Marketing

Questions 2) Has Martha identified the best market for Trap-Ease? What other market segments might the firm target? When Martha segmentized her market only according to gender without further segmentation, Martha fell short of identifying the best market for Trap-Ease. Considering the product features of Trap-Ease, women could be its best market for the mouse trap. But not just women. Martha has to segregate the group further. To target a market just because of gender lacks the specifics for targeted marketing. There are subgroups in the women market and to conclude that the best market is women because they stay at home to take care of the children missess fails to identify the actual demographic of the market. Martha should subdivide the market further. There are a lot of professional women who does not stay at home and who are equally busy as men. There are also students, single women, etch. What Martha should initially target are the house wives who stays at home that takes care of the children. They are the natural market of Trap-Ease it protects the infants and toddlers from the threat of poisoning of other rodent control products. But Martha should not stop with the mothers, she should include the fathers too which is another segment of the market. In fact, the right market segmentation for the product is not merely stay home housewives but should be parents. But given the outlay of the investors that she needs to recoup, this market segment may not enough to cover the cost. So she should expand her market to other segments like business establishments who has the same need for rodent control. This is a promising market for Trap-Ease as the product is nicely designed that would not be an eye sore in a corporate setting. Also, it is ideal for this market for it will spare the workplace from the foul smell of a rodent brought by other similar product category. 4) Describe the current marketing mix for Trap-Ease. Do you see any problems with this mix? The marketing mix for introducing a product in the market consists of the four P’s which are Product, Place, Price and Promotion. With regard to the product, Martha may want to consider diversification of Trap-Ease by offering variations of the Product. The place for her product distributions are stores like Kmart and Safeway. The price doesn’t seem to pose a problem because the market doesn’t seem to show to price resistance. With regard to promotion, she has allocated a $10, 000 for it in addition to her TV guestings and attendance in trade shows. Martha’s Marketing Mix for Trap-Ease seemed to be okay but she is not able to use other channels of distribution to optimize market penetration. She should consider that since her product is unique and priced at high-end, she should utilize other avenues like the internet. Where she can fully explain the functionality of the Trap-Ease to sophisticated consumers who does not mind paying extra as long as they get the right product. And considering her budget for promotion which is only $10, 000, the internet may be the ideal place for her to promote the product where she can place advertisements at strategic sites. In addition, she will have a lower overhead since she doesn’t have to maintain a brick and mortar store to sell her product. The marketing mix of a company consists of the four P’s: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Currently Trap-Ease only has one product, their mouse trap. They probably could create a couple different versions of their mouse trap in order to offer more variety. The higher price of their mouse trap seems to be consistent with a quality differentiation strategy but they probably could offer a wider range of prices on the different models of their trap if they chose to widen their product range. Right now they are trying to distribute their product through stores like Kmart and Safeway. A really good market to hit would probably be the internet. People on in the internet are often times into quality, ease of use, and innovativeness and don’t mind spending a little more money to get what they want. It is also a high profit market because it reduces transportation costs and there are no middle man costs. The promotion of the Trap-Ease mouse trap seems to be one of their largest problems. They should promote over the internet for certain on sites that they think their target market will be visiting and they should also think about putting out ads on TV. In this changing high tech environment magazine ads aren’t enough anymore.