Promotion strategies
- Fitness /exercise products – black women aged 18-30.
- Vocational products – gay men or women.
A marketing strategy is an overall and a companywide program for selecting a particular target market and then satisfying consumers in that market through carefully blending the products/services, promotion, and price (Boone& Kurtz 2012). There are several promotion strategies used in marketing a product. The methods implemented may include media advertisements, printing of T-shirts and distributing them to the population after the sale services, exhibitions and road shows are employed as means of promotion.
The most common methods used are the push and pull strategies which are famous among business men and women who do not want to incur the cost of advertising in the newspapers and other media sources. A push method of advertising is when the products are first delivered to the retailers and wholesalers direct from the manufacturing firm. To attract the customers, a pull strategy has to be devised so as the customers are able to associate themselves with the products and can get them at any retailer or wholesaler.
In promoting fitness and exercise products amongst black women, television advertisements would help in considering many of the black women’s desires to keep their physical fitness through exercising, while watching television. Therefore, through television advertisement, a person offering exercise and fitness products or services would be able to easily reach out to their clients and explain the features of these services and products, such as the quality, durability, ease of handling as well as affordability.
In promoting vacation products among gay men and women, personal mail would be the most appropriate mode as gay rights and recognition have been a contentious issue in the world, and hence having distinguished your clients, you would just communicate with them smoothly without attracting the attention of the uninterested population. This would also help in reaching out to other customers who could be in need of the products through referrals and words of mouth from their already existing clients (Mullin 2008).
Television promotion strategy is different from a personal delivery mail due to various factors. Television advertisement targets all the customers though it is main auditory is black women. The message content will be accessed by all the customers who will be able to associate themselves with the products features and suitability. This method can as well help promote the products to the other markets. Hence this mode of advertisement is not discriminating on the access of the information about the subject product.
Television advertisement also helps easily indicate the various brands of the products. Personal mails, on the other hand, are more confidential, and the message contained in the mail is only targeted to the specific client. Personal mails are mostly used to only communicate the message between the dealer and the client and, therefore, not suitable for tapping new customers in this field. However, they can be effective if there exists an agreement between the dealer and the client that influence the customers to deliver the message to the others within the same group.
Personal mails also have a challenge where the client has first to do a thorough market research to be able to recognize their customers. Television advertisement is cost effective, when reaching out to client in large populations and long distances as the message is broadcasted to millions. In personal mail delivery, large costs are incurred in delivering and posting mails to every client in all the corners of their locality, and hence this does not contribute to a large population.
Television advertisement mode of promotion is more advanced, fast and reliable since the targeted market is assumed to have devices to enable them to receive the information. The opposite is true for the personal mail delivery as the reliability of the mode depends on the means of delivery.
Pricing methods
- Vacations – handgun owners.
- Non-lethal personal security products – black women aged 18-30 years.
While setting up a price for any commodity, the customer’s taste and preference as well as capital abilities are taken into consideration. Costs, demand and competition define different pricing methods that a firm may adopt (Rajan, 2009). In pricing personal security products for black women aged 18-30 years, demand pricing should be taken into account. Demand pricing is the most customer oriented form of pricing method since it derives entirely from consumer demand (Blithe, 2009).
Young black women are very sensitive about their security, and hence due to the need to secure themselves, they tend to demand the products in large numbers, hence raising the demand for such commodities. A businessperson dealing with such products can, therefore, set the price at his or her preferred heights since the commodity shall still be bought without considering the cost. The pricing method for the vocational products among handgun owners can suitably be set as per the competition. Going by the assumption that a handgun owner is a financially stable person and can be able to afford various services without much consideration of the costs of the same products, thus the competition pricing sets the best strategy for any dealer in such a market.
A handgun owner will, therefore, want to use products of best quality in regard to the finances available. This impacts the market by causing vast competition for the same commodities and by setting the price as per the level of competition and the willingness of the client to acquire the product at a competitive price, the dealer is able to effectively provide a fair price to the client and win the trust of the customer, at the same time making a handsome profit.
Demand and competition pricing strategy
Demand and competition pricing strategies are similar considering the fact that in the case of the study the prices are influenced by the customers, not the dealers. The need for the handgun owner to get access to high quality products develops a competition, and the dealer finds an opportunity to set a price based on competition. A black woman’s need to secure herself makes her to reach out to personal security products. Demand for the commodity develops, and the dealer sets the price based on its high demand.
Demand and competition pricing strategy are similar in the sense that the dealer is the ultimate beneficiary of the strategy in both the cases. The client benefits relatively from getting access to the product desired but at a cost higher, while the dealer makes an extra income that would not be gained if the conditions in the market were relative. The strategies similarities are further noted in both cases where the customers are concerned not about the cost but about the need to acquire the desired commodity. In competitive pricing, the firm sets the same prices as those of the competitors or above or below the competitor’s ones (Baumol & Blinder, 2008). This is more or less the same as the price set per demand pricing depends on the retailers’ decisions since the customers are at will to acquire them at that cost.
References
Baumol, W. J. & Blinder, A. S. (2008). Macroeconomics, principles and policy. (11th ed.). Mason, Ohaio: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Blithe, J. (2009), Key concepts in marketing, London: Sage.
Boone, L.E. & Kurtz, D.L. (2012). Contemporary marketing. Mason, Ohaio: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Mullin, R. (2008). Sales Promotion: How to Create, Implement and Integrate Campaigns that Really Work. (5th ed.). Philadelphia: Kogan Page.
Rajan, S. (2009). Marketing management, New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill.