Marketing Plan | A Sample Assignment of Marketing
1. A summary of your marketing plan
The marketing plan is developed for Blackstar Coffee, which is an Australian coffee company in Brisbane. It is popular for selling wide-variety of coffee to Australians. It is considered as the best coffee spot in town as the brand offers single-origin and espresso blends that are perfect for those who want to have coffee at home but in the style made by the staff of Blackstar Coffee. This coffee shop has come up with a new coffee blend, which is for health-conscious people. Due to high awareness among the people to stay fit, Blackstar coffee company has developed this new blend (Blackstar Coffee, 2019). The marketers of Blackstar Coffee can take different communication mediums including online, print, TV and personal selling to promote the new coffee product in the Australian coffee industry. The Australian coffee industry is extremely competitive so focus has to be on ensuring that the marketing plan of the organisation is efficient.
2. Background analysis of your business and market
Australians are obsessed with coffee and they cannot imagine their lives without a hot cup of coffee after a stressful day. However, when the Blackstar coffee company was developed, there were few coffee shops in the neighbourhood that provided speciality coffee (Adams, 2012). Blackstar coffee was developed in 2008 and soon, the management added many new roasting machines to the list (Blackstar Coffee, 2019). The target audience for the business have been students, creatives and professionals who love coffee after a stressful day or just sip a cup of coffee for getting a lot of energy to operate.
The SWOT analysis of the business is as follows.
| Strengths: the key strength of the business is the lovely ambience of the outlet. It provides a fresh feel to the guests who come to the outlet for getting rid of their stress.
The location of the Blackstar coffee outlet is supreme due to which all the universities and offices are easily accessible. |
Weaknesses: The company has not diversified its product portfolio since many tears. It is due to this that tehre is a difficulty in coping with the competition as the consumers ahve better options.
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| Opportunities: An opportunity for the business is to develop new products that can be beneficial for the existing market. A health drink, which is a coffee also can be extremely popular among people. | Threats: the competition from giants such as Starbucks and Costa Coffee and also from the local coffee companies can be a major threat for the business of Blackstar Coffee. |
The SWOT analysis of Blackstar Coffee indicates that competition is a threat for the business due to which the focus should be on understanding the market and developing a new product, which can provide the coffee company a competitive edge.
Structure of the Business
The formal structure of the business is a sole trader. The company was started by Marin Richards, who developed this business single handedly after returning from New Zealand in 2006 (Blackstar Coffee, 2019). He realised the situation in the country for the coffee and how people were so passionate about drinking freshly brewed coffee. As a result, he started his own business.
Establishment of Business
The business started in 2008. The full store of the coffee company opened in the inner city West End.
The reports suggest that the coffee industry in Australia is the largest. The Australian coffee market is considered largest in the world. As of 2017, the revenue of the coffee company was greater than 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2017 (Janissen & Huyn, 2018) .
Target Market
The key target market for the business includes students and professionals. As the location of the coffee shop is downtown due to which all the universities can be easily accessible. This is a usual stopover for students. Also, there is a wide-range of coffee blends and beans available for professionals.
Competitors
As the coffee company is extremely competitive so there are many competitors for Blackstar coffee. This includes Starbucks, Costa Coffee and many local coffee shops in the neighbourhood. The key strategy used by large corporations such as Starbucks and Costa Coffee is to diversify their product portfolio often so that the consumers can get unique products to choose from.
Marketing objectives and strategy of your business
- To increase the sales of the business by 20% in next 1 year
- To develop online engagement of the brand on different social media websites.
- To increase the awareness about the products of Blackstar coffee.
3. Marketing mix
Product: the product to be developed is a new coffee which will be healthy as well as provide energy to the people. This coffee is developed specially for the people who focus on health and do not want to consume much caffeine due to health issues. This new health based coffee will provide herbal impacts to the people and soothe the stressful mind.
Price: the price to be set for the new coffee will be competitive. This is one of a kind product in the coffee range so the focus is on ensuring to price it extremely well.
Place: the product will be available on sale for the target audience in all the outlets of Blackstar Coffee. The focus is on developing the product for the students and professionals who consider coffee as their key drink.
Promotion: for promoting this product, social media is the best option. The management will use Facebook and Instagram for the promotion of the new coffee. The focus will be on using direct and indirect promotion techniques. For direct promotional techniques, the marketing channels used include online, public relations, advertising, personal selling and branding.
- Online: the first type of promotional media to be used by the marketers will be online. The marketers can carry out both paid and non-paid marketing campaigns on Facebook. It is expected that Facebook and Instagram will help in creating ample experience for the consumers.
- Print advertising: The marketers can give adverts for the new coffee and outlet in national newspapers. This can help in people knowing about the new launch.
- TV advertising: The marketers can use TV advertising due to the fact TV is commonly used by everyone. Hence, it can help in creating a lot of awareness among the guests for the new coffee available in the Blackstar coffee outlets.
People: There are several people who will be influenced by the activities of the company including staff, investors and consumers. The staff needs appropriate training so that they can get knowledge about different things. It is also needed for the staff to be friendly with the customers and provide them with as good an experience as possible. The team can be a competitive advantage for the organisation due to which there needs to be focus on training the staff and providing them skills.
Process: It is the buying experience that the customer experiences when they buy the product or service. In the case of Blackstar, the focus is on posting engaging pictures of the coffee on Instagram so that consumers are extremely satisfied. Besides this, the coffee shop has an immediate resolution process due to which the complaints recorded by the consumers about the new product should be resolved as soon as possible.
Physical Environment: The physical environment is the one where the products or services are sold and delivered. Blackstar coffee aims at revamping the ambience and look of its outlets so that the consumers can be happy and satisfied with this new coffee. For instance, the marketers are planning to install a LED in the outlet which will show the live reactions of the consumers on the products of the company.
4. Action plans and budgets
The action plan for the new coffee product is as follows.
- To create awareness among people about this new product through Facebook and Instagram
- To click engaging pictures of the coffee and post on Instagram for consumer engagement
- To carry out SWOT analysis of the company to understand the weaknesses
- To conduct PESTLE analysis of the company for understanding the external market forces influencing the business
- To develop marketing budget for the marketing of the new product
- To complete activity sheet for the product
- To train the staff members to carry out the marketing activities
- To develop engaging posts and banners for promoting this new product
- To take feedback from the staff members for the effectiveness of the enw product
- To monitor the marketing plan from time to time and amend it
The budget for the marketing of the new coffee at Blackstar Coffee is as follows.
| Item | Jan | Feb | March | April | May | June | July | August | Septermber | October | November | December |
| Marketing agency | $10000 | $10000 | $10000 | $10000 | $10000 | $10000 | $10000 | $10000 | $10000 | $10000 | $10000 | $10000 |
| Radio advertising | $50000 | $50000 | $50000 | $50000 | $50000 | $50000 | $50000 | $50000 | $50000 | $50000 | $50000 | $50000 |
| TV Advertising | $8000 | 8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 |
| Social media campaigning | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 | $8000 |
| Web search optimisation | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 |
| giveaways | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 | $6000 |
| branding | $9000 | $9000 | $9000 | $9000 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | $9000 |
| Public relations | $15000 | $15000 | $15000 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
5. Organisational implications and contingencies
Organisational implications are crucial for the business owners to cope with the marketing plan. As far as the goals of the marketing plan are concerned, these are as follows.
- To increase the sales of the business by 20% in next 1 year
- To develop online engagement of the brand on different social media websites.
- To increase the awareness about the products of Blackstar coffee.
When increasing the sales of the business, there is a need for the coffee company to invest in appropriate development of the new product and also carrying out various marketing activities. Hence, it can result in financial burden on the business. The managers need to keep a significant budget for the additional activities for increasing the efficiency of the business and make the development process of this new brand easy.
Contingencies
Although appropriate planning is done to ensure that there are no risks for implementation of the marketing activities. But if there are any problems, these must be managed by the managers in an effective way. The focus of the managers is on developing a contingency plan and carrying out more planning. However, the analysis of the market indicates that there can be tough competition from the competitors. It is vital to create huge awareness among the people about this new product so that they can be encouraged to use it as much as possible.
6. Evaluation and monitoring strategies
The marketers at Blackstar Coffee will need to focus on developing and implementing many monitoring strategies. These are tabulated as follows.
| Marketing activity | Date of review | Monitoring methods | Review outcomes |
| Print advertising | Nov/2020 | To take feedback from the guests coming over to the coffee shop | The feedback of the guests will help in indicating if the product is doing well or not. |
| Online advertising (Social media, blogging, vlogging, online public relations) | Nov/2020 | To engage with customers and create different polls for the student | The online advertising will help increase engagement with the consumers and provide them appropriate knowledge of the new launches at Blackstar coffee. |
| Mail-outs | Nov/2020 | To take inputs from the staff members | The mail outs will be for staff and consumers. |
| Give-aways | Dec/2020 | To conduct survey among customers about the new product and its effectiveness | The give-aways will be provided to the consumers as an introductory offer. This will increase engagement of the guests with the new products. |
| Public events | Dec/2020 | To see the reactions of the customers about the new product by holding a public event. | The public event will be held in mall to create awareness for the new product. |
| Radio events/TV advertising | Dec 2020 | To conduct radio event for providing awareness to the consumers about the new coffee product | The radio events will help in creating awareness, speaking to the guests and even providing feedback for the products. |
7. Supporting documentation
The marketing plan includes a series of attachments. These are also known as supporting documentation and will help the marketers to have thorough knowledge of their market and the marketing activities to be carried out. The list of documents prepared as supporting documentation for the marketing plan are as follows.
- Financial documents
- Non-financial documents
- Customer surveys
- Questionnaires
These are certain supporting documents for the marketing plan of the firm.
References
Adams, J. (2012). Australia’s American coffee culture. Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, 2(1), 23-36.
Blackstar Coffee., (2019). About. https://shopforblackstarcoffee.myshopify.com/pages/about. Accessed on 6/10/2020.
Janissen, B., & Huynh, T. (2018). Chemical composition and value-adding applications of coffee industry by-products: A review. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 128, 110-117.