Introduction
Marketing strategy is one of the crucial elements of the company’s activity aimed at developing, producing, and communicating to the buyers the goods and services that best meet their needs. The main goal of a company’s marketing strategy is to develop an elaborate plan of product sales to increase profitability, attract external investors and respond in a timely manner to changes in the internal and external environment of the company. As states Fifield (2007), “The pace of change in marketing is such that at the moment we are still in the process of working out how to solve today’s problems” (p. 10). Our virtual business is an online party supply retailer named Copious.com – we sell party supplies for different events and create specialty-designed products by customer request. To make our business the most efficient it could be, we carefully consider the following aspects: analysis of the external environment; selection of priority market segments; positioning of products in terms of properties and characteristics relevant to consumers; analysis of competitors’ actions.
Problems Our Virtual Business Would Solve
Trade-based businesses are actively moving digital. Online orders from many companies bring in either significant or most of the profits. Due to its convenience, virtual business solves several problems, which are actual not only for potential customers but also for the owners of the business itself. The first and foremost issue is the distribution process – the automation system of a virtual business grants full internal control of it. Through this system, managers can unify all distribution operations, set sales goals, and KPIs, and monitor their achievements. Moreover, the system maintains internal financial control and provides consolidated data for all trading activities. With its help, managers can always find out the product prices, sales proceeds, losses from discounts, and the costs of all related services. From this, follows another problem’s solution – virtual analytics services gather and allocate all data automatically, providing a consolidated analysis to quickly assess the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. For the customers, the benefits of an online business are obvious. Overall, online shopping saves time and effort to purchase the needed goods or services, provides a useful insight into the market, as well as allows great flexibility of payment methods.
Three Unique Virtual Business Products
A unique selling proposition helps convey to a potential client the special benefits they will receive by contacting this certain business. A competent USP distinguishes the company from its competitors and makes it look especially tempting. Fifield emphasizes that “[Marketing] states quite categorically that we recognize that our existence, and future survival and growth, depends on our ability to give our customers what they want” (p. 15). One of the essential formulas for creating a good USP is “product + fear”. If the business knows what its potential consumers are afraid of, it can easily sell its unique product by reassuring the customers that with it, they have nothing to worry about anymore.
Here we present three unique selling propositions for our business:
- You don’t have to ruffle your soles in search of eco balloons or flying lanterns for your big day – we’ve got ‘em all nice and ready for you anytime!
- Fancy a birthday party for your dog? Hats, bandanas, and festive letters – everything for your pup’s day on our site!
- We know how hard it is sometimes to find the right supplies for your party. That’s why we create the one-of-a-kind fineries at your request! All you need is to tell us what do you want – and we’ll do it quickly and splendidly just for you!
Brand of Our Product
The brand concept is the most important starting point for any brand. It consists of the main branding ideas of the company, which unite its goals and objectives. A brand concept speaks about how a brand makes its customers feel, and it how becomes the foundation for building the marketing strategy. The best place to start developing a brand concept is to know exactly what the brand is offering the client and what sets it apart from others in this market field. Our brand is based on individuality: we do not just sell ready-made party supplies but also offer our customers the ability to create their own custom fineries with unique designs. Moreover, we operate entirely online, and that allows us to avoid costs for warehouses, offices, and merchandise sites. Such an approach leads to lower prices for our clients, which also positively affects our position and rating on the market. Our target audience is people who like to throw bright parties and stand out from the crowd with their originality. This leads to an open, honest, and humorous tone of voice, in which our brand communicates our key values: uniqueness, love for fun, and efficient work.
Life Cycles for Virtual Business Products
Each product lives on the market for a certain time period. Sooner or later, it is supplanted by a new, superior one. A product’s life cycle is the time span from the initial appearance of a product on the market until the termination of its sales. This cycle is described by the change in sales volume and profit indicators over time and consists of the following stages: the beginning of sales (introduction to the market), growth, maturity (saturation), and decline. The transition from stage to stage is usually quite smooth, so the marketing department must closely monitor changes in sales and profits in order to pin down the borderline of each stage and accordingly change the marketing program.
You don’t have to ruffle your soles in search of eco balloons or flying lanterns for your big day – we’ve got ‘em all nice and ready for you anytime!
The demand for party supplies for different events remains moderately high in market forecasts. However, the field of eco supplies has not yet fully developed, so pioneering in it would bring relatively low profits at the start with a predicted growth as the inquiry for eco alternatives would increase. There is also an issue of seasonality – the demand for balloons and lanterns would be from high and moderate throughout the warm seasons to low or non-existent in cold seasons. Overall, there is a forecast of a continuous increase in demand for this product with no successors in the foreseeable future.
Fancy a birthday party for your dog? Hats, bandanas, and festive letters – everything for your pup’s day on our site!
This unique selling proposition is quite specific, as it is directed mainly on dedicated dog lovers who like to spoil their pets. However, the number of dog owners in the world grows exponentially, so this product has the prospect of becoming popular and bringing good profits over time. The first thing to remember is that market research does not start with the product but with the needs of consumers. This kind of demand may remain constant, grow with time and never reach the stage of decline.
We know how hard it is sometimes to find the right supplies for your party. That’s why we create the one-of-a-kind fineries at your request! All you need is to tell us what do you want – and we’ll do it quickly and splendidly just for you!
In this case, our brand offers a potential customer the ability to design their own products, and this might be considered a big advantage for the company. There, interest is fueled not only by advertising but by customer behavior as well – the demand would tend to increase if the customers are to recommend this selling proposition to other people. During the maturity stage, competitors will be expected to react with a similar offer. At this moment, the brand will have to make a counter move to keep the attention of the customers. This move could be a price cut, a product improvement, or a loyalty program. Product modifications would also be needed to delay the onset of a recession.
Need for Legal Actions to Protect Intellectual Property
Objects of intellectual property are the results of a company’s creative intellectual labor. The first step towards making profits from the use of the intellectual property is to ensure an appropriate legal protection regime. Identified objects of intellectual property are taken into account as part of intangible assets – in the form of patents, trademarks, and copyrights. The commercialization of intellectual property objects allows them to be fully incorporated into the business’ processes. To effectively monetize the results of intellectual activity, it is necessary to check which objects of intellectual property already owned by the company are potentially able to bring benefits in terms of income, competitiveness, and financial stability. This process includes, among other things, the study of the latest technologies of competitors. For our brand, there would be a need to legally register the intellectual property only if we develop new technology for making our products. For example, there might be a need to patent a new method of making eco balloons or lanterns or an easier and cheaper way to print out fineries. Overall, the need for legal actions to protect the intellectual property of our brand is yet to be determined.
Target Market for Each Virtual Business Product
The target audience is a certain group of people potentially interested in the company’s proposal. It must be determined in the marketing strategy in order to properly address customers and build communications competently. Kanten and Darma (2017) conclude that “in order to gain better business performance, the marketing department has to combine consumer behavior, marketing strategy, and customer satisfaction rather than just focusing their efforts only on Marketing Strategy” (p. 1). In addition, knowledge of the target audience helps choose the right channels for promotion and make rational use of the budget.
Here we present three different target markets for each of our virtual business products:
- Product – eco balloons and flying lanterns.
People over 25 years old, married, mostly with children, of moderately high income, and interested in eco-activities. They do not have time and energy to sort out all the market offers – they want to make the process as simple, easy, and quick as possible. Mostly use Facebook and Instagram, also may click on context ads out of interest.
- Birthday party supplies for dogs.
People over 22 years old, single and married, mostly without children, but with one or more dogs in the household. They have a moderately high income and like to spend money on their pets. They also tend to look into the market more closely and search for an offer that fits their needs best. Mostly use Instagram and follow opinion leaders, a small part also uses TikTok.
- Custom-designed party supplies.
People over 18 years old, single, mostly undergraduate students or novice workers, of moderate income. They are highly interested in geek and pop-culture and like to stand out with official merchandise of their favorite media. They are the most likely to search through every offer on the market because they often cannot find what they need. Mostly use Instagram and TikTok, spend a lot of time on mobile apps and games.
Value Propositions for Virtual Business Products
In the heart of any marketing strategy lies a value proposition. The value proposition is a summary of the properties of a product that are the most beneficial to a certain customer. The creation of a value proposition is a strategic task, and the results of its implementation will directly affect the sales results of the product by influencing customers in the purchasing decision process.
Here we present three different value propositions for each of our virtual business products:
- You don’t have to ruffle your soles in search of eco balloons or flying lanterns for your big day – we’ve got ‘em all nice and ready for you anytime!
There is no need for a long and tiresome search for quality party supplies – we have everything for your choice on our website. An eco alternative is always available. You can make your party unique with our eco lanterns.
- Fancy a birthday party for your dog? Hats, bandanas, and festive letters – everything for your pup’s day on our site!
If you are a dedicated dog lover, that our service is just for you – throw a real party for your pup in two simple clicks.
- We know how hard it is sometimes to find the right supplies for your party. That’s why we create the one-of-a-kind fineries at your request! All you need is to tell us what do you want – and we’ll do it quickly and splendidly just for you!
If you are discouraged by the lack of really distinguished party supplies, just like us, then you are in the right place. The easiest and most creative way to design your unique fineries is here for you!
Position of Our Virtual Business Products in Relation to Competitors
Competition is a driving force of the market. It creates a diversity of offers and maintains the development of the competing companies. Katsikeas et al. (2019) state that “firms can now analyze the content of the messages exchanged by consumers across markets and obtain useful information about their attitudes, habits, interests, and preferences, as well as their perceptions about competing brands” (p. 6). In case of our brand, we position ourselves as the best for people who do not want to overpay for something they can do without. Our products also cannot be included into such categories as “luxury”, “fast/slow moving consumer goods” or “industrial” – they belong into the field of “one-time goods” and “entertainment services”. For our brand, the best positioning in relation to competitors would be based on the uniqueness and price expediency for the potential customers.
Inspirational Story
In 2020, many grew accustomed to counting losses and closed companies. It seems that the only people who had succeeded in this horrible year are the sellers of personal protective equipment, delivery services, and online courses. However, we think this is not true.
Events are a big part of our lives. Birthdays, weddings, graduating – we have all had some of them in the past. However, what truly makes a party outstanding? Well, there are, of course, many components, but for us, the first one is always the decoration. That is what makes the atmosphere festive and creates the lively spirit of fun! And that was our one true inspiration for deciding to give event business a try – we love fun with our whole souls and want to share that love with you, too. After all, what is life without the joy from a party well thrown? We think the first step to it is the proper fineries – and we are ready to create them for you!
Distribution and Logistics of Virtual Business Products
Distribution is a key logistic activity that includes a large number of elementary and complex activities. When building a distribution network, as well as choosing distribution channels for products and logistics intermediaries in distribution, a whole range of factors should be taken into account. Our business operates entirely virtual, so there is a need to attract reliable distributing companies and consider the logistics of every stage of product delivery closely. The current trends in entering the target market are that most of the newly created companies are trying to seize as much control over product purveyance as possible. By quickly and efficiently conquering the market, they ensure the maximum profits and prevent their competitors from accessing potentially beneficial contracts. However, this approach works more for FMCG-product businesses, while our business is much more specific. Detailed planning of the brand launch and a careful approach to its general promotion would help us avoid unnecessary losses. Moreover, a preliminary analysis of the market would help to correctly position the brand in relation to competitors and develop the right distribution strategy.
Promotion Strategies for Virtual Business Products
By understanding the positioning of competitors, we can develop a way to stand out in relation to them and show our unique offers to the consumers. The most popular digital channels for attracting customers to an online business are search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing (SMM), e-mail marketing, and content marketing. In order to develop the best promotion strategy for every product, we need to test different channels and find out which works best for which offer. The main placements for our business would be Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Google search engine, advertising on YouTube channels, and context advertising in mobile apps and on websites.
Here we present an approximate promotion strategy for every product:
- Product – eco balloons and flying lanterns.
First, we would make an SEO audit, which will prepare the site for SEO promotion, and does not require monthly payments. To test sales volume and get quick results, we would run contextual advertising, which will immediately attract the first customers and allow us to estimate the size of the niche. With that data, we can develop a shopper profile that includes information on customer preferences, site behaviors, hobbies, habits, etc. Then, using Facebook, we can display ads that are most relevant to our customers in the News Feed and Facebook Messenger.
- Birthday party supplies for dogs.
This niche is specific, so it would need a more delicate approach. For this product, we would collaborate with popular dog bloggers and run a giveaway that will attract interested clients and motivate them to join the mailing list or follow our pages. Here we can combine Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to get the most out of the giveaway and increase brand awareness.
- Custom-designed party supplies.
Custom products are usually not the most crucial for the consumers. For this kind of offer, we would use content marketing because it would allow us to establish contact with a site visitor and gradually form his need for our product. The potential client understands that the company can solve his problem and is more loyal to the cost of the product. By generating interesting, useful, and fun content on our social pages on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, we would increase brand loyalty and build an active community of potential clients.
Key Sales Activities to Build and Maintain Sales Pipeline
Sales strategy is a plan for the development of sales in a company, which contains a set of activities and checkpoints to control their effectiveness. It is inextricably linked with the marketing and development strategy of the company as a whole. Smith (2012) refers to her past research that “has shown some forms of online advertising, such as banner advertising, to be effective in influencing consumer behavior and enhancing ad perception and recall” (p. 6). Soegoto and Utomo (2019) support this claim, stating that “the role of social media is very influential in increasing economic progress in the online sales business that has a very wide opportunity” (p. 2). For our business, we decided to use the approach of inbound marketing because it fits the needs of a virtual business perfectly. Inbound marketing’s main goal is to generate a constant and reliable stream of leads for the sales team. It includes the creation of a landing page, targeted advertising, SEO promotion, content marketing, SMM, and direct mail. Katsikeas et al. (2019) provide a good insight here: “a company’s website offers valuable information about the firm and its products […], thus enabling visibility and awareness by a wider customer base in a relatively inexpensive way” (p. 22). As our business’ presence is exclusively virtual, inbound marketing and the extensive use of digital advertising methods would be the most efficient for our business.
Essential Elements of The Sales Process
The sales process is a complex set of operations performed when serving potential customers. The content of this process largely depends on the type and properties of goods, as well as on the form of their retail sale. Despite individual differences, the common elements of the sales process are establishing contact with the client, identifying the client’s needs, presenting the order, dealing with the client’s objections, completing the transaction. Working with orders is the most critical stage that affects future client’s loyalty. Essentially, it consists of many aspects, however, here, we would like to introduce only the main few of them. The first and the most important is the procession of all incoming requests to the company – phone calls, e-mails, and instant messengers, messages in online chats and tickets, as well as providing high-quality and prompt feedback. This also applies to responding to the customers’ reviews. Smith (2012), for example, states that “[Millennials] consider the opinions of their peers or fellow consumers to be more credible than traditional media or company sources of information” (p. 3). Other impactful aspects are the constant monitoring of the availability of product names and reservation of various items for the client. Lastly, the point of updating the client in their order is also quite important, as most people tend to trust the business more when they can see the processing of their order in real time.
Digital Marketing Strategy for Our Virtual Business
A digital marketing strategy is a consecutive set of steps based on digital marketing tools and tactics used to achieve the specific goals of a business. Here is an estimated plan of a digital marketing strategy for our virtual business:
- Collection and analysis of the situation and all initial data, such as strengths and weaknesses of the company and the product, opportunities and potential threats from the market, growth perspectives, and target audience.
- Based on the overall goals of your company, we will need to determine what marketing and sales metrics we are aiming for: KPI’s, conversions, potential leads, etc.
- Identification of bottlenecks and key change points – here, we would need to list all the specific constraint hypotheses which would affect the business. These constraints will later turn into key leverage points that our digital strategy will influence.
- Next, we determine fundamental tactics and tools for achieving our goals – those may include the potential locations of various target audiences, motivations for buying our products, unobvious benefits of our services, and many more.
- Planning our resources – here, we determine budgets and terms for completing the strategy.
- The last step is the realization of a fully developed digital marketing strategy.
Mockup of The Website for Our Virtual Business
Advertising Campaign for Our Virtual Business
Advertising is one of the main components of any marketing strategy. With a properly planned advertising campaign and a well-chosen advertising idea, sales can grow exponentially. Here we present an idea for an advertising campaign for one of our products – custom-designed fineries by request:
For such a campaign, a good choice would be a geek or pop-culture-based idea. As an example, we decided to use a crossover between the most popular media in the world. The visual part would contain several posters displaying different party supplies with pictures of various characters of pop culture. The first one is the Winchester brothers playing basketball with Disney princesses, the second one is Marvel’s The Avengers fighting creepers from Minecraft, etc. – imagination is the only limit. The tagline of the campaign could be “Make your wildest dreams come alive” – this would immediately show the product’s value proposition that offers unique designs at the customer’s request. As Kanten and Darma (2017) state, “marketing strategy’s thing to do is to sell the products with a view that attracts the attention of buyers” (p. 2). The advertising concept we described fits perfectly into the idea of attracting and holding our potential target audience’s attention.
How We Will Turn Potential Customers into Paying Clients
A large flow of traffic to the website of an online store is not yet a guarantee of high turnovers and sales. Conversion is an art and science of encouraging visitors to make further contacts with your company. It is important to ensure that visitors have several different ways to keep in touch with the brand – not just the opportunity to call you on the phone or shop on the company’s website. Morgan et al. (2018) specifically state that only “the systematic analyses of the use of different research approaches and methods in a particular domain […] can uncover insights for the development of new approaches and methods” (p. 6). Work with a potential client should begin with an analysis of their interests and fears – for example, it might be useful to make a map of their needs according to their psychosocial and economic portrait. Another way is to run a test advertising campaign with different target audiences. Based on the results of the analysis, we would identify the factors influencing the decision-making and address them pointwise with specific benefits of our unique selling proposals.
Competitive Price Analysis on Each Virtual Business Product
Through a competitive price analysis, we distribute all competitors by main price segments: low-price, mid-price, high-price, and premium segments. The next step is to identify competitors’ maximum price boundaries and the main price range in the market: the lowest price, the highest price, and an average selling price.
- You don’t have to ruffle your soles in search of eco balloons or flying lanterns for your big day – we’ve got ‘em all nice and ready for you anytime!
- Fancy a birthday party for your dog? Hats, bandanas, and festive letters – everything for your pup’s day on our site!
- We know how hard it is sometimes to find the right supplies for your party. That’s why we create the one-of-a-kind fineries at your request! All you need is to tell us what do you want – and we’ll do it quickly and splendidly just for you!
Pricing Strategy for Virtual Business Products
Determining the value of a product is an important step in predicting its success in the market. The level of profit from sales, the first perception of the product by the target audience, the possibility of increasing profits in the long term, as well as the overall competitiveness of the product depend on its initial price. Katsikeas et al. (2019) emphasize that “the internet also provides a useful medium to monitor the retail prices of its competitors on a worldwide scale” (p. 16). As our business is exclusively virtual, we would like to employ the market infiltration strategy – setting a deliberately low price range for our products and analyzing the first reactions of the customers. This strategy fits our business the best because it generates market acceptance and ensures the required level of trial purchases. In perspective, the market infiltration also maximizes sales in the short term and achieves a high market share, which then would gently lead to an increase in prices.
Conclusion
Strategic marketing should come first in developing the brand because it provides the necessary data to make important decisions regarding the future direction of the business and its activities in the market. Only after designing a proper marketing strategy can the brand start drawing up marketing theses, promoting and selling goods and services. A working marketing strategy covers a lot of aspects and allows the brand to develop useful insights into the business process. An effective marketing strategy transforms three essential ingredients into a golden formula for success. The first component is the brand mission; the second is the brand’s competitive advantages; the third is the selected market segments ready to purchase the product that outperforms the brand’s competitors. In the market strategy for our brand, we created a positioning map to determine our place among competitors and a promotion map to define potential advertising channels. Moreover, we developed three unique selling propositions – each has its own audience segment and advertising channel. A thorough analysis of possible results gathered from the strategy will allow us to determine if our planning was correct, as well as monitor the implementation of the company’s goals.
References
Fifield, P. (2007). Marketing Strategy: Taylor & Francis Group. Taylor & Francis. Web.
Kanten, I. K., & Darma, G. S. (2017). Consumer Behavior, Marketing Strategy, Customer Satisfaction, and Business Performance. Jurnal Manajemen Bisnis, 14(2), 143–165. Web.
Katsikeas, C., Leonidou, L., & Zeriti, A. (2019). Revisiting international marketing strategy in a digital era. International Marketing Review, 37(3), 405–424. Web.
Morgan, N. A., Whitler, K. A., Feng, H., & Chari, S. (2018). Research in marketing strategy. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 47(1), 4–29. Web.
Soegoto, E. S., & Utomo, A. T. (2019). Marketing Strategy Through Social Media. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 662, 032040. Web.
Taken Smith, K. (2012). Longitudinal study of digital marketing strategies targeting Millennials. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 29(2), 86–92. Web.