Marketing plan assignment

More people are eating rice than ever before, and they choose from various kinds of rice include regular white rice and brown rice. No matter the rice are precooked, half-cooked, or uncooked, they can all be used as side dish. Since rice has already been accepted by the public, it is time to introduce a new kind of product which includes both basic plus extra value to the market. The product will be introduced to the marketplace is gourmet blend of whole grains, which is mixed of five different grains, they are brown rice, black rice, red rice, whole oats, and whole wheat.

This ewe mixed rice will be packaged in one pound pack for easy purchasing and storage. In today’s market, there is major only either white rice or brown rice available, not yet any mixed rice available in the market. And according to Sad’s biannual milled rice distribution survey for food use, total domestic consumption of rice is about 47. 5 million, which equals over 19 pounds per capita (Liabilities. Com 2009). Even though there are many people consume rice, there are different needs exist in the whole market, and it is impossible that only one product or service can satisfy all the deeds.

In order to reach the maximum efficiency, the marketers have to clear understand the needs of the customers, and develop different products to them, and this is called target market strategy. According to Solomon, Marshall, and Stuart (2008), target marketing strategy means dividing the total market into different segments on the basis of customer characteristics, selecting one or more segments, and developing products to meet the needs of those specific segments. By measuring the observable aspects of a population, the size of the consumer can be known.

Some aspects used to measure are age, size, gender, income, education, and family structure. Since each group has own shared behavior, the marketer can find the target one and design the product introduction message to attract them. Since the product is mixed grains and is required to cook before consume, the target consumer gender is female. It is not saying male don’t know how to cook, the consumer demographics is for general shared characteristics. Women who have family tend to cook more and mostly pay more attention to healthy food, so the age is over 18 and women for the target consumer.

In addition to consider gender and age of target consumer, chirography’s is another important aspect to be taken into account. Chirography’s is the use of psychological, sociological, and anthropological factors to construct market segments (Solomon, Marshall, and Stuart, 2008). Only divide consumers by age or gender are not enough, since those factors won’t tell why they don’t respond to a new product or promotion targeted at them. Study consumer chirography’s helps solve this problem by providing their cryptographic characteristics for company to design the right plan to these customers.

Some cryptographic characteristics of women who have family are steady-seeking rather than thrill-seeking, and they tend to interest in healthy topic. By discovering these characteristics, the company should make the package always same since change a lot will make them confuse of the consistence of the product. Also, the website of the product is better to have a forum, or category of health recipes for the consumers to refer to. Doing so can satisfy their cryptographic need and become loyalty to the Marketing Plan – Essay 6 By stenographer knowing their act toward the product will help company to understand their buying behavior.

The reason consumers buy the product can be used as promotion attraction to increase the sales. Take mixed grains as example, the grains are cooked when eating together, in the other words, part of consumers use it to cook for the family in the dinner time as side dish. Also, some consumers buy the mixed grains as gift to friends since the product is healthy and economic. The company can develop some gift wrap packaging for those who use it as gift to attract them to buy. And if website is too early and costly for the new product, print a recipe in the back of the product is also good to make these consumers want to buy.

So the whole size and demographics of this market has been analyzed, the new product will competing with others to gain the market share. In today’s market, some general brands of rice are blue ribbon, mahatma, and wild harvest. However, they Just sell brown rice and regular white rice, which means there are no actual direct competitors in the market. Even though they are not selling same products, the rice they sell can be alternatives for the consumers and share the market, so it is very important to do an analysis of their product and then make the strategy for the gourmet blend of whole grains.

After go to different supermarket to compare the price and quantity, the general price for these brands are around $1. 3 per pound for brown rice, and $0. 99 for white rice. There are grains such as oat and wheat selling individually, and the price are around $1. 5 per pound. So it is clear that if a customer wants to eat mixed rice, there is only one option which is to buy at least one pound per kind and mix together, this means five grains for about five dollars. After do the comparison, the advantage of gourmet blend of whole grains pops up, that is the mixed grains for only one dollar.

The pricing strategy is set to use low price to enter the marketplace and attract all customers who consumes rice. For regular rice consumers who pay more attention to their health, eating whole grains can largely help on their health. According to whole grain council (2009), brown rice contains more than 200% fiber than brown rice, and oat is good for heart. The low price strategy can easier make these white rice consumers switching to a healthier choice. If the price for this gourmet blend of whole grains is too high, which means the cost to switch to a new product is big, then he possibility of success will be decreased.

After setting the price for this mixed whole grains as one dollar, it is time to consider how to do the promotion. There are two kinds of sales promotion, one is for the trade, and the other is directly to the customers. As a specialty product, it is good to attend specialty food show, for example the fancy food show which is produced by the NANAS since 1955 and is the North America’s largest specialty food and beverage marketplace (Specification. Com 2009). During the show, there is a bigger opportunity to expose this new product to potential buyers.

In addition to increase industry visibility, giving discounts and deals to supermarkets can help promote the product. For example, offer supermarkets additional discount to encourage them display the products in the entrance. However, this kind of discount would have drawbacks such as supermarkets will only purchase product when there is special discount, or they will buy a lot and resell to other retailers to get some profits. Besides to the promotion for the trade, customers should also be included since they are the end users for the product. Having some delicious and healthy recipes on the website to attract customers.

Also, cooking contest can be held and use this new product as ingredients to increase the interest from the customers and maintain their loyalty. As mentioned in the promotion methods, one way is to offer discounts to supermarkets, and this is part of the distribution. Only having a new and good product is not enough, a good marketing plan can bring the product to success, otherwise, it is Just a product. Selling to supermarkets is general idea for promoting a product; however, it is hard to do that directly since buyer is not so open to the public. Now it is time to think how the distribution channel works.

One answer is that sell through distributors, who then will sell to supermarkets. For instance, unified grocers supply to many supermarkets, when a product is included in their data base, it will be reviewed by many other stores and consider the purchase. Another distribution way can be applied to this mixed whole grains is sell in bundle with other products. This idea is similar to gift box which contains many different kinds of products inside and the people buy it will view it as a one stop purchase. Doing so can largely increase sales since when the new product sells individually, the consumers might not think to cake the purchase.

However, if the new product is sold with many other things, there will always be something the customer wants and make the purchase. A good example could be treasure box which combines several products including meat, vegetables, and other ingredients for daily cooking in a box, and sells for thirty dollars. This gourmet blend of whole grains will be a very healthy product to be included in the box and sell to individual household. With the distribution aspect done, it is very important to has strong sales support to keep everything work smooth.

Advertisement is one part in this section, the reason for this kind of support is to announce the benefits of the product, and remind existing customer to purchase repeatedly plus attract new customers. It is common to see a product shown on the billboard and with big text such as available in Albertson. There are also many products advertised through radio and mentioned products are available in major supermarkets. All these advertisement creates win-win situation to both manufacture and supermarkets, and the final goal is to increase sales.

Sales support also including timely and properly delivery, trained customer sales, and ability to solve any problems occur. The manufacture or the distributor’s information is printed on the back of the package, and this information enables the customer to contact when they need. It is necessary to ensure the customer service people professional about the product and give satisfactory answer to build good customer relationship. Keeping good customer relationship is being paid more attention than ever before; this is because companies know that it costs much less to keeping existing customers Han find new customers.

Plus when the customers are loyalty to the company, they would recommend the products to their family and friends, which are the new customers that cost Just a little. With this marketing plan for the gourmet blend of whole grains, it can be introduced to the marketplace easier since the advantages, possible obstacles, service preparation, and other aspects have been considered. A good product can’t stay in the market without a through marketing strategy; also marketing strategy will not work if there is no good product. So when these aspects