MARKETING PLAN – KICKBACK C1

MARKETING PLAN – KICKBACK C1

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Kickback Electronics Company is a newly developed company, expected to be located in New Delhi, India. The company provides home and medical electronics as well as other different electronic gadgets. It intends to continuously grow in the electric industry and outstand in the Indian competitive environment.  Kickback C1, planned for launch by the company, expects to outsmart Xiaomi and Realme. It targets the youth as the primary users. The smartphone is to be initially sold in India and probably a few surrounding countries. Later on, the market would then expand worldwide.

Kickback C1 is a smartphone with exclusive features suited for beginner users. It encloses a 13MP primary sensor and 2MP depth sensor cameras on its rear as well as a 5MP selfie camera on its front with a 3/32GB storage capacity. A Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and Android ten are used in running the phone’s system, making it efficient to use. With a display of 5.7 inches, the phone becomes very suitable to be used by its targeted customers.

In marketing the smartphone, the company first starts by identifying its targeted market and posing a reasonable price to the product as well as a unique selling proposition to attract more customers. Afterward, it selects different distribution methods and marketing materials suited for the Kickback C1. An online marketing plan is also available, disclosing the various strategies for spreading information about the product. Other approaches to ensure conversion, retention, promotion, and referral of customers have also been exhibited, manifesting how Kickback Electronics Company would acquire customers and make use of them in realizing a profit.

TARGET MARKET

Identification of the intended market aids the company in segmenting the areas to present and deliver the mobile phone. The company, after this, efficiently analyses the significant areas to pinpoint their Kickback C1 advertisements and other product promotional strategies. The return on investment of the product thereby increases, gaining the company higher profits from the sales of the new product.

Intended customers

Kickback C1 has most of its targeted customers in India. They mostly feature mobile phone users adapting to Realme and Xiaomi brands, which are primarily beginners in the usage of smartphones. Most of the customers acquiring new brands of mobile phones have recorded to have purchased Xiaomi and Realme, whose features showcase similarity with those of the kickback C1. Release of the new Kickback smartphone would generate high sales for the company following the high demand from customers craving for the desired smartphone features, which are also present in Kickback C1.

Demographic profile

The aimed market ranges from teenagers at the age of 15 to youths at the age of 35. The smartphone could also serve other customers, such as the elderly, who don’t expect much from cellphones. Both genders could make use of the device as it’s not restricted to the male or female. The three colors available, red, blue, and black, allow for the usage of the phone by any of the two genders.

Psychographic profile

Intended customers being the youth and some teenagers, expect much of the product in filling the gaps of their interests. As beginners, the targeted customers mostly require a moderately enough storage capacity for the efficient functioning of the smartphone and storage of media files as well as documents. Entertainment, as a critical interest in the youth, calls for the device’s ability to connect to the internet for the vast refreshment content quickly. The phone’s speaker also has to be convincing enough to deliver quality music to the user. Various pre-installed applications for better customer experience are also highly eyed by the market. The company’s Kickback C1 meets all of its customer interests to ensure an increased customer base. The smartphone provides enough storage capacity of 3/32 GB and an external storage capacity of up to 512 GB.

PRICING AND POSITIONING

Proportionality of the smartphone’s price with its quality plays a crucial role in convincing customers of the device’s authenticity. Decisions in pricing have to be highly rational to ensure profitability, acquisition of new customers, retention of existing customers, and competency advantage in the marketing field (Auf, Meddour, Saoula & Majid, 2018). Kickback C1 goes at a price of Rs.7899, which is a reasonable one considering the smartphone’s quality specifications. The amount posted to the product contributes to the competency advantage of the company as most customers would opt for a slightly cheaper product with the same qualifications as the others. Despite the lowered price, the product could still face high competition from its immediate competitors.

The positioning of the price goes hand in hand with the product’s quality. The smartphone is available to the market with three desirable colors – red, blue and black, with a RAM of 3GB and ROM of 32GB, enough for a regular cellphone user. If more space is required, an external SD card of size 512GB could suffice. The moderate favorable 5.7-inch display gives the user full control of the smartphone by only using a single hand, making it efficient to operate. HD + infinity cameras though not as capturing as other high-quality cameras, still serve the purpose, having a 13MP primary sensor and 2MP depth sensor on its rear, and a 5MP front camera housed in a top-notch drop display on the screen. The speaker, accompanied by Dolby ATMOS technology, provides a splendid surrounding sound for its users. All the qualities of the smartphone reasonably blend with the set price, which not only aims at gaining a customer base but also profitability.

UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION

The company’s unique selling proposition distinguishes it from all of its competitors, aiming at convincing customers to opt for their product. The company has a goal of providing customers with products of high quality at reasonable prices basing on their interests. After the purchase, a follow up is conducted to instigate customer experience with the product to maximize comfortability and effectiveness.

DISTRIBUTION PLAN

Kickback C1 could be made available to its customers in India and other neighboring countries in various ways. First is through the use of the kickback official e-store, an online platform where any customer could acquire all Kickback products. By the use of the e-store, customers are granted after-sell services such as free delivery of the smartphone safely to the address given. Minimal errors in the packaging of the product that could be present are highly avoided by the e-store, ensuring delivery of the right product to the right customer. Buyers have the opportunity of having an online chat with the customer care service at the e-store when attempting to purchase the device. Furthermore, a free cost on EMI is offered to customers rendering the e-store a recommended place for the distribution of the smartphone to most of its customers.

Customers could also opt to use other online shops such as Amazon and Flipkart. Alternatively, they could go for the product at any nearby retail shop and also get the smartphone. Amazon gets to deliver the product to any buyer globally (Shevchenko, 2020). Though some charges get posted on the delivery of the product, customers remain assured of receiving the ordered smartphone safely according to the given timeline. By using amazon as a distributor, Kickback might experience higher sales due to the broad scope of the market exposed to the product, putting in mind amazon’s global popularity. Customers could quickly identify the product and purchase it at friendly prices (discounts offered).

Flipkart, a leading ecommerce company in India, has also been used for the distribution of the smartphone to various residents in India. With the targeted customers mostly being Indians, making use of Flipkart, which only provides services to Indians, would be useful in realizing higher sales. The mega store offers cash on delivery services where customers get to pay some extra amount of money if they wish to be delivered the product since the company partners with numerous courier services to provide the customer with purchased goods to the given addresses. The megastore, as compared to ecommerce websites, offers customers a discount on products at its expense, attracting more buyers.

Aside from the online shops, Kickback Company also adapts to the use of various retailers in India, such as New Mobile Connect, for the dissemination of the C1 smartphone. Some of the customers desiring to purchase the product may not be able to gain access to the online shops. In contrast, others may despise using online shops and prefer buying the product from retail shops to avoid extra expenses.

MARKETING MATERIALS

Media advertising

Kickback could use the media in general to spread the knowledge of Kickback C1 hence promoting its sales. Social media platforms such as Facebook could be used in the advertisement process to reach out to most of the intended customers. The use of live commercials could be highly effective if applied as detailed information, including the merits and shortcomings of the products are made available to the public. Partnering with influential TV shows could additionally aid in the marketing process (Jung & Childs, 2019). By merging with TV shows mostly used by the targeted customers, the rate of return on income would increase after the company directs advertisements of the smartphone to the right audience.

Print advertising  

Statistics prove print advertising to be a highly effective strategy used by various companies such as Samsung in the competitive marketing field. Print advertisements could feature in magazines, newspapers, and journals. The product gets compared with its competitors exposing strengths and weaknesses for both brands. The market then gets to analyze and select the best product. The strategy, earlier applied by the Samsung Company for the Galaxy S 3, proved to be successful whereby the smartphone was being compared to iPhone 5, posing a massive threat to the iPhone series. Comparison of the two products brought to realization Samsung Galaxy S 3’s advantages over the iPhone 5.

ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGY

Marketing of the smartphone online is an essential strategy for the business as it aims at higher numbers of customers. The approach enables the company to gain high traffic, which could later convert to paying customers.

Personal branding

Aside from branding the company as a whole, the company’s CEO should also dedicate enough time for personal branding. Branding oneself alongside the company enables the business owner to formulate an individual image to be trusted by the customers hence promoting the brand released, which the smartphone is sold.

Content marketing

Content regarding the smartphone to be sold has to undergo delivery to customers before being purchased. Performing the distribution could be in various ways, including the use of e-books and on-site blogs to be used by the company. Viewers either download the content in the e-books or subscribe to the e-books for more information. As for on-site blogs, the company gains traffic from the viewers interested in the content provided. The affected customers acquired by the company, later on, get converted to paying customers. Content marketing not only attracts traffic but also provides sufficient information regarding the product to the public (Ahmad, Musa & Harun, 2016).

Search engine optimization

Application of SEO by the company would enable it to make its site efficiently maneuvered by the incoming traffic hence increasing visibility. Customers visiting the site acquire information regarding the smartphone. By this, the site’s traffic increases, widening the product’s market. After the content on the website gets updated, search engine optimization prioritizes the latest information fed into the site for the traffic, enabling customers to gain access to the newest content posted on the site.

Conversion optimization

Acquiring high traffic regularly without a promising response in the smartphone’s sales could be incredibly useless. The company, at this point, would experience a little return on investment rates as more would end up invested in advertisements with no positive returns. It is, therefore, essential that the company highly values and implements the conversion of traffic to paying customers.

Social media marketing

For a more comfortable and efficient way of acquiring customers, Kickback opts to secure various social media accounts and build its audience. Here the company can prove very high visibility of brands with social media platforms being one of the most important sites worldwide (Erkan & Evans, 2018). After the activation of accounts and successful acquisition of enough and loyal audiences, the company would share links to its site hence maximizing traffic.

Email marketing

Email marketing, a highly cost-effective strategy, builds the relationship between the company and its traffic. After customers sign up, they are directly sent automated emails by the company informing them of newly available content, making them revisit the site once again. Revisiting the site increases the company’s traffic, later converted to paying customers. Email marketing may significantly increase the company’s sales on the smartphone.

JOINT VENTURES AND PARTNERSHIP

Kickback Electronics Company aims at partnering greatly from the beginning with Foxconn Company, responsible for the manufacturing of smartphones for various companies such as apple. The two may have bondage emanating from a long term contract whereby Foxconn gets to manufacture the kickback C1 for the company, which then avails the smartphone to customers.

OFFERS AVAILABLE

The company avails offers to customers purchasing the smartphone to secure more customers as well as retain them. Active customers get awarded a free wireless charger to encourage them to continue buying goods from the company. As for new customers, purchasing the Kickback C1 comes accompanied with a free screen protector as well as a free gear. First purchases get to go along with freebies by buyers, which they could later redeem to cash after full accumulation. Generally, acquisitions are possible by a discount. In the case of controversies encountered during the first stage usage of the device, the customer gets a money-back guarantee.

CONVERSION STRATEGY

The company has an obligation of ensuring a higher percentage of customers viewing their products get to purchase them for a higher rate of Return on Investment. The following strategies set would guide the company in doing so.

• Formulate an easy to navigate website where customers quickly identify and locate the product they’re searching, which could be done by the application of a search engine optimization strategy.
• Provide attractive landing pages on the company’s site to persuade customers to take a look at the smartphone advertised.
• Apply the use of YouTube video tutorials to educate customers on the usage of the smartphone as well its qualities and advantages to help increase traffic and later on product sales (Min, 2018)
• Avail captivating images of the smartphone on the company’s website to capture the customer’s attention and interest.
• Provide full information concerning the product to customers to gain their complete trust and build their interest in it. The company should not exaggerate information just to please customers but instead, provide accurate and non-bias data.
• Post the right content in a direct and precise manner to the audience. Many of the customers lose interest in wordy information and opt for concise data that’s straight to the point. The provision of straightforward information helps in encouraging higher traffic to the company’s website and later purchase of the displayed product.
• Optimize offers to attract customers to buy the smartphone. The company has to assess and compare the rate of sales against investments in the offers provided. It has to ensure it still works under a profit even after the proposals are optimized.
• Introduce the fear of loss. The company should be ready to provide higher bonuses on the smartphone to make customers buy the product. It should also prepare to lower product prices to be able to attract more people to purchase the smartphone. In taking this high risk, the company may either undergo losses or tremendous profit.

RETENTION STRATEGY

After the company gets to secure customers, it needs to hold onto each of its customers for a continuous profit realization. The company could achieve this by adhering to the following strategies.

• Formulate a successful customer loyalty program to appreciate active customers and encourage them to continue making use of the company’s products. The company could offer gifts and prizes to its present customers to motivate them to continue purchasing goods from them.
• Promptly respond to customer complaints regardless of how minute or how critical it may be. Many customers may spot an issue with the smartphone after usage and then walk away from the company to a thoughtfully better one. Finding responsive customers is a rear case, and therefore the company should ensure the provision of responses to all complaints aired out.
• Calculate lifetime value from customers. This way, the company gets to realize the importance of retaining a single loyal customer concerning the amount of profit provided for a lifetime from that individual customer (Ferrentino, Cuomo & Boniello, 2016).
• Product integrity. What the company says and does regarding the qualities of the smartphone has to rhyme with the customer’s experience, to avoid them ending up losing trust in the company as a whole.
• Developing a courtesy system among staff in the company to realize customer satisfaction (Galletta, Carnevale, Celesti, Fazio & Villari, 2017). The managerial department has to treat employees rightfully as it adversely affects how these same employees treat customers. A positive attitude towards customers leads to a customer-friendly environment motivating them to continue purchasing the product from the company.
• Application of a frequent communication calendar by the company would dearly help in maintaining a close relationship with customers hence building their trust as a Kickback customer. Communication occurs regularly at specific times to all customers active in the company.
• Regaining of lost customers. Customers recognized to have lost their interest with the company could be convinced back to purchasing the product. To achieve this, the company could show their care for the customers by re-contacting and reminding them of their existence.

PROMOTION STRATEGY

A promotion strategy is essential for the company’s expansion of the customer base. The promotion of the smartphone enables the company to secure more customers who would wish to purchase the device. Various strategies could feature in performing the promotion.

• Creation of an affiliate program. The company gets to pay affiliates a reasonable amount to help market the new device in the market. The use of affiliates in marketing dramatically aids in promoting the product to a wide range of people within a short while.
• Apply Facebook ads with retargeting (Pinasang, Tulung, Saerang, 2020). By installing Facebook pixels, the company gets to identify clicks to its ads on a personal level and afterward convert them to paying customers.
• Post the product on its social media platforms. This way, the company gets to reach a massive amount of people who get to know about the smartphone’s existence.
• Leverage the right influencers to acquire a massive audience. These help the company gain the right targeted audience for the sales of the smartphone.

REFERRAL STRATEGY

To help spread information about the product, the use of advertisements, affiliates isn’t just enough. Most people trust recommendations from friends rather than the other forms of marketing a product (Fan, Shen, Mattila & Bilgihan, 2018). The company, therefore, puts effort into ensuring its customers refer friends and families to the product.

• Enlist subscribers in their operations. The company regularly reminds its subscribers of the offers provided and the product’s goals. It also provides help to its customers whenever required regarding the use of the smartphone.
• Enhance customers’ experience in using the product by consistently responding to their inquiries without failure in a sincere manner.
• Personally interacting with customers by providing products related to the use of the smartphone such as phone covers and screen guards.
• Regularly reminding customers to continue referring friends to the product sold by the company.
• Demonstrating concern to the customers’ personal lives as well. Charity proceedings could do this.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths

• Endorsement from leading companies. The company’s product, Kickback C1, being approved by most famous companies such as Samsung, makes it highly marketable to its customers.
• The company possesses physical and intangible assets, inclusion of equipment for the marketing and distribution of the smartphone as well as well conducted, knowledgeable, and educated workers, reputable to the company’s customers.
• Higher competitive advantage. Despite the highly competitive environment, and with the company being new in the smartphone industry, it has received extremely high traffic making it stand out against its competitors.

Weaknesses

• The company is only located in one position of the country, New Delhi, making it not easily accessible countrywide as it lacks various branches.
• Lack of smartphones available in the market that are price friendly and highly suitable for the satisfaction of customers’ requirements to the large numbers of consumers in India.

Opportunities

• The highly growing market in India, as teenagers and the youth increase in numbers, provides the company an opportunity to experience extremely high sales of the Kickback C1.
• Positive thoughts of the smartphone by the targeted customers may significantly promote the company’s reputation, earning it an upper hand in the market.

Threats

• Competition from expected upcoming companies. Kickback might, in the future experience, counterparts with better products with exceptional qualities that might outdo Kickback C1 in the competitive market.
• Expected price increment on the raw materials from the current suppliers.
• Expected technology development may inconvenience the company’s business operations. Performing sales on Kickback C1 would get compromised hence loss of market.

CONCLUSION

Regarding the SWOT analysis, the company is likely to maneuver the competitive market and effectively compete with its other contenders, such as Xiaomi. Kickback possesses all it takes to boost its customer base and increase its sales on kickback C1. For a start, much focus could get aimed at the rising numbers of customers in India before having thoughts of product distribution worldwide. The smartphone first has to be used by the Indian natives to gain popularity on its efficiency and affordability.

FINANCIAL PROJECTIONS

Kickback company’s financial projections enable it to analyze all the strategies included in the Kickback C1 marketing plan. This way, it’s able to identify and separate policy with the highest return on investments from those with the lowest, hence gauge where to invest heavily. The company may spend a minimal amount of funds to market the product but instead realizes excellent returns by using email marketing as compared to all other strategies. Investment in Facebook ads gets to promote the product, significantly making it one of the company’s core strategies. Facebook ads’ investment poses a tremendous interest rate, which later covers up for the cash allocated in the advertisement. Other approaches, such as the creation of affiliate programs and leveraging of influencers at first, cost a meaningful amount of money, which is later covered up for by the interest they pose.

The company opting to partner with Foxconn, which manufactures for it the Kickback C1, is a huge step taken in providing customers with the marketed smartphone. By agreeing to a long term contract with the manufacturing company for a start, Kickback may experience low profit, which would then grow to incredible amounts with time, after the business takes root into the market.

References

Ahmad, N. S., Musa, R., & Harun, M. H. M. (2016). The impact of social media content marketing (SMCM) towards brand health. Procedia Economics and Finance, 37(16), 331-336.

Erkan, I., & Evans, C. (2018). Social media or shopping websites? The influence of eWOM on consumers’ online purchase intentions. Journal of Marketing Communications, 24(6), 617-632.

Min, B. J. (2018). Internet Marketing 101: A Collection of Guides About Internet Marketing, Digital Marketing, Online Business, and Personal Development to Teach You How to Start, Grow, Succeed in Your Dream Business!.

Ferrentino, R., Cuomo, M. T., & Boniello, C. (2016). On the customer lifetime value: a mathematical perspective. Computational Management Science, 13(4), 521-539.

Galletta, A., Carnevale, L., Celesti, A., Fazio, M., & Villari, M. (2017). A cloud-based system for improving retention marketing loyalty programs in industry 4.0: a study on big data storage implications. IEEE Access, 6, 5485-5492.

Pinasang, I. G., Tulung, J. E., & Saerang, R. T. (2020). THE ANALYSIS OF E-COMMERCE RETARGETING STRATEGY TOWARD STUDENT PURCHASE INTENTION. Jurnal EMBA: Jurnal Riset Ekonomi, Manajemen, Bisnis dan Akuntansi, 8(1).

Fan, A., Shen, H., Wu, L., Mattila, A. S., & Bilgihan, A. (2018). Whom do we trust? Cultural differences in consumer responses to online recommendations. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.

Jung, E., & Childs, M. (2019). Destination as Product Placement: An Advertising Strategy to Impact Beliefs and Behavioral Intentions. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 1-16.

Shevchenko, E. (2020). Amazon as a global sales channel for small and medium size Finnish companies.

Auf, M. A. A., Meddour, H., Saoula, O., & Majid, A. H. A. (2018). Consumer buying behaviour: the roles of price, motivation, perceived culture importance, and religious orientation. Journal of Business and Retail Management Research, 12(4).