Marketing Plan Assignment On Natural Evolution

Question

Task Description : Assessment 2 requires students to work individually on their selected new product or service (from assessment 1) to create a comprehensive strategic marketing plan. This is an individual assessment with a maximum word limit of 2500. Your assessment should be an application of relevant marketing concepts learnt in the unit. There is no need to go into details about explaining marketing concepts, rather it should be an applied discussion. Please upload the assessment through the appropriate Moodle link by week 10. Each assessment must be uploaded as a .doc or .docx file (word file).

Answer

Executive Summary
The marketing plan has been developed for the Banana Ointment of Natural Evolution with the aim to develop a potential marketing plan to implement digital communication and advanced marketing management strategies. Banana Ointment is produced by Nutrolock technology to heal wounds and pain of the people of any age including children. The company’s marketing plan lacks the efficacy to identify potential customer segment worldwide.

Organic products become the profitable products in Australia, led by the government initiative to leverage the export opportunity. With its exclusive Nutrolock technology, Natural Evolution has minimised the risk of competitive pressure. Now the company aims to produce the highest-grade products in the world but lacks the marketing potentials. For the market segmentation, Natural Evolution should identify the demographic factors, psychographic factors, geographic factors and behavioural factors. For the target market, the company should aim to target 60% across Australia and New Zealand, along with 40% for the worldwide market. The positioning strategy should be based on the positioning statement- Healing wound and kicking out the pain was never so easy before the Banana Ointment, brought by Natural Evolution.

The Company can modify the usage of antioxidants in accordance with the climate and the age of the customers. Moderate price strategy should be adopted. The only company online selling website will be used for sale. For the promotion, digital communication strategy should be adopted. Promotional mix elements of advertising, public relationships, sales, direct marketing are to be used, prioritising the digital communication strategy. The budget allocation has been done for the particulars of Market research social media promotion, search (SEO/PPC), email, content development and moderation, offers and discounts, regular notifications, online campaign and others.

1.0 Introduction
This marketing plan is going to be built for the product-Banana Ointment, of Natural Evolution. This marketing plan Assignment aims to develop a potential marketing plan to implement digital communication and advanced marketing management strategies, identifying potential market segment and the positioning strategy for the product. This Banana Ointment is applied to heal burns, skin abrasions, arthritic pains and irritations, cold sores, cuts, nappy and skin rashes. This healing ointment is made with the power of green banana, extracted by the Nutrolock technology. Now bringing such an evolution to heal pain in naturalistic but advanced way, Natural Evolution has gained the potential to produce the highest-grade products of the world, adopting digital disruption (Natural Evolution Foods. 2018).

2.0 Situation analysis recap
Summarising the situation analysis of the previous discussion, it can be seen that Natural Evolution has enough potential across Australia and New Zealand because of its online platform and the demands of Australia’s natural foods worldwide. The government has increased the export opportunity to almost 7.1%. Due to its exclusive technology in organic foods, Natural Evolution does not face strong competition. However, Natural Evolution lacks the marketing plan to identify the target customer segments worldwide to achieve the target to market their world’s highest-grade product-Banana Ointment.

The summary of the situational analysis is indicating that although Natural Evolution aims to market its product worldwide, yet there are major gaps in their marketing strategy. The SWOT analysis from the previous study report demonstrates that the company’s strategy is not effective enough to determine the demands of each customer segment across Australia and the overseas countries. These gaps are posing threats for them to lose the competitive edge. This marketing plan is going to be developed identifying these gaps. The focus of this plan is to develop a new market segmentation, target market and product positioning strategy along with the marketing mix.

3.0 Discussion of segmentation, targeting and positioning approach
3.1 Problem statement: Natural Evolution lacks the marketing plan to specifically target potential customer segments worldwide, imposing the risks to not to meet the customer demands. An effective marketing plan is the key driving factor to meet the customer demand and to satisfy the value-creation model of the business (McDonald & Wilson, 2016). Hence, based on this problem statement, this marketing plan identifies the potential market segment, target market and position of the Banana Ointment to reach to potential worldwide customers.

3.2 Discussion of potential market segment: For determining the customer demands worldwide to market the Banana Ointment in the global market, Natural Evolution should adopt the segmentation strategy through the following segments.

Demographics: It is necessary for a market segmentation strategy to determine the customer demands in accordance with the impacts of their age, gender, ethnicity and other factors on the buying behaviour (Cross, Belich & Rudelius, 2015). For the Banana Ointment, Natural Evolution needs to determine the demands of the customers from each demographic background as it is to be used as a painkiller and the healing ointment.

Psychographics: For determining the customer demands, the marketing strategy should determine the variables of customers’ daily activities, interests, attitudes and values towards buying the products (Dolnicar, Grün, Leisch & Schmidt, 2014). For the Banana Ointment, the company should target the market segments, where the customers prefer using organic medicine products to heal the wounds to the chemical steroids.

Geographic: Geographic variables like climate, size of the area, the density of the population and region influence the customer behaviour to buy or use the products (Alt & Iversen, 2017). Therefore, as the Banana Ointment is the organic ointment, therefore, the customer demands should be targeted from the regions, where the climate is the main cause of skin abrasions and pains.

Behavioural: For this ointment product, the company should target the segment of first-time buyers’ and the buyers amongst whom the possibilities of skin issues, arthritic pain and infections are higher.

3.3 Discussion on the target market: Through determining the market target strategies, the company can ensure the sustainability of their competitive advantage, clearly determining the market share and the marketing mix to foster the profitability (Gupta & Pirsch, 2014). Therefore, through this market targeting, the marketing plan of the company can target the potential customers of the market segments. For this target marketing, Natural Evolution can go through identifying the following determinants.

Size of the market: For the accomplishment of the aim, Natural Evolution produces a highest-grade product and market the product worldwide. Therefore, the company needs to target 40% in the global market and 60% for the domestic markets of Australia and New Zealand.

Differences between the segments: For determining specific demands, the company should measure the difference between the different target segments to position the product in the international market sustainably.

Profitability: For the new marketing plan, Natural Evolution should target 75% of the profitability if the marketing plans and other changes cost almost 60%, which will anticipate the meeting of customer demand.

Accessibility: The product of Natural Evolution lacks the accessibility to the customers worldwide, and the company cannot access each segment. Therefore, they should divide the market into main and sub-segments to increase accessibility.

3.4 Positioning of the product:
Positioning statement: Healing wound and kicking out the pain was never so easy before the Banana Ointment, brought by Natural Evolution. This low-priced organic ointment, processed with Nutrolock technology, can be applied easily on the infected and wounded area without any side effects for all the ages.

Positioning strategy: Product positioning enables the marketing plan to deliver the key message of the organisation or the product through the potential communication channel, identifying customer needs (Shackleton & Pandey, 2014). Therefore, based on the above positioning statement, Natural Evolution needs to determine the product positioning strategy, prioritising the needs to deliver the value proposition to the product. The positioning can focus on the product benefits and attributes of the products. As Natural Evolution, while producing Banana Ointment aims to heal the wounds and pain with green power of banana and the antioxidants, the company should focus on the promotional activities. It will make the customers enable to understand the product attributes, reducing the competitive pressure and delivering the key message.

4.0 Three marketing and three financial objectives
4.1 Marketing objectives and goals:The effective implementation of the marketing plan and the potential marketing outcome depend on identifying realistic marketing objectives and setting marketing goal (Lee, Kozlenkova & Palmatier, 2015). Identifying realistic marketing objectives, the organisations become able to align the marketing plan with their organisational goal in producing particular products or services. Therefore, while setting marketing goal and objectives, the marketing plan of Natural Evolution should focus aligning its marketing objectives with their goal to market the highest-grade products and market worldwide. Based on the problem statement, the marketing goal and objectives are as follows.

Goal: To increase market share to 60% within next ten months with growth of the customer base of almost more than 70% across Australia and the overseas countries

Objectives:

• To identify and cover the target market through the online selling platforms
• To specify and achieve the product positioning target for Banana Ointment
• To determine and promote the 4Ps of marketing mix for meeting customer preferences

4.2 Financial objectives and goals: Financial management in a marketing plan serves a greater purpose to develop effective investment and return policies for managing the underlying risks of the business (McKinney, 2015). The financial management and planning enables the organisations to determine and reduce the impacts of uncertainty on the business, effectively allocating and utilising the financial resources. Hence, in accordance with the problem statement, for Natural Evolution the financial plan will be developed and implemented with the following goal and objectives.

Goal: To make gross profit margin of almost 40% of their total costs within next one year

Objectives:

• To ensure the smooth cash flow within the business
• To reduce the impacts of variables’ price hike
• To balance the costs and financial risks of the business

5.0 Formulation of detailed marketing mix strategy
5.1 Application of marketing mix: The core of the marketing strategy or planning can be identified by determining the marketing mix. Significantly, the four Ps of marketing mix enable the organisations to identify the core competencies of their products or the services in the target market segments. Significantly, for the product marketing, in the context of entirely new customer demands and market segments, these 4Ps leverage the opportunity to potentially utilise the core competencies of the resources (Khan, 2014). Hence, Natural Evolution prioritises the determination of the application of the marketing mix for Banana Ointment.

Product: For the marketing mix of product, the organisations should prioritise the customer preferences for the products and the usage of the products along with the attributes (Hanssens Pauwels, Srinivasan, Vanhuele & Yildirim, 2014). For the Banana Ointment, the company needs to focus on customer preference and satisfaction in using the product to heal pain and wounds. As the nature of pain and infections change according to the climate, the company can launch a similar product with different antioxidants according to this change.

Price: It is evident from the market research that the ointment market is witnessing a price hike and on the other hand, in many countries, like India, steroid ointments are banned. The customers are still using these ointments because of the high price of organic products (The Economic Times. 2018). Under such circumstances, for being the cost leader and for accomplishing the goal, Natural Evolution should focus on making a moderate price rate to increase accessibility to each customer segment.

Place: With the rapid growth of e-commerce and the increasing risk of duplicity, compared to franchising and retailing, the customers prefer to buy directly from the brands, especially for foods and pharmaceutical products (E-commerce Platforms. 2018). Therefore, for retaining customer beliefs and preventing duplicity, this ointment should only be sold through the online store of Natural Evolution.

Promotion: Promotion is the key factor in fostering the brand recognition as well as the sales growth, strengthening the customer relationship and enhancing knowledge about the product attributes (Stead & Hastings, 2018). In alignment with the business nature, Natural Evolution should adopt the social media advertising, pop-up notifications and television along with newspaper advertising for maximum reach.

5.2 Marketing strategy proposed implementation: Successful accomplishment of the marketing strategy or planning mostly depends on determining an effective plan to implement this strategy. This implementation planning directs the organisation to set, develop, manage and control the entire marketing strategy or planning. The point to be pinpointed is that the implementation process leads to the performance outcome of marketing strategy (Ahearne, Lam & Kraus, 2014). For the sustainable outcome of the marketing strategy to market the Banana Ointment, Natural Evolution can adopt the following implementation processes.

Setting the expectations: Ensuring the sustainable outcome of the marketing strategy, it is necessary to determine and set the realistic expectations in accordance with the product and organisation’s capability (Baker, 2014). Natural Evolution should determine their capability and the capacity of Banana Ointment to implement this marketing plan.

Team building and resource allocation: For the successful implementation of the marketing plan and for making the competitive edge, the company should prioritise the building of the team, allocating the resources efficiently (Piercy, 2016).

Communicating the plan: The gap of Natural Evolution in understanding the customer needs worldwide is caused by the inability of the management to communicate the plan with the team. Hence, the company must communicate each mechanism or strategy with the marketing team in a timely manner.

Setting the timeline: The marketing strategy must add a detailed timeline for each task to implement the plan (Lusch & Vargo, 2014). For the marketing of Banana Ointment, Natural Evolution should break the project in smaller tasks with proper deadlines.

Monitoring the performance: Successful outcomes of the marketing strategy and the continuous progress majorly depend on regular monitoring of the performance (Grant, 2016). Natural Evolution should focus on regular monitoring in order to ensure that the strategy is effective to identify and meet the demand of each customer segment.

Increasing adaptability: Following the regular monitoring, the strategy should be implemented increasing adaptability to the market changes, led by the performance improvement (Proctor, 2014). Similarly, Natural Evolution needs to foster the adaptability of the strategy to reduce the impacts of the uncertainty in selling the Banana Ointment.

Celebrating the results: The strategy implementation can achieve a satisfactory shape when the outcomes from it are celebrated and communicated among the entire workplace (Lusch & Vargo, 2014). Similarly, for the accomplishment of new marketing objectives, the company appreciate whatever the result is.

6.0 Budget allocation for promotion mix
Promotional mix majorly influences the customer behaviour, especially in the modern context of emerging e-commerce market and rapidly changing customer behaviour (Sagala, Destriani, Putri & Kumar, 2014). This promotion mix is categorised through the elements of advertising, sales, public relations, direct marketing and personal selling. Budget allocation for each promotional mix, prioritising digital communication, of Natural Evolution should be aligned with the objectives of each element.

Advertising: Advertising is the most used tool for digital and electronic media promotion. The key objective, adopting this paid tool, is to reduce the costs and to maximise the customer reach (Oladepo & Abimbola, 2015). Natural Evolution should focus on the digital advertising through the online platforms to reach the product worldwide.

Sales: Sales promotion is the most effective tool to stimulate consumer behaviour through direct-consumer strategy with several offerings (Oladepo & Abimbola, 2015). Natural Evolution focuses on online trading, therefore, the company can give offers and discounts to the customers through their website.

Public Relations: Among the promotion mix elements, this is the most comprehensive tool to maintain continuous public relation, making a niche market for the product (Yang & Lee, 2016). Natural Evolution can use their website to launch different online campaigns to motivate people towards using organic products. The website should be contained with updated information.

Direct Marketing: Through this promotional mix, the company targets the specific group of customers rather than the mass number of customers (Balasescu, 2014). Natural Evolution should regularly send emails, text messages and notifications to the regular buyers about offers and discounts.

Table 1: Promotion Mix Budget 2018
(Source: Created by the author)

7.0 Conclusion
This marketing plan Assignment has been developed with the aim to make an effective marketing plan for the product Banana Ointment of Natural Evolution, to understand the customer demands of each segment, implementing digital communication strategy. Summarising the findings of the marketing plan Assignment, a major gap in the marketing strategy of Natural Evolution is evident; they need to determine the market segmentation, target market, and positioning to maximise product reach. Furthermore, the marketing plan Assignment has found that for the marketing of Banana Ointment, Natural Ointment should specify the marketing mix elements in accordance with the new market segmentation, target market and product positioning. The marketing plan Assignment has also identified the needs to adopt the promotional mix elements to meet the customer demand through the digital communication strategy. Marketing Plan assignments are being prepared by our management assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable assignment help online service.

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