Marketing Objectives
The marketing plan for Blink Camera aims at ensuring the recognition of the companys entry level camera and its multi-feature camera. The company is focused in increasing the sales volume for both entry level camera and its multi-feature camera. To achieve these objectives, the following marketing objectives have been developed:
- Market penetration; the two products will be sold to existing customer segments
- Market extension; the two products will be extended to new markets where Blink Camera has never entered before.
- Promoting the entry level camera among the youth as a user-friendly, affordable and creative camera that meets their photography needs
- Promoting the multi-feature camera among middle income groups and professional photographers
Core Strategy
Target Markets
As stated earlier, the Blink entry-level camera will be targeted more at the youth sector. The companys promotional campaigns and marketing initiatives will target the younger generation in all the regions that the company operates in including Europe, Asia- Pacific, Africa among others. To attract the younger generation to this product, the company will roll out a ‘fun’ campaign to promote the Blink entry camera in all the regions where it operates (U.S Small Business Administration, 2012).
On the other hand, the multi-feature cameras are more convenient for more mature and financially stable segments of the population. For this reason, the marketing for this product will target the middle income earners and photography professionals. In addition, given the cameras multiple features some people perceive it as complex and difficult to use. To address this challenge the company has produced a user guide that will guide the customers on how to take pictures quickly.
Competitor targets
At present, there are many entry-level camera models in the market. These include products from major global players like Canon, Sony, and Olympus that are promoted widely in the market. Canon will further provide significant competition for Blinks multi-feature camera because it strongly markets its professional models like the 50D and 7D, however, Blink can beat it in the entry-level models if significant marketing is done because it often overlooks its models such like the 1000D.
The company projects that its strong marketing campaign for its entry level and the multi-feature camera in both new and established markets will help it capture a significant market share by gaining popularity among the population because of enhanced product awareness.
Blinks competitive edge
Blinks entry level camera has an affordable price of $ 300 compared to the ones offered by rivals which cost $ 150 on average. The better price offered by Blink will give its customers good value for their money coupled with features that are quite similar to the expensive ones.
In addition, the user guide that comes with the multi-feature camera provides an easy to use interface that can help professional photographers and personal users to gain confidence in using the multi-feature camera with a step-by-step guide and inspiration. Such a feature is not available in the models that the competitors offer.
Marketing Mix
Product
For both products, the company will provide three-hour training for the buyers for them to gain an understanding of their respective cameras and their features. This will build their confidence in handling their cameras.
Promotion
The company will hold road shows in polytechnics, colleges and tertiary institutions to attract the youth segment who are the main customers for the entry level camera, use will also be made of the social network particularly Twitter and Face book. On the other hand, the multi-feature camera will be marketed through television and newspaper advertisements and demonstrations to selected media houses (Marketing Donut, 2012).
Price
All the products will be relatively cheaper than those of the completion (Smith, 2010). The entry level camera will sell at $ 50 while the multi-feature camera will go at $ 500.
Place
The company already has dealers in all its major markets; however it will recruit new dealers in its new market segments. For this the two brands will be readily available to customers. The dealer shops will equally offer after sales services where customers can service or repair their products.
People
As a company, Blink will recruit training staff who will offer complimentary training to users of Blink cameras. In addition, marketing staff will be recruited who will carry out the promotion for the two brands.
Budget
The companys marketing budget will be based on profits. That is the companies advertising will be a percent of the previous years profits. As the products move toward their growth stage the marketing budget will be reduced accordingly. The company will use 6 % of the previous years profits as its marketing budget.
References
Marketing Donut. (2012). Marketing Strategy: How do you market an expensive item? Web.
Smith, T. (2010). Prices and product lifecycle – must all prices fall? Web.
U.S Small Business Administration. (2012). Developing a marketing plan. Web.