TV.
Conclusion
This report has looked at the internal and external factors of air marketing that can influence the company’s efficiency and ability to grow. This was done by looking at the company’s strengths and weaknesses (internal factors) and comparing them with the company’s Opportunities and Threats (external factors). The report also looked at how the company can use PEST analysis to analyse the environment where they operate. A further look was taken at how the company can divide its market and also how they can target each market using differences in marketing strategies.
The most important part of the report gave an overview of the marketing strategy the company can use and how it can build up a competitive advantage from the strategies. A closer look was taken at taken at the promotional strategy which was the focus of this report. This strategy explains how Air marketing can used websites, emails and direct marketing to sell its services by improving on their website.
To conclude using the media to get to customers is very useful in today’s marketing, that is why a lot of companies have created websites. The questions here are how good is the company’s website to attract its customers? And are all forms of media useful for a company? The answer here lies within the budget of the company and how many customers they gain in a period. Therefore, strategies should always be reviewed to look for the best way to get to customers.
