Individual Business Opportunity Canvas: Clothing’s Alive Report (Assessment)

The clothing market is one of the most important segments of the modern consumer market. The level of demand and consumer behaviour in the clothing market largely determines the competitiveness of both clothing factories and retailers, which include network federal and international companies, as well as small businesses. The key objective of the analysis is to study the trends in the current market for men’s and women’s clothing and the characteristics of consumer behaviour of men and women in the clothing market, significant for a regional trade organization working with a men’s and women’s assortment of clothing and independently developing a marketing policy. The company’s name is Clothing’s Alive with main distribution occurring via online website. Materials offered are polyester, nylon, and acryl, whereas the target market are male and female individuals with age range from 18 to 24.

Sales Channels

Considering the fact that the main platform for the company will be its official website, it is appropriate to use online sales channels. The primary channel will be a contextual advertising, which use major search engines, such as Google AdSense, in order to promote the product. Contextual advertising is a highly effective and common method of promoting a site, product or service. It is important to consider the concept of advertising and contextual advertising¹. In general, advertising is understood as information disseminated in any way, in any form and using any means, addressed to an indefinite number of people, aimed at attracting attention to the object of advertising, forming and maintaining interest in it and its promotion in the market. Contextual advertising, in turn, is a type of advertising on the Internet, the display of text advertisements or banners in search engines, catalogues and other advertising platforms, tied to certain keywords. This is a fairly effective method of delivering information to the target audience as soon as possible. Thus, for example, a person who wants to find one or another information about a product is gaining a keyword in a search engine. Several keywords pop up to this keyword, among which is a link to the target site. By clicking on the link, a person gets to the site and receives the information necessary for him.

Compared to many other types of advertising, contextual advertising has a property quite unusual for advertising – it does not annoy users. An advertising message appears exactly at the moment when the user became interested in the information offered in the advertisement and clearly expressed his desire to receive it. There are special services that deal with the placement of contextual advertising. In addition, many search services have their own search engine advertising systems². One can select several types of contextual advertising that will be used for the company. First, search advertising is a type of contextual advertising in which advertisements are displayed on the search results page of the search engine used, and the subject matter of the advertisements corresponds to the user’s area of ​​interest expressed through the search query. The second, thematic advertising is a type of contextual advertising in which advertising material is displayed on Internet pages that correspond to the subject of advertising material in content³. Typically, this type of contextual advertising includes advertising on affiliate networks of contextual advertising systems, for example, the Google’s contextual network through the AdSense program. Third, at the moment, behavioural advertising can be distinguished into a separate type of contextual advertising – this type of contextual advertising is based on behavioural technologies that allow a person to identify the commercial interest of a website visitor without being tied to the content of the page someone viewing.

The most popular platforms for placing such advertising are search engines – the most visited sites around the world. Users come to search engines to ask their question. One can offer them the answer by posting a search advertisement. Advertisements are displayed in conjunction with the search engine user’s requests. In order for the ads to be shown specifically to the target audience, one must first study the specifics of the business and select the keywords by which contextual advertising ads will be broadcast. If the user asks the search engine where to buy this or that product, then the ad tells him that it is the company who have the best products under the most favourable conditions, as well as delivery and warranty. Such ad units are perceived by the user not as annoying and intrusive advertising, but as a direct response to a given request, because the company took the first step in the necessary communication.

Sales Funnel

In addition, it is important to consider the concept of a sales funnel. Using the tool, one can divide the process of turning just a passer-by into a regular customer. The sales funnel in general is the separation of the stages of sales and customers according to the stages of development from potential to regular customer. The initial stage – the widest part of the funnel – means the person’s acquaintance with the store. This includes people who saw ads for a particular store, as well as those who walked past it. It is important to understand how effective the signboard, the appearance of the store, and advertising are. At this level of the sales funnel, one can increase the indicator, for example, by setting an additional pointer along the path of one’s potential buyers. The indicator may increase, albeit slightly, but it is important to take into account the fact that even a small increase in indicators at each stage gives an overall large effect. The next step is when a passer-by becomes a visitor to the target store. At this stage, a person receives the status of a potential buyer and the number of people is greatly reduced.

The third stage of the sales funnel is the visitor who made the purchase. At this point, conversion rate values ​​show the skill of the sellers. After working through each stage of the sale, preparing scripts for sellers, the company will be able to increase conversion⁴. The fourth stage is the buyer, who has become a regular consumer, who visits the target store with a certain frequency and makes purchases in it. He or she happily comes to the site, recommends the store to his friends and acquaintances. Marketing effectiveness is the result of working with customers who have already made at least one purchase from the company. By making them attractive offers after the first purchase, conducting surveys and contests, the company will be able to encourage them to make repeat purchases.

Sales Mix

Sales mix will be an essential part of the promotion strategy, where the key role will be given to email advertising. One of the marketing tools today is the use of e-mail opportunities during the advertising campaign. The modern generation communicates in a virtual space, uses e-mail to communicate, exchange and transmit information and legally significant electronic documents⁵. They access their email inbox 24 hours a day, allowing advertisers to use this time. When a person writes a letter, no matter what goal he sets for himself, the main task is to attract attention, get an answer or a specific order. When creating a message, several points must be taken into account, but the main thing is that the message is interesting and not annoying⁶. It is stated that there is a certain level of distaste towards online advertising⁷. To do this, the company must comply with conditions, such as an e-mail should not be too long, and it is necessary that the message was addressed to the reader, and did not look like a cut out ad.

In addition, it is important to consider what is inconvenient, because of the many attached applications, the letter takes a long time to load, and not contain spam and unsolicited advertising. E-mail is one of the components of a two-stage proposal system, that is, a letter should only prompt actions, arouse interest and lead a person in the right direction. The task is not to disclose all the offers in one letter in all the details. When sending a letter, it is important to be sure that it can really interest the reader. If the letter suggests something free, the company needs to make sure that the soil is ready for this. If the message is addressed to a specific person, the letter should look individually, the name of the recipient should be indicated, everything is built in the form of a personal conversation. Letters with attachments and attachments should not be sent if the advertiser is not exactly sure whether there is a demand for them. It is better to briefly outline the topic of a possible application and the text that allows the reader to make a request in the first fact-finding or advertising letter⁸. In addition, newsletters links will be included in email advertising messages. Direct sales will not be a core target of the marketing campaign.

Product Development

The most important key assumption of increasing the efficiency of the clothing industry is the revitalization of innovation. The main test which is to use the results of research and development at the enterprises of the industry in order to create competitive products for their subsequent effective sale in the domestic and foreign markets. Innovative activity is an integral part of production at the enterprises of the clothing industry. It begins already at the stage of designing new types and models of products and the formation of an industrial collection of clothing models. In this regard, it is necessary to provide methodological support for studying consumer demand and forming advanced characteristics of the industrial collection of clothing models as the basis for innovative projects⁹. The process of making clothes consists of several main stages such as design, preparatory cutting, tailoring, and decoration. The design phase includes modelling and construction, and the preparatory – cutting stage consists of preparatory operations and cutting operations. The stage of sewing clothes ends with finishing consisting of wet-heat treatment and final finishing operations.

Minimum Viability

The minimum viable product will require to undergo all steps mentioned above in proper manner without any damage. In addition, the requirements are manifested in the fact that the overall product must not contain unintended asymmetries and it should match with photos posted on the website. If there is a significant mismatch between advertised imagery and the actual product, then the quality requirements will be upgraded to reach the match. It is important to consider that stretching and pulling techniques will be idolized in order to test the strength of stitches and material used.

Progress Tracking

The overall progress tracking process will not be a challenging one due to online nature of the business. The main indicator of success or failure will be the profit, which will exclude expenses from the revenue. In addition, the progression of the website will also be accounted for planning further actions. Various analytical tools for websites, Google analytics, will tracked in order to observe the number of visitors and the proportion of actual buyers. This will allow to test new marketing approaches and see if they are effective at increasing profits or merely increase the number of visitors. The latter is usually important for websites generating profits out of their contents and advertising affiliations, but for the given company, the main source of income is product sales. Therefore, it is critical to understand the buyer/visitor ratio in order to the increase the overall proportion.

Conclusion

In conclusion, analysis of environmental factors is necessary to search for competitive advantages and ensure the competitiveness of the enterprise¹⁰. The company is located in a field where external factors are constantly influencing it, which requires prompt decision-making to eliminate their impact or adapt to them. Analysis of external factors will help to develop an enterprise strategy that will ensure the enterprise’s interaction with the environment in the short and long term, will help maintain the enterprise’s potential to achieve its goals, which will also help to uncover threats and opportunities.

Reference List

Aulet, B. Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to A Successful Startup. New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons, 2013.

Garland, C. S., Yang, K. C. C., and Kang, Y., ‘The Effectiveness of Permission-Based Email Marketing for Non-Profit Organizations: A Case Study of National Public Radio (KTEP-FM) In El Paso, Texas’, Journal of Creative Communications, vol. 11, no. 1, 2016, pp. 17-26.

Makrides, A., Vrontis, D., and Christofi, M., ‘The Gold Rush of Digital Marketing: Assessing Prospects of Building Brand Awareness Overseas’, Business Perspectives and Research, vol. 8, no. 1, 2020, pp. 4-20.

Sørensen, J. K. and Van den Bulck, H., ‘Distraction effects of contextual advertising on online news processing: an eye-tracking study’, Behaviour & Information Technology, vol. 35, no. 8, 2020, pp. 654-664.

Sørensen, J. K. and Van den Bulck, H., ‘Public Service Media Online, Advertising and The Third-Party User Data Business: A Trade Versus Trust Dilemma?’, Convergence, vol. 26, no. 2, 2018, pp. 421-447.

Sridhar, S. et al., ‘Relating Online, Regional, And National Advertising to Firm Value’, Journal of Marketing, vol. 80, no. 4, 2016, pp. 39-55.

Warzel, C., ‘The Reason You Hate Online Ads’, The New York Times, 2019, p. 1. Web.

Yang, K. et al., ‘Post-Stay Email Marketing Implications for The Hotel Industry: Role of Email Features, Attitude, Revisit Intention and Leisure Involvement Level’, Journal of Vacation Marketing, vol. 25, no. 4, 2019, pp. 405-417.

Zhang, X. et al., ‘Dynamically Managing a Profitable Email Marketing Program’, Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 54, no. 6, 2017, pp. 851-866.

Zhao, K. et al., ‘Revenue-Based Attribution Modeling for Online Advertising’, International Journal of Market Research, vol. 61, no. 2, 2019, pp. 195-209.

Footnotes

1. S. Sridhar et al., ‘Relating Online, Regional, And National Advertising to Firm Value’, Journal of Marketing, vol. 80, no. 4, 2016, p. 46.
2. K. Zhao et al., ‘Revenue-Based Attribution Modeling for Online Advertising’, International Journal of Market Research, vol. 61, no. 2, 2019, p. 201.
3. J. K. Sørensen and H. Van den Bulck, ‘Public Service Media Online, Advertising and The Third-Party User Data Business: A Trade Versus Trust Dilemma?’, Convergence, vol. 26, no. 2, 2018, p. 428.
4. J. K. Sørensen and H. Van den Bulck, ‘Distraction effects of contextual advertising on online news processing: an eye-tracking study’, Behaviour & Information Technology, vol. 35, no. 8, 2020, p. 659.
5. X. Zhang et al., ‘Dynamically Managing a Profitable Email Marketing Program’, Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 54, no. 6, 2017, pp. 857.
6. K. Yang et al., ‘Post-Stay Email Marketing Implications for The Hotel Industry: Role of Email Features, Attitude, Revisit Intention and Leisure Involvement Level’, Journal of Vacation Marketing, vol. 25, no. 4, 2019, pp. 411.
7. C. Warzel, ‘The Reason You Hate Online Ads’, The New York Times, 2019, p. 1. Web.
8. C. S. Garland, K. C. C. Yang, and Y. Kang, ‘The Effectiveness of Permission-Based Email Marketing for Non-Profit Organizations: A Case Study of National Public Radio (KTEP-FM) In El Paso, Texas’, Journal of Creative Communications, vol. 11, no. 1, 2016, p. 23.
9. B. Aulet, Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to A Successful Startup. New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons, 2013, p. 79.
10. A. Makrides, D. Vrontis, and M. Christofi, ‘The Gold Rush of Digital Marketing: Assessing Prospects of Building Brand Awareness Overseas’, Business Perspectives and Research, vol. 8, no. 1, 2020, p. 13.