Introduction
The proposed K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry is an all-under-one-roof business model aimed at offering cash wash and laundry services from the same store. The store is modeled around convenience by giving customers an opportunity to access laundry services while they take their cars for a cleanup and minor checkup. The business functions on the traditional model consisting of an actual location and tangible services. This section of the business plan explores the marketing aspects of the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry by examining competitor analysis, market analysis, and the actual marketing plan.
Competitor Analysis
Primary Competitors and Their Market Share
The three main competitors of the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry are LaBanze Car Care Center, Gary Auto Wash, and Wallonia Auto Experts. These businesses have a strong influence in the proposed location due to their ability to offer flexible, affordable, and exclusive car cleaning and minor services. Wallonia Auto Experts is the current market leader with a market share of 15%. LaBanze Car Care Center takes the second market position with a share of 11% while Gary Auto Wash controls 7% of the market share.
These businesses have unique competitive advantages that have made then penetrate and control a sizable share. For instance, Gary Auto Wash is specialized in upholstery and provides discounter prices for basic car service after the wash. On the other hand, LaBanze Car Care Center is known for its quick service policy characterized by a complete car wash within 30 minutes. The company also offers buffing and free diagnosis for every car they wash. Lastly, the Wallonia Auto Experts offers the most competitive prices for their automobile cleaning services.
In addition, the company is renowned for its free pick and delivery service for busy customers. This service involves picking the dirty car from a customer residence, taking it for the cleanup and delivery it back to the customer (see table 1). The three competitors have developed strong market networks and are focused on different customer segment. At present, the three businesses have marked their business territories to cover the entire locality.
Table 1. Market share of the competitors and competitive advantage.
Strategies and Markets for Each Competitor
The Gary Auto Wash is specialized in upholstery services for the corporate and public transport vehicles due to its large warehouse and mechanized services. Although the company also offers car wash services to individual customers, its business strategy is focused on the large scale clients with more than 10 vehicles to be cleaned. The company has the most effective service charter and every process is done by the machines.
Wallonia Auto Experts has diversified its service charter to capture the general market consisting of the corporate and individual customers. The store is the largest and busiest is the region due to its expanded service charter. Due large market share, the company has focused on free diagnosis services as an incentive to sustain its market share. The business has a computerized diagnosis center that is capable of printing error and mechanical reports to all cars they wash. As a result, the Wallonia Auto Experts has penetrated the market and comfortably control most market dynamics within the automobile cleaning business segment.
Lastly, the LaBanze Car Care Center has concentrated on the quick service customers, especially travelers who would want their automobiles cleaned within 30 minutes. Moreover, this center appeals to the youthful customers who are always in a hurry. At the LaBanze Car Care Center, a customer is assured of a quick car wash as they enjoy free refreshments. The business has capitalized on discounted prices to attract many customers. The business records the highest number of customers on any typical day and has been able to sustain the low pricing model through economies of scale. The company has also invested heavily in advertisement and promotional offers to reach its potential customers.
Present Market Entry Barriers and How to Overcome Them
The primary market entry barriers in the automobile cleaning sectors are the high capital requirements, product differentiation, changing customer preference, and extensive market dynamics (Scarborough 12). The cost of setting up a relatively large cash wash business is high and requirements massive capital investment of at least $30,000. The costs include license fees, rent, equipment and marketing among others.
Thus, the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will have to raise such capital to enter this market. Another barrier is the switching costs which are very high. For instance, it is difficult for a new entrant to adopt the expansive market penetration without inciting the incumbent brands to react (Cavusgil et al. 39). Their reaction through a combined effort might actually render this entry strategy irrelevant. Therefore, the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will develop a systematic piloted entry strategy to avoid negative market reaction.
Thirdly, the automobile cleaning sector is a service business that relies heavily on the perception of customers. A new business must roll out strategies that guarantee continuous positive reviews by the targeted market (Kotler and Keller 19). When the negative reviews become a norm, it is difficult to change the perception of customers, especially when it is related to quality concerns. Therefore, the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will create products and services that appeal to the needs and interests of customers to survive this barrier. For instance, the laundry service will be unique to the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry.
The last challenge to effective entry for a new business in the car wash sector is product differentiation. The current players have diversified their products and services to cover nearly all the requirements of a typical customer visiting a car wash (Kotler and Keller 27). Among the notable service diversification strategies include free incentive services, rewards, discounts, and a tight quality charter.
It is very difficult for a new entrant to afford these free services since the benefit of economies of scale can only be realized in the long run. In order to counter this barrier, the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will enter the market through a focused service charter to appeal to a specific market segment. Specifically, the business will concentrate on the youthful customers by offering incentive services that can only appeal to this market segment. In addition, the business will package the laundry product a discounted service that offers convenience to customers by cleaning their clothes and cars in the same location.
Market Analysis
Target Market
The proposed K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will be launched as an alternative automobile washing unit for customers looking for affordable and quick services for their cars and laundry. Therefore, the business will focus on all customer segments since nearly every household is a potential customer. The products and services will target a typical family with cleaning service needs for their laundry or cars. Thus, the ideal customer is a person willing to spend at least $20 on laundry and/or car wash. Nearly every family living within the proposed location qualifies to be a customer since they can afford the proposed services.
However, the business will create a special preference for the youthful customers since their laundry needs are higher than other population. Specifically, the business will focus on the youthful customers who own a car and frequent laundry stores. This means that the business is angled on providing laundry and car cleaning services to this market segment. Fortunately, the youthful market segment is spread across the business location and consists of nearly 40% of the population.
Unique Targeted Market Characteristics
Geography
Since the business functions on the traditional platform, the business will be located at the corner of the main street to improve its visibility among the targeted customers. The business activities will be based in a large warehouse or store at the corner of the main street to ensure that it is not only visible but strategic to the regular and new customers visiting the area. Moreover, the rationale for this location next a main highway is to tap into the traveler customers. Therefore, the targeted customers will consist of regular clients living within the area, visitors, and highway travelers. These customers are distributed evenly across the targeted market location (Cavusgil et al. 32).
Psychographics
The ideal customer is basically a person in need of car and laundry cleaning services from a single location. This means that potential clients are persons with interest in services offered in a typical car wash or laundry. These interests are driven by taste, trend, and quality associated with a cleaning service (Kotler and Keller 21). Since the proposed K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry is angled on high-end quality charter and variety in service module, the targeted customers will be satisfied and served within their expectations. These expectations will be separated and aligned to each service charter as part of the customer relationship management through effective and efficient approach to serving the needs. In addition, the business will focus on the youthful customer segment in terms of their tastes, expectations, and trends in designing and implementing the service charters (Cavusgil et al. 44).
Demographics
The targeted client of the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry is typically a male or female young adult who either has a car or laundry to be cleaned. The age of this customer varies depending on the service. For instance, laundry service can admit any customer who is self-aware of the cleaning services while the age for car wash services is set at 16 years and above. The customer should fall within any income bracket as long as she or he is able to afford the service fee of at least $20.
The business does not discriminate the ideal customer on the basis of education level, social status, or economic class as long as he or she can meet the expense of the service bundles. In addition, the business targets customers from all political, social, or religious affiliations as long as the services they demand fall within the current product bundle (Kotler and Keller 18).
Potential Market Size
The potential market size for the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry is unlimited and expanded across the local region and beyond. The market size is divided into resident customers and travelers segment. The resident customers are those who stay within the region and are in need of laundry or cash wash services. On the other hand, the traveler customers are those visiting the region or have made a stopover in the town for any reason or another. This means that the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry’s potential market does not have a physical boundary although 70% of the business will be generated locally.
Thus, the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry has the opportunity of penetrating the local market while also gaining from the temporary customers in transition to other regions. Thus, the proposed business has the potential of covering the entire locality and neighboring regions through focused and flexible business strategies. In terms of numbers, the size of the potential market has more than five thousand potential customers evenly spread (Cavusgil et al. 45). In terms of the demand, the market share is subdivided into urban and rural clients. The urban clients are those who live within the local town while the rural clients live within the rural setups surrounding the town. The urban population consists of more than 60% of the potential customers while the rural areas take the rest.
Dynamics Surrounding Customer Needs
The car wash and laundry service business sector is dynamic and unique to the needs of different customers. Moreover, there are many competitors in the same service chart who are able to provide competitive substitute products at any given time. This means that customer preference in this sector keep on changing, depending on the actual and perceived quality of each service charter offered by a competitor (Kotler and Keller 33).
For instance, a competitor offering competitive prices and a lot of incentives has a higher chance of attracting customers than a business based on the standardized service charter. The tastes of the customers are also influenced by the latest technological trends in the car cleaning and laundry services. For instance, the current upholstery and car cleaning technology is more advanced than what you to happen five years ago. This means that any business within the sector must be flexible and dynamic to incorporate changes frequently to survive the market externalities associated with technological shift.
The business within this sector should be able to offer several services from one location to guarantee customer convenience and improve on potential customer loyalty. Clients within this business environment are very sensitive to time and potential benefits they get from each service charter. Thus, the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will have to integrate these dynamics, challenges, and opportunities to conform to the general expectations of the business environment and typical customer (Cavusgil et al. 31). This will ensure that the demand of customers on aspects of quality, pricing, variety, and timing are met in a sustainable manner.
Sales’ Seasonality
The sales in the car wash and laundry business environment are not seasonal since the demand for cleaning services is constant. However, the demand peaks during weekends when many people have free time to visit car wash services. For instance, highest sales are recorded on Saturdays, Sundays, and during public holidays to surge in customer numbers. Also, the sales are equally higher during rainy seasons and summer when the cars frequently get dirty. However, the variances in sales during the peak and off-peak are negligible.
Demand and Other Services or Products
The basic demand for cleaning services for cars are tied to other services such as oil change, basic engine checks, tire pressure adjustment, minor body repairs. On the other hand, the demand for laundry services is tied to pressing and buttoning services. Therefore, the proposed K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry should consider constant service charter diversification in line with the customer demands in order to run a sustainable business.
These changes should be made gradually and periodically from the suggestions of customers. For instance, the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will consider carrying out semi-annual customer satisfaction surveys and transform the relevant suggestions into service charters. In addition, the business will review the potentiality of partnership with other firms offering the related services. However, this opt will only be considered when cost of provision at the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry is not sustainable.
Promotional and Advertising Campaigns
The promotional and advertising campaigns for the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will integrate a series of strategies and activities within focused objectives. Since the business concept functions on a traditional store model, the proposed promotional and advertising campaigns are created to attract the offline customers. However, some of the advertising strategies will be integrated on the online platforms to appeal to the youthful customer segment. The aim of these campaigns is to build a strong service brand image and loyal customer base (Albers and Mazur 23). In addition, the campaigns are created to improve on the general business visibility to attract more customers.
Media Used
Most of the proposed promotional and advertisement campaigns will be carried out through the offline media channels with few online exceptions for the focused customer segment. The main traditional media channels proposed for the campaigns are television, radio, and print (newspapers, magazines, flyers, and billboards). The online media channels will include social media and K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry website.
The print media will be focused on the general market to appeal to the young, mid-age, and old customers. In one way or another, the general customers have access to the print media platform as active consumers of information on magazines, local newspapers, and billboards (Cavusgil et al. 34). The advertisement messages will be focused to meet the needs of each customer segment on the basis of their preferred print media. For instance, the local magazines and newspaper will be used to target the mid-age and old customers since they are the highest consumers of this content. On the other hand, the flyers will target the youthful and mid-age customers on the same basis.
The audio visual channels such as TV and radio will equally be integrated on the basis of targeted customers. For instance, the TV adverts will be concentrated on the primetime for optimal customer coverage. On the other hand, the radio adverts will run at least 7 times every day at different hours to capture the listenership for different customer segments. The billboards and social media channels will be littered with specific and focused messages to reach different customer segments (Elder and Krishna 1001). For instance, a typical message on a billboard will read;
K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry, Home of Affordable Car Wash, 30% discount now, free Refreshments and Engine Check within 20 minutes! Come Experience the Vibe!!!!!
This trend will be replicated onto other platforms, depending on the targeted customer segment. However, the content of the message will remain the same for each media channel (Goodman 54).
Frequency of Usage and Cost of Each Media Platform
The estimations of cost and frequency of media use were based on a fixed three months marketing campaign program (see table 2). Most of the estimations are based on the current market rates charged by different media channels to host an advertisement or promotional message (Subramanyam 14).
Table 2. Media cost and frequency.
From the above estimations, the monthly cost of hosting the advertisement and promotional campaigns on different media channels is $1,900 on a monthly basis and $6,400 for the entire three months. The cost estimates have not been subjected to a potential discount due to prolonged contract. This means that the costs might go down by almost 10%.
Generating Publicity
The plans for generating publicity for the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry were created around audio, visual, and online messages. The selection of these platforms would be adequate to gain dominance in the market as all customer segments will be reached with minimal struggles (Graves and Graves 41). The use of these platforms is aimed at building a community following for the conservative, flexible, and young digeratti customer segments.
For instance, the TV, radio, and social media messages will be used to assert a permanent image of idealness around the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry’s services. These messages will be created to appeal to the interests and needs of these customers to catalyze a positive attitude towards the proposed products. For instance, a television message with a celebrity endorsement will influence many young and mid-age customers to try the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry services. Each message will be created to cue the mind of each customer segment through systematic, focused, and holistic intuitions to influence a warm perception towards the services (Kotler and Keller 33).
Thus, an effective integration of attractive and warm colors, language, and design in the advertisement messages will guarantee sustainable semiotic publicity. In summary, the advertisement and promotion campaigns will be appeal to the ideals of a service charter. As a result, the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will be able to predict behavior and perception towards its service charter from the advertisement messages.
Web Presence
Since marketing is shifting from traditional to online platforms, the proposed business intends to increase its web presence through its well-design and easy to use website. The website will be optimized through use of social media pages carrying a link. Once a of the social media platforms click this link, he or she will be redirected to the website. The website will contain a hidden cookie that is transferable to any other site visited by that client from a single browsing history (Bolman and Deal 19).
This means that the website will go viral in a short time since every single visit will transfer the cookie to all other users connected to the website visitor. In addition, the website will be marketed through email marketing (Mehler and Romary 67). This strategy involves sending a link to a single email user about the page. Once the link is clicked, it is transferred to all the contact of the email user.
In order to encourage online visit of the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry website, it is important to incorporate user friendly menus and a simple navigation key. This will enable a customer to browse through the services and capture a lot of information within a relatively short time. Thus, the website pages should be light, self-explanatory, and void of many redirecting tabs. In addition, the website will be properly designed to improve on its physical appearance. For instance, it will be prudent to integrate bold design, catchy phrases, and warm colors to match the algorithms for different search engines.
Budget for Marketing Plan
The budget for the promotional and advertisement campaigns was generated on the basis of the previously estimated costs of hosting the messages on different media platforms. The entire budgeting process involved investigation of the estimated daily, weekly, and monthly costs associated with the three months campaign (Subramanyam 17). Among the notable costs included in the budget include advertising and cost of producing each message (see table 3).
The figures on the market budget indicates that the proposed K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will comfortably meet its costs associated with advertisement and promotional campaigns without straining the available resources. In fact, the business will be able to comfortably meet and recover these costs within four months. The costs were highest during the first month due to incorporation of the production costs and intensive campaigns. However, the estimated costs declined steadily over the next two months to a more $1,000 per month. Based on these costs, the proposed K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will effectively manage a successful marketing and promotional strategies over a period of three months and reach the targeted customer segments.
Conclusion
The market analysis of the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry in terms of competitors, market dynamics, and actual marketing plan indicates that the proposed business is practical and sustainable. Although the competitors have penetrated the targeted market, the proposed business will introduce a new feature that is currently inexistence in the region. The K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will integrate an all-under-one-roof business approach through provision of laundry and car cleaning services from a single location. The market environment analysis suggests that the targeted customer segments will embrace this idea with minimal resistance since it addresses their convenience needs. Specifically, the business is focused on meeting the car and laundry cleaning needs of youthful customers.
However, the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry platform is flexible to serve other customer segments. The marketing plan has proposed integration of online and offline media channels to reach different customer segments. The cost and marketing budget indicate that the K.I.S.S Car Wash and Laundry will comfortable address its marketing needs through the proposed three months advertisement and promotional campaign plan. The goals and objectives of the marketing plan are practical and achievable within three months.
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