Introduction
The marketing plan is the essential component of the overall corporate strategy. The business analysis allows for identifying new niches, timely responding to the actions of competitors, closing stagnating areas, and developing the most profitable and dynamically growing ones. The evolution of a marketing plan is the most crucial task for every businessperson. The target market, methods for researching the needs and demands of consumers, marketing mix, and advertising budget were reviewed to improve the company’s strategies and create a stable business for OnFitWorld.
Target Audience
Knowing a target audience helps to choose the proper channels for promotion and use a budget wisely. The company OnFitWorld will start its activities online, making classes safe for users and attracting an audience worldwide. Thus, the target market for the organization is people of all ages, from teenagers to retirees, all over the world. The target audience is often heterogeneous – within it, there are small subgroups that will be interested in the company’s specific services (Waller, 2020). Depending on the age and time zone, appropriate programs will be developed so that the client can choose the most suitable option.
Customer Needs
Clients’ relationships with the company are shaped by their opinions, attitudes, and experiences. Convincing the customer that the product can fully meet their needs and exceed expectations is its marketing strategy (Scarborough & Cornwall, 2015). The importance of eliciting requirements for marketing executives in firms is several essential things. The three main methods that will be used to explore the needs and desires of OnFitWorld’s customers are observation, dialogue, and personal experience.
Observation
Observation is the hidden needs of customers that they have already encountered but have not yet fulfilled. The usefulness of this method is that it can be used both offline and online. A typical surveillance technique used by web servers is “cookies,” which allow the storage of strictly individual information about the web user. OnFitWorld plans to start online, so collecting data on the site will be a vital element. Reactions can also be tracked during the class and through comments on social media. When the company starts conducting fitness training in real gyms, it will be possible to pay attention to the live reactions of customers as well. The results of this method can give the firm a lot of completely unexpected and valuable information.
Dialogue
The client’s needs are the primary information, and in the practice of marketing research, there are many options for its collection. These include online and offline surveys, questionnaires, tests, interviews, individual and group meetings, and others. For objective needs and customer needs assessment, OnFitWorld plans to try different techniques and use anonymous and open-ended surveys to compare the results and further information processing, developing new strategies.
Personal Experience
The method involves going through the client’s journey on your own. It is necessary to understand why clients turn to the support team, trainers, and the management. In the case of OnFitWorld, this path should be taken from registration on the website and signing up for a course to the fitness class itself. This method will help identify weaknesses, find points of customer negativity, and create a plan to improve the services provided.
Marketing Mix
Integrated marketing is a crucial part of a business development strategy. It consists of four essential elements: product, price, promotion, and place (IšoraitÄ—, 2016). OnFitWorld’s product is online fitness classes; it is necessary to think about the functionality, service quality, logo, and pay attention to guarantees. As for the price aspect, OnFitWorld will focus not only on the cost of services but also on discounts and bonus programs. It attracts new audiences and increases the loyalty of existing ones.
Promotion includes advertising, PR, media, and direct sales. Since the company will initially be launched online, the emphasis will be placed on SMM promotion. The place of service will be the site and social networks. A detailed study and analysis of these items will help meet the needs of potential buyers and improve the organization’s performance.
Advertising Budget and Plan
Advertising is one of the organization’s expense items and is not inherently different from any other way of incurring corporate expenses. OnFitWorld is launching online, so the budget will be for SEO and SMM promotion in the first and second quarters. Through Yandex Direct and Google Ads, contextual advertising will reach a more significant portion of the audience in the second quarter.
The company will collaborate with other brands and bloggers in the third quarter. The plans for project development include offline platforms: the company will consider budgeting for billboards and banners in different countries. SEO, SMM, and contextual advertising will be supported during the year. The budget for these areas will be allocated depending on the requests, and closer to the end of the year will decrease as it will be more of a supporting function. The advertising budget and plan are shown in more detail in Appendix A. An important aspect is that the policy can and should be adjusted based on the initial results and adapted to the needs of consumers and their response to the promotion.
Conclusion
The company’s marketing plan is the required method for organizing the activities, budget, production view, and sales strategy. It is necessary to be able to identify the needs and wants of its customers. Marketing research is a means of keeping constant contact with clients, helping them understand the mechanism used by them to evaluate the service process before, during, and after the consumption of the service. The use and competent application of these activities will help OnFitWorld improve its strategies and create a successful business.
References
Išoraitė, M. (2016). Marketing mix theoretical aspects. International Journal of Research-Granthaalayah, 4(6), 25-37. Web.
Scarborough, N. M., & Cornwall, J. R. (2015). Entrepreneurship and effective small business management. Pearson.
Waller, T. (2020). Discovering Your Target Audience. In Personal Brand Management (pp. 37-49). Springer, Cham.