Marketing Strategy and Plan

Who is your target market?

Explain "Marketing Strategy and Plan".

This report is a marketing plan of a 360-degree online assistance plan of a live tutor. The report discusses the marketing strategies and detailed marketing analysis including customer analysis, market growth and acquisition strategies.

The target market for 360-degree online assistance program will be covering all age group segments. The live stream application will be covering people of all classes belonging to any kind of occupation. This innovative online stream tuition portal will focus on all the customers however the major focus will remain on the age group of 15 to 50 years of age group. The focus of advertising will be on every segment. People of every field will be targeted. For identifying the necessity of the online live stream tutorials, questionnaire method will be considered. This idea will help in identifying the nature and demands of customer who prefer live streamlining of tutorials(Smith, 2004).

The most essential analysis for a marketing plan to get successful is to have the analysis of the customers of a business. Customer’s analysis helps in identifying the strengths of the customers, so that a company can make their product better. Before launching of a product, a company needs to undertake a thorough plan in relation to the prospective customers. This is essential for our company, as the company is going to deal online, so it becomes more necessary to understand what customers company is going to interact with.  The target segment of 360 degree live assistance application will be teachers, students, working people, homemakers and even old age people who are looking for some tutorials.  The product will be helping in transferring the solutions to the queries of the customers based on live tutor streaming. There has been extensive usage of online tutorials nowadays. There are many online sites, which are offering solutions to the queries raised by the customers; however this site offers high level of satisfaction, as the customer will be discussing his issues face to face with some tutor, with the help of video chat. With no such facility available in the market currently, the people at present mail their queries to online the portals of tuition sites, and most of the times, they get frustrated as they get a different answer to their queries and most often they get late replies.  The major reason behind the dissatisfaction was that there was no physical person present with whom the customers can directly communicate   with. Now this new product of 360-degree tuition through live streamlining will help the customers in getting their queries resolved as and when it occurs. Hence, after analyzing the requirements of the 360-degree live streamlining online tutorial site, the company can decide to launch the site, as there is opportunity in market(Khan, 2004). 

Profile of the customer and how are their needs currently being met?

The 360-degree live assistant application will be accessible on every i-phone and android. The application will be allowing the customers to purchase the tutorial help and classes for 10 dollars per class. The stream application will be requiring a front facing camera for the video calling and hands free stands that can be purchased from the application itself, for 20 dollars that will be having a built -in microphone.

The e- learning market is currently expected to hike by around 125 billion dollars by the end of 2020. The market is completely self – paced and it has reached more than 25 billion dollars in the year 2010(DOCEBA, 2014). The below pie chart shows the percentage of growth of the market in the countries:

Figure 1: E- Learning Statistics (E-learning, 2015)

The e-learning market has reached more than 1 billion dollars in the year 2013. On the other hand, market of e- learning is expecting to grow more than 10 billion dollars by the end of 2020.

Automation is a new concept in the world of e- learning. Though many of e- learning tools have been offered in the online market now days, the coming years are expected to bring in new levels. For instance, responsive learning management system will be accessible by all the platforms in the coming time. Through this kind of learning system, the customers will be able to automatically adjust the e- learning course elements.

E- Learning is no longer a new concept. The development of the effective instructional designing and online practices considering the time and cost savings, reveals that the e- learning business has strong growth prospect in future. The market research done by the ambient insight in the year 2012- 2017 across the world in respect of e- learning market, shows that the five year annual growth for the e- learning market will be 18 percent and estimated global revenue would be at around 12 billion dollar. It was identified that around 80 percent of the users will not be leaving home, if they will have an option of virtual e- learning.

There are various e- learning options available in the online market, for offering tuitions to the customers. The main competitors of the 360 degree will be the online tutorial sites that offer the service of online tuitions. The competitors are not going to get much happy with the new service in market. This is because, the 360 degree live assistant is going to offer the video chat service option, which will give an additional benefit  to its customer to deal directly with a tutor through video chat regarding their queries. 

Any Complementary Products or Services

Sales and marketing strategies

The marketing strategy of 360-degree live assistant will be based upon the classification of future growth opportunities within the market and assessment of risk associated. It would be good, if the company adopts product differentiation strategy. There are other competitors, which are well established and very popular. The company has to differentiate the service line from others. Thus the company will be offering unique core capability to its users through live online tutorial assistance. This assistance will be available in the company’s site only. Uniqueness in the application design and services will be about selling unique proposition, as this the best strategy that the company can adopt.

Nurturing the contact to leads and thereafter to advocates, will require the company to have nurturing campaign, in which the company will be using CRM software for assisting and strengthening inbound marketing efforts(Janzer, 2012). The CRM strategy will enhance the inflow of the prospects from the initial contacts to sales by keeping the customers engaged and involved. As every aspect of the inbound marketing process is very important, but the sad part is that it will never reach the potential without the effective CRM(Cognizant, 2011). CRM will increase the conversion of the lead into adapters. Company will try to build long-term relationships in between the company and the prospects in the market(Market Smartly, 2014). CRM services will help in understanding the leads better. The nurture campaigning is important for sales enhancement(Mathur & Trivedi, 2016). 

Customer acquisition cost is the metric that has been growing in usage, along with the emergence of online learning sites. 360 degree online Assistance Company will be spending around 100000 dollars in three months on advertisements and the marketing team is expecting that they will able to acquire around 10000 new orders during this time period. This means that the cost of acquisition of the company is 10dollars per order. Company will be able to improve the cost of acquisition by enhancing the on- site conversion metrics and by enhancing the value of customer. Acquisition is probably the main issue which companies comes across, because there are many competitors in market, which are also looking for such customers. For acquiring new customers, the company needs to add more functionality, which the other companies are not offering (Tech Target, 2004)

 Company needs to have varied management options. Company will be following ACTMAN strategy for acquiring the customers (Bhardwaj & Maharshi, 2014)

1. At first, the company will be focusing on targeting the customers
2. In the second step, awareness generation and product positioning will be done
3. In third point, the company will be placing the pricing
4. In the fourth step, the company will be giving the chance of trial of services. In this service, customers will be given a chance to use the services of 360-degree live assistance free, for a certain time.
5. After the trial, the company will be taking feedbacks and in case of negative feedbacks, the changes will be made then and there
6. In the last step, the company will be developing long term valueAny way to schedule marketing and sales expenditure to ‘pay as you go’

Marketing and sales (Kundu, 2013)expenditure plan of 360-degree online assistance services

Advertising	$7500
Website	$6000
Promotions	$4000
Mailing	$12000
Referral	$3000
Training	$3000
Services	$7440
Total	$42940

Customer's looking forward for online stream tutorial will have to pay around 10 dollars for any class they wish to attend. As and when, a customer will pay for the class; he/she will be guided to an online video chat option for live streamlining tutorials. The company will charge certain sum of money and the amount will be decreased as the customer uses the services. The deduction will be according to the customer’s usage. Company will be following pay as you go strategy for the sales purpose(Weber, 2002).

• Place: For enhancing the sales of the 360-degree online assistance, it is essential that the company place the product in close connection with the leading players in the marketplace. Company needs to target the social sites and other consulting sites that offer advertisements of such kind of similar sites. Apart from it, the company will be having its own online site and application(Training place, 2013).
• Price: The strategy which company is planning to use for its services is the price skimming strategy. In this strategy, company will be keeping high price for the services in the initial period. After acquiring the first set of the customer, they will be decreasing the prices for catering to the next set of consumers. The application will be free to download and commission will be taken from the purchases of service made in the application.
• Promotion: Company will be promoting through social sites, as the social sites offer a platform through which the company will be able to diffuse the information at a very fast rate(Uzulu, 2009).
• Product: 360 degree live assistant will be like an application which will be a live stream application that will be accessible on android and IOS. This service will be offering an opportunity to the individuals to purchase the live streaming tutorial help and classes. Company will be offering services in the fields of DIY, cooking, automotive, technology and beauty. 

Conclusion

The market plan and marketing analysis shows that the company will be offering 360-degree online assistance for live streamlining tutorials. The customers have to pay 10 dollars for each class. The company will be offering tutor services in varied areas. The company is planning to offer new services, which are unique in market and because of that; the company is planning to enter the market with skimming pricing technique. 

References

Bhardwaj, N. & Maharshi, D.N., 2014. Interplay of 7Ps of Marketing Mix in Customer Acquisition: An Empirical Study of Retail Banking. The International Journal Of Business & Management.

Cognizant, 2011. Building the Advocacy-Based Customer Loyalty Roadmap. Cognizant.

DOCEBA, 2014. E-Learning Market Trends & Forecast 2014 - 2016 Report. DOCEBA.

E-learning, 2015. Elearning Market Online Learning Statistics.

Khan, B.H., 2004. The People–Process–Product Continuum in E-Learning: The E-Learning P3 Model. Issue of Educational Technology.

Kundu, D.S.S., 2013. SALES MANAGEMENT: AN OVERVIEW. ddegjust.

Market Smartly, 2014. Nurture to Convert: Turning Leads into Loyal Advocates. 

Mathur, A. & Trivedi, D.V., 2016. Nurturing the Sales Funnel Through Social Media for Creating Brand Advocates. Global Journal For Research Analysis.

Smith, D.C., 2004. Implementing an institutional e-learning centre: guiding notes and patterns. E- Len.

Tech Target, 2004. Customer-Based Strategy. Tech Target.

Training place, 2013. Building a Strategic Plan for E-Learning. 

Uzulu, 2009. E-Learning Implementation Strategy and Plan for the University of Zululand. uzulu.

Weber, J.A., 2002. Managing the marketing budget in a cost-constrained environment. Industrial Marketing Management.