Marketing Plan Final Draft

Marketing Plan Final Draft
Introduction
A marketing plan can be defined as a blueprint or comprehensive document that mainly focuses on outlining the marketing as well as the advertising efforts that should be considered by a business over a given time, for instance, in the coming year (Armstrong et al., 2014). A marketing plan, therefore, elaborates on the crucial business operations useful in accomplishing specific marketing objectives that need to be realized either sooner or later. In this paper, I primarily intend to develop a marketing plan that defines a hypothetical market offering of my choice. I will use Vancouver Apparels, which is a hypothetical business that provides the customers it targets with offers to buy customized home-wear. Therefore, Vancouver Apparels will act as a stepping stone useful in developing the marketing plan I need.
Marketing Activities
The demand for home-wear in Ottawa, Canada is currently estimated at millions of dollars. During the previous year, the overall value for this market was marked at about $175 million. It is projected that the prospects associated with this market will continue to improve in the foreseeable future. Currently, the marketing focus prioritized at Vancouver Apparels involves targeting at least 12 percent of the entire market share present in Ottawa.
At the same time, rolling out strategic advertising approaches would further help to ensure that the desired sales targets are realized. The move to have the stores that are under the control of Vancouver Apparels’ label expanded will also help to target more customers. On average, the business intends to earn about $ 240,000 from the sale of home-wear. Making constant reviews on the overall marketing activities normalized at Vancouver Apparels, therefore, matters a lot. Doing so will ensure that targets are set to ensure the desired marketing objectives materialize.
Current Marketing Situation
After carrying out a strategic review of the overall market situation for the home-wear market in Ottawa, I noted that there exists the potential for Vancouver Apparels to flourish. Residents in Ottawa typically need home-wear occasionally. This means that if Vancouver Apparels executes its business operations on the region appropriately, chances are very high that success in the selling of home-wear to the customers in need would become inevitable. However, if Vancouver Apparels intends to become a dominant player in its target market various concerns should be addressed first.
The marketing situation of concern that needs to be addressed comprehensively includes prioritizing increased marketing, promoting in-store promotions, and also managing web-based promotions. Increased marketing, in this case, if considered by Vancouver Apparels will require the managers in charge to focus not only on intensified public relations but also magazine advertising. In-store promotions will allow Vancouver Apparels’ marketing specialists to feature their products in style; advertising visuals will help the concerned managers to achieve the goals they desire. The management of web-based promotions, on the other hand, will require managers at Vancouver Apparels to match sales records over time.
Customer Solution
Providing customers with the satisfaction they need is a crucial concern that should always be considered by managers in charge of business activities at Vancouver Apparels. Kotler and Armstrong (2018) mention that without customer satisfaction, there would be no clients who would return to make more purchases of the home-wear products being sold. Thus, by prioritizing customer satisfaction, service providers working at Vancouver Apparels would attract referrals as well as new customers. Old customers would also identify with Vancouver Apparels.
Therefore, customer satisfaction should be prioritized because it always helps a company to meet its sales targets as the expectations desired by customers are being met. Customer satisfaction is essential since it provides business owners as well as marketers with specific metrics that are suitable for improving and managing business activities (Kotler& Armstrong, 2018). Vancouver Apparels, through its managers, should build customer loyalty through enhancing customer satisfaction. Customer retention mistakes should also be avoided by setting expectations as desired by customers early. Action-based emails should also be leveraged.
We always need a great and clear strategy to create a good customer base and even to maintain it. Product strategy gives us the direction that we have to take with our product and how to give the best quality to the customer. We aim to do better than our competitors.
Product strategy
Our product strategy aims at knowing the needs of our customers and providing a variety of best products for them. Our product strategy will contain the product definition, which will include the vision, goals, and initiatives. We also look at how we compare with our competitors considering the products that we offer.
I. Vision
As Vancouver Apparels, our vision is to be the number one supplier of quality home-wares in Ottawa by five years. This means we are targeting more than fifty percent of the market share in Ottawa.
II. Goals
As Vancouver Apparels, we have many goals to achieve and we have set time limits for them. The goals include; offering quality home-wares in Ottawa and beyond the city. Moreover, Vancouver Apparels aspire to earn more than eighty percent of the market share and become the number one supplier of the home-wares in Ottawa as outlined in the vision statement.
Our objective is customer satisfaction by offering quality products to the customers. We aim to investigate and know what the customers prefer and give them exactly what they desire and in a better way.
In profits, our objective is to increase our revenues by 50%. Similarly, we plan to expand to other cities after conquering Ottawa. We are mainly targeting Toronto. We plan to have a customer base of more than ten thousand and have more than one thousand orders per day.
Vancouver Apparels offers a variety of products just to ensure that we carter to the needs of every customer. This includes:
Category Examples of goods offered
Kitchen products Coffee makers, knives, dishwashers,
Living rooms Air conditioners, sofas, love seats, recliners,
Dining rooms Dining chairs and tables,
Bathrooms Bath cloths and towels,
Bedrooms Blankets, bedding linens, mattresses

Competition
Vancouver Apparels can counter the influence of similar competitors by focusing on normalizing counteroffensive marketing strategies. Some of the useful strategies, in this case, include prioritizing increased marketing, promoting in-store promotions, and also managing web-based promotions. At the same time, the competition that hinders Vancouver Apparels from achieving its set objectives can be countered if managers in the company focus on ensuring a larger market share are obtained. Total sales in the market, as well as the overall percentage control of the target market, are, however, earned over time and not abruptly (Kotler& Armstrong, 2018). Controlling a large market share is the only solution Vancouver Apparels can use if it intends to counter the influence of competitors.
Distribution Review
Vancouver Apparels should patronize the lucrative nature of doing business through online retail because the millennial generation mostly identifies with online shopping. Other groups that make the population, for instance, the baby boomers also love purchasing products from businesses that sell want they desire online. In general, people love to buy products from a business that has an established online presence.
As a new distribution channel, online retailing provides a business with a better approach of reaching out to the targeted clients easily. The process of delivering products ordered by customers is also enabled since customers receive the purchased products at their doorstep. Vancouver Apparels is required to operate as an online business. Customers should be able to receive the home-wear they purchase from the stores managed by Vancouver Apparels in time. At the same time, running a discounted store would help Vancouver Apparels to reach out to customers who love buying what they want directly.
Pricing
Managers in charge of Vancouver Apparels need to monitor exchange rate fluctuation and competition daily. Exchange rate management will allow managers to mitigate losses that are usually incurred through the importation of products. To counter competition, Vancouver Apparels can also decide whether it is appropriate to lower the price of their home-wear. Overall, as Vancouver Apparels will be targeting more customers exchange rate fluctuations as well as competition by similar players in the market have to be checked.
Delivery network and distribution strategy
Vancouver Apparels have put up strategies to ensure that they are very aggressive in the market. The business intends to put up retail shops in strategic locations of the city. This includes Parliament Hill, along the Rideau Canal, near the War Museum and just near the Peace Tower. These are places that have always had many people visiting. Our objective is to minimize the costs of reaching out to the customers and even the costs of delivery. The places that have been stated above are central sites in the city and we presume that customers can easily collect their goods from here.
Promotion strategy
We plan to reach our customers as directly as possible. This is through online physical selling and also through online shops. This will be done at the convenience of the customers; they have the freedom to choose. This helps us to focus directly on the target customer while being careful with our costs. The following are our promotional plans;
We plan to have a press release kit that we will distribute to major television and radio stations in Canada. We intend to include pictures of our products plus a video that outlines our values and the values we intend to bring to the market. The advertisement will also inform the customers of our locations and our websites.
We also plan to promote the business by making and distributing flyers all over the city. The objective is to create awareness in the city about the ongoing business and tell them about our locations. Moreover, we will have an online shop where customers can view and shop without necessarily coming to our retail shops.
Distribution strategies / Place
Vancouver Apparels retail shops will be the major distribution channels especially for the customers that are just within the town. However, we will have a group of individuals that will be responsible to deliver the goods to those that shopped online. Vancouver apparels website will have a portion where the customers are required to give feedback about the goods that they have bought, how well they can be served. This gives us a clue on how we can improve as a business.
Pricing strategy
Vancouver Apparels plans to have a flexible pricing strategy where the customers are allowed to negotiate for the product’s final prices (Kotler & Armstrong, 2018). However, we have the minimum prices for the products and they have been shared with the marketers so that we do not make losses. Most of our products come with suggested retail prices that we follow while making the final prices of the products.
We also utilize the competitors’ prices in making the standards prices for our products. Similarly, we have factored in our costs and the perception of the products in setting up our prices. As Vancouver Apparels, we have ensured that we sell the home wear at a profit margin of fifty percent. That is; we get a 50% profit on every clothes that we sell. Demand and supply have also shaped the prices of our goods. Demand can change anytime depending on the customer’s preferences. The customer’s income level is also a factor in our pricing. For the estates that we perceive to be having families with high incomes, we offer quality home-wares at a higher price compared to those with low incomes. Vancouver apparels have also factored in the pricing of related goods in the pricing model.
Vancouver Apparels, therefore, use the value-based model of pricing where the customer’s perception of the product matters. We have come up with a strategy to influence the customers to perceive our products positively. We have employed marketers that will do research on the customer’s preferences and to market our products. We aim to make the customers think of us first, whenever they think of buying quality home-wares.
In our pricing model, we also plan to do promotions whenever the demand for the home-wares decreases instead of lowering the prices. We plan to ensure our competitors lower their prices; we will offer more clothes for a lesser amount. This will ensure that we maintain the customer base and even increase it, especially when the demand goes down. Moreover, we have put up plans to ensure that we incur very minimal costs in procuring our products.
Conclusion
A marketing plan refers to a blueprint or comprehensive document that focuses on providing businesses with a marketing outline as well as the advertising schemes that should be considered over a given time. In this marketing plan, Vancouver Apparels which runs as a business that provides the targeted Ottawa clients with home-ware is subject to analysis. However, the marketing plan that is associated with Vancouver Apparels is mainly hypothetical. Overall, by targeting Vancouver Apparels, I could develop a basic marketing plan for a hypothetical marketing offering of my choice.  
References
Alipour, M., Ghanbari, A., & Moniri, S. (2011). The impact of the marketing mix (4Ps) on marketing audit and performance in Iranian SMEs. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 1(2), 112-117.
Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S., & Kotler, P. (2014). Principles of Marketing. Pearson
Kotler P. T., & Armstrong, G., (2018). Principles of Marketing (17e). Upper Saddle River: Pearson.