Strategic Marketing Plan

ABSTACT

A business should deploy resources at its disposal to achieve and maintain defensible competitive positional advantages in the marketplace. This paper focuses on how a business should deploy marketing resources at its disposal to facilitate the achievement and maintenance of competitive positional advantages in the marketplace. As product-markets grow, the competitive landscape has evolved from a predominantly physical marketplace to one encompassing both the physical and the electronic marketplace. This paper gives a conceptual framework delineating the drivers and outcomes of marketing strategy in the context of competing in this broader, evolving marketplace. The proposed marketing strategy gives insights to a developing product and the changes in the nature and scope of a marketing strategy; specific industry, product, buyer, and buying environment characteristics; that it has to go through in order to be successful.

Introduction

This Marketing Plan with introduce you to a brand new product, The Smart Phone Catering App. This is and overview of the marketing plan and channels to effectively get on the market to yield good results as a new product. Writing this plan is a good opportunity to check to make sure it makes sense and that there are no missed any important points. It gives the overview of the mission statement, market objective, core strategy, and channels used to promote the product.

Mission Statement

The purpose of the Smartphone App is to give professional business people, as well as the average person; a quick and convenient way to hire caters in their area. It is an innovative and creative way to use the Smartphone to do all the work just by downloading and putting in a zip code. It brings all of the businesses to your phone.

Market Objective

My objective is to have a relaxed method instead of an aggressive method for sales .I want the consumer to be able to see the convenience of the product. To sale to the caterer will be more aggressive. I will have to show them competition and show how it will benefit their company by subscribing to the app. I don't expect the sales profit to be very high in the beginning, but as the competition grows and word of mouth gets around, I expect profits to grow.

This product will target a mass market of separate groups and different demographics. In order to be effective it must incorporate Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (Wilson 1997).

First, I need to determine how this is applied to the product I wish to market. Segmenting would require dividing the market into distinct groups of buyers on the basis of needs, characteristics or behavior. Geographies and Demographics would be the main profile to consider.(Kotler and Armstrong 2001) This will help better match the consumer needs.

The demographic profile consist of males and females between the ages of 25-40.They are professionals who work in corporate America. It targets professionals who have very demanding schedules and little time for planning. I will use this profile to develop my marketing plan. Location is very important as well. Of course larger cities which have large companies and many professional workers who work long hours and travel a great deal will be targeted as well.

The competition for my catering app would most likely be restaurants that offer take out. Appealing to the group that are professionals who don't have much time and are always on the go by comparing and contrasting the difference in the two products (restaurant take out vs Catering APP) should a the product a huge advantage.. A larger variety of food will be offer to the consumer than it is from typical restaurants. Why not use your phone to do all the work and let them compete for your business without leaving your home.

Core Strategy

My core strategy is to use the internet as a valuable tool to advertise my app. This will help me to become more prevalent in the market in which I have targeted. I need to promote the product so we are able to compete against larger firms. We need to make sure the app does what it says. A demonstration on a web page will be a strategy to do that. I would use Face book and Twitter as marketing tool that reaches a vast number of potential customers.

Results I would hope to achieve are at least 25% of the customers reviewing the web site will return to download the permanent app to their phone. Also, 25% of restaurants who offer catering or anyone who owns a catering business will buy into the app to get their business on board.

My positioning strategy will be excellent service .Consumers will be able to give feedback from the cater in order to let others know how the service worked for them. If one company receives too many complaints they will be eliminated.

My IMC approach would be to first identify specific and measureable goals and objectives which will be to get a group of professional business people to examine my APP by downloading it to their Smartphone. To do this I will use personal selling. I believe this approach will be the best way because this face-to- face contact can give demonstrations and answer questions for groups of professionals who I am targeting.

I chose this group specifically because the app will appeal to a group that has little time for planning. They work late hours and maybe travel a lot for their jobs. I want them to see how easy it is for them to use their smart phone to cater an event or to order a meal just for themselves. As word of mouth kicks in about the app, I am hoping they will introduce it to their companies they work for and also to friends, family, and other business colleagues around the country and even around the world.

In order to communicate my message effectively I need to be focused on the correct target group. If I target the group wrong then the product may not be a success. If it is the right group and I tell them the benefits of having this product then this could make all the difference. By having personal sales the product can be seen by showing a demonstration. When people have an image to look at they are more likely to buy faster. It must be to the point, worthwhile and relevant to this group. They need to believe that this app is all about convenience and saving time. A person with this type of schedule will love to be able to take care of a dinner party, a wedding, a birthday party, etc on the go.

To measure the effectiveness of this method, I