Marketing Campaign

Rationale - Business is a record shop which specialises in vinyl records and associated products. The current issue with Record players and Vinyl’s is that they are very expensive so therefore less people are likely to purchase them and they are also a nice market product as they are mainly bought by older generations therefore meaning that the younger generation won’t be putting a lot of money into this industry due to mobile phones etc. Solution for business is for them to provide up to date music for younger generations as well as older music as this could encourage more people to buy these products and student discounts, younger generations could afford these products. Implications on this solution is that when the company open up the younger generation to vinyl products they will expect all music they want to listen to to be on vinyl and also higher demand in portable products. The current state of vinyl records and other relating products is lower than CD’s and online downloads due to minimal target market and cost. The impact of the market state could either be beneficial or not due to the specific target market as the market could either get bigger younger generations buying or could be shut down. Due to more companies supplying vinyl’s and products now days in such a niche market this could affect the company; a lot of competitors so will have to come up with more & better products to help the company thrive.

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Advantages: Make money in the long run, sounds better, buying experience USEFUL FOR ALL OCCASIONS. 

Disadvantages: expensive, hard to move due to size, unwanted attention (must include disadvantage impacts on business)

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Aims and Objectives-

Aim 1: Increase brand awareness.

Aim 2: Improve profitability

Aim 3: Adapt for a larger target market Reasons: Company will want to become larger in vinyl industry and these are ways they can do that and outcomes (must explain importance of them towards business)

Objectives must be SMART -

Objective 1: increase number of customers by 10% by 2019

Objective 2: Multiply revenue by 10 in 5 years

Objective 3: Create new product for younger generation by 2020. (must explain how they link to aims and reasons i chose them) These objectives show short and long periods of time in how the company can improve and the goals they need to reach.

Research data (12 marks): Target Market: Mainly Men and Women over the age of 40 but trying to involve younger generation Brand Personality and Image: Old-fashioned, indie,

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The Competitors: A high class competitor is HMV which is reclaiming its crown as the UK’s biggest seller of physical music. One of the companies biggest competitors as they have a large following of customers and good success story. Consumer Preferences and Trends: Vinyl and products linking to this are now being used a lot more even with younger generations as they are becoming more upmarket and trendy to have. Products such as portable record players are being produced now so that they can be taken different places and doesn’t have to be plugged in. Now available in HMV there are record players that come with bluetooth speakers etc.

The market: Niche market the company will mainly be aiming themselves towards indie and older people Market size: The market is now both big and small because now vinyl is upmarket so younger people are buying it but it is still mainly older people who are buying these products.

Market share: Over the last couple of years there has been an extreme increase in the amount of vinyl and products that have been produced and bought, and this is still increasing.

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Internal & External Factors affecting the company-

Strengths:

Quality Products, Price, Number of Stores, Good Customer, Relationship and services. Internal factor that helps the company to be successful. The strengths include employees, producers, business assets and products. Weakness- Internal factor that could stop or slow down the organisational growth and success of the company. They can also relate to employees, producers, business assets and product.

Opportunities: Technology, Online Website, Awareness. External factors which the firm may be able to use to help them grow as a business.

Weaknesses: Failure in following trends, Lack of Marketing, Limited Locations

Threats: Online Stores, Smartphones, Price Wars, Innovations, Illegal downloading or pirated music. External factor which could make trading conditions more challenging for the company.

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Pestle Analysis: Pestle is the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors that help a business work.

Political factor: Political influences for the company is in the form of actions towards piracy and unauthorized access to music online. Where some action is taken on this and it could influence sales on vinyl tremendously.

Economic Factor: The availability of free music online has changed the vinyl industry dramatically making sales fall and making companies cut prices. Entire industry downfall in sales even for large producing companies due to IMusic and Spotify. Market has become extremely tough as customers are using online downloads etc.

Social Factor: Has been a decline in record producing companies downsizing which has raised concerns. People search for cheapest prices or free music, a small company like this one would have to have high prices as they need to keep themselves alive. Younger generation access to the internet open opportunities to find free music online, which means they won’t want to buy expensive vinyl.  Rap artists who are emerging won’t want to put their music on vinyl so therefore teenagers won’t buy them.

Technological Factors: Companies like HMV offers limitless pool of opportunities for themselves as they sell more than vinyl and according products so therefore will still be getting money. An idea would be to use e-marketing emails & online advertisement. Another thing is piracy and unauthorised websites who sell music, CDs and vinyl illegally.

Legal Factors: Law enforcement agencies are taking hold of the matter but still actions are limited and there are many illegal sellers available online despite of the law. Illegal sales of music online and offline effects this as customers now want to listen to music everywhere and cannot do this with vinyl.

Environmental Factors: They have minimum influence on the environment, except for packaging on the vinyl and products such as plastic, online downloads don’t have this therefore need to come up with a fabric that won’t harm the environment.

Unique Selling Points: In order for the company to sell enough products in order to keep the company going and not affect them financially they need to come up with a unique selling point which will make them stand out more than other companies who sell these products. First of all they must ensure that their vinyl are produced well and therefore won’t get complaints on quality, this will ensure customers are reliant on the company. They could also produce other products that you can purchase with the vinyl’s for example portable record players, bluetooth speakers for it etc. Also they could supply own cleaning products that come with the products to provoke customers to buy it.   

Marketing Message:  trendy upmarket vinyl record company who specialise in the finest records and according products just for you. Short and precise. Attract. Good marketing message for the business makes the target markets who are trendy people who are willing to listen to music in a different way. As it said trendy and upmarket  it will attract that market as they always want to be up to date with latest trends which have been brought back. They will have enough money to buy it.

Slogan: “Wax Perfection, Bringing music to life”. Benefits of the marketing message and slogan: will benefit the company as it will attract the current target market, get across the meaning of the company and show the target market why this is the company they should purchase a bike from, attract trading.

Media: Mass communication. Social media, television and the internet are used by billions of people all over the world every day. The company are trying to promote their vinyl and products to their target market (commuters). Types of media they should use: television adverts, social media, videos on social media (youtube), radio, leaflets.

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Benefits: By choosing these types of media the company are opening themselves up to their target market but some of these media’s are completely free, it will increase brand awareness and customer satisfaction.

Disadvantage: all down to customers noticing their adverts, a lot of the same type of company can be shown at the same time then it is down to the look of the company finally the type of adverts on social media and videos might not show up on certain devices so therefore the company have to ensure that their type of advertising will be seen clearly in the busy lives of these business people so therefore need to ensure it is shown on laptops and mobile phones.

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Social media price: Free. Television adverts price: A 30-second ad during breakfast schedule costs between £3,000 to £4,000 on average. For a daytime slot, ads of the same time length come in at £3,500 to £4,500, while a peak rate alternative can cost anything from £10,000 £30,000. Radio advert price: radio advertising is charged at a rate of approximately £2 per thousand listeners at one time. To clarify, if a show has 100,000 listeners at 10am, then buying a 30-second spot at that time will cost you £200. The late show's 10,000 listeners at 11pm would only cost £20. Leaflet prices: 1000 leaflets cost £14 on vistaprint.

Website prices: A website designed and build will cost from £2,000 to £7,500 with an average of £4,750, depending on the wants and needs and the extent of the customization for the company.

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Marketing Mix: Within the marketing mix comes the 7 P’s which consists of product, price, promotion, place, people, physical environment and process.

Product: The products they want to produce are vinyl and relating products which will be targeted to the older generation who wish to listen to more current music the way they used to. The FUNCTION of these products will to be able to give people an older feel towards music with the uptodate tunes playing . When delivered or purchased in store the products should be packaged in environmentally friendly fabrics e.g. recycled cardboard. Another way that packaging the product might help customers to buy it is by using an animal to represent the product for instance you could use a hummingbird as this could portray the idea that the music will be easy to the ear and tuneful.

Prices: The price of most vinyl is from £10 - £20. The price of most record players is from £40 - £200. The price of most accessories is from £5 (Cleaning Brush For Record Player Needle) - £200 (Crosley Wirecord Turntable Stand & LP Rack) Depending on the type of market they want to produce for whether that be for people with alot of money or little money there is a wide range of costs for products.

Promotion:  Promotion is how they market their product meaning how does the company make themselves known to the publici.e. How do they use media to show themselves, their corporate image, how they sell their products to customers, public relations etc. Place: The company need to choose places to have their own shops. They should try and have their stores in large city centers but not close to other large companies such as hmv.

People: The company needs to think about their target market (people they want to sell products to) will be e.g. younger generation mainly indie people, older generation who want to listen to their old vinyl, or older generations who wish to listen to new music on record players. They also have to think about the care packages they could give their customers such as free cleaning products when buying certain products as this could be a want or need of their customers.

Physical environment: The physical environment for a business is the environment for a business is the material objects that are used for a business. For instance, a business may be located in a office building with tables and chairs, or it may consist of a factory that makes products.

Process: A business process is a collection of linked tasks which find their end in the delivery of a service or product to a client. A business process has also been defined as a set of activities and tasks that, once completed, will accomplish an organizational goal.

Budget (8 marks): A budget is the estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time. Within this I must include advertising (social media), direct responses (leaflet), public relations(word by mouth – which is an important factor as people always value other people's opinions of companies so therefore if people give a negative response this could affect the amount of customers that go to the company and it is free) and support materials (Website this is important as it provides people with more information about the products and the company as a while this could also be the place where customers buy some of their products if they do not have time to go in to stores).

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Everything else that must be done in the exam: Brand image and a more detailed evaluation of the target market and I also must include my reasons for this research and how it is reliable accurate and valid these must be included in the Research data. For the Justification of Rationale I must include a more detailed evaluation of the SWOT analysis including how they will impact the business, why should they start selling this product in result of this and what is my marketing recommendation for the business. In the Aims and Objectives I must include the reasons for the choice of the different aims and the different objectives and explain how they will help the company. I also have to include the importance of the aims and the objectives. For the Media section I must include the budget I have been given and show how I will use it in relation to the media I have chosen to use and also give reasons for the choice of my media explaining how it will help the company attract customers and finally I must have a conclusion to which media is the best to use and why.

Things that involve the second release: One of the things I can only do with the second release is the Budget this includes me creating a budget for the scenario of the business this only involves media and advertisements and I have to justify the choices of my media within my budget. I must also do a Timescale where I create my own Gantt chart and decide on timings of each aspect of the marketing plan I will have to include a paragraph to explain why I have chosen the specific months for the activities listed and must justify my answer. Finally I must have an Evaluation where I make a list of all the activities the scenario business should review and how I will measure the success of the marketing campaign.

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Facts about Vinyl: HMV launched campaign that celebrates the brand “home of vinyl since 1921”. HMV announced that 2016 see largest vinyl sales since 1997, sales more than 1.5 million  across stores & website. Vinyl have been increasing in the UK over the past 8 years,from 222,6000 vinyls in 2008 - 2,236,800 in 2015. Hipster thing. UK vinyl sales reach 25-year high*The average price of a vinyl LP album in the UK in 2017 was £20.23. Demand for vinyl records in the UK is highly seasonal. Demand is highest at Christmas because vinyl records are often given as gifts. 25.8% of vinyl sales in the UK were made in December in 2017.