Submitted by

Baral Abita

Executive summary

This report outlines marketing plan for the cottage agency that will show how to attract more overseas customers to visit Wales and stay in cottages operated by agency. Key promotional activities should be undertaken with a budget of 15,000 with aims of increasing its market share.

The market is segment in five different countries with different age group. Advertisement (e-marketing, virtual communication), public relation and sales promotion are the promotion tools are used by Ansawdd Da.

Changes is requires in official websites of Ansawdd Da to make it more attractive and user friendly. The videos and photos which are shown in the websites are old and less attractive. Therefore new videos and photos should be uploads with detail information about cottages and services which Ansawdd Da offers. And the link of Ansawdd Da should be share with visitWales.com.

Ansawdd Da has great potential to increase its market share. It has to focus their market strategy on modernising the company image starting with building team in virtual community. Ansawdd Da should consider the changes happening in media and apply those changes to promote its business using tools such as social site, blogs and other tool according to demand of customer as a promotional tool. Further Ansawdd Da should change its name because it is hard to pronounce and according to (Pipex.co.uk, 2009)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Cultural issues in international marketing

2.1. Hofstede’s Cultural factors:

2.2. Trompenaars and Hampden- Turner, ‘seven dimensions of culture’

6. Analysis of personal contribution

7. Conclusion

1. Introduction

Holiday cottage agency ‘Ansawdd Da’ has a selection of fine quality cottages throughout Wales. Market research taken by ‘Ansawdd Da’ already has demonstrated that they had customers from Germany, Holland and Belgium, now ‘Ansawdd Da’ management has decided to expand their presence in markets overseas. This report outlines marketing plan for the cottage agency that will show how to attract more overseas customers to visit Wales and stay in cottages operated by agency. Key promotional activities should be undertaken with a budget of 15,000 with aims of increasing its market share.

“A market plan is a written document that summarizes what the marketer has learned about the market place and indicates how the firm plans to reach its marketing objectives” (Kotler, et al, 2009) The strategic marketing planning process starts as mission and vision statement to the range of target markets, and the formulation of specific marketing mix and positioning objective for each product or service the organization will offer (Restrepo, no date given).

2. Cultural issues in international marketing

“International marketing is the multinational process of planning and executing the marketing mix (product, place, promotion and price) to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives” (Onkvisit &Shaw, 2009). Knowledge of culture is essential for those engaged in international marketing. To understand culturally determined preferences or reaction to foreigner’s approach and its impact on decision maker, the detail and dynamics of culture of targeted country must be understood (Burca et al, 2004). Scholars such as ‘Hofestede’ and ‘Trompenaars and Hampden- Turner’ have demonstrated cultural factors which should be consider in international marketing.

2.1. Hofstede’s Cultural factors:

Hofstede’s cultural factor can be used by international managers as guidance for corporate strategy development. He analysed five dimensions along culture which are:

Power (low Vs high power distance)

Self (Individualism Vs collectivism)

Gender (Masculinity Vs Femininity)

Predictability (low Vs high uncertainty avoidance)

Time (long Vs short term orientation)

Countries (German, Belgium, England, Ireland and Australia) which Ansawdd Da is targeting have low power distance, individualism, masculinity, low uncertainty avoidance, and short term orientated. The cultural dimension of Wales and targeted countries is similar. Therefore, Ansawdd Da may not have any problem in international marketing regarding culture.

2.2. Trompenaars and Hampden- Turner, ‘seven dimensions of culture’

Trompennars and Hampden- Turner published ‘seven dimensions of culture’ model which explain national cultural differences in organizations and demonstrate how managing these dissimilarities in a diverse business environment are a major challenge for international managers. The seven dimensions of culture are:

Universalism versus Particularism

Individualism versus Communitarisnism

Specific versus Diffuse

Affectivity versus Neutrality

Inner directed versus Outer Directed

Achieved status versus Ascribed status

Sequential versus synchronic time

Countries such as German, Belgium, England, Ireland and Australia which are targeted market for have more universalism individualism, specific, affectivity, inner directed, achieved status and Sequential time dimension of culture. The cultural dimension of Wales and targeted countries is similar. Therefore, Ansawdd Da may not have any problem in international marketing.

Ohmae (2002) and Levit (1983) argue that national borders are diminishing and that the world should be seen as a whole and not made up of different countries with different culture because of globalization; the world is a single village. Furthermore the model of ‘Hofstede’s’ and ‘Trompenaars and Hampden- Turner’ distinguishes the differences between culture, but does not provide recommendations on how to work with specific culture. ‘Hofstede’s’ and ‘Trompenaars and Hampden- Turner’ theory of cultural dimension are great theory which can showed that reconciling cultural difference can lead to competitive advantages of companies. And it can be applied in particular to tourism business, for explaining cultural different between countries.

PEST analysis

PEST is a useful strategic planning tool which helps to identify changes in competitive business environment (Kotler, 1998). Fig 1 shows factors which Ansawdd Da has to consider in international environment.

Fig. 1 PEST analysis

Through the pest analysis of Ansawdd Da, it is concluded; those political, economical, socio-cultural and technical factors bring more opportunities than threats. And Ansawdd Da can use those opportunities to bring competitive advantage through USP (unique selling point) something which its competitors do not offer. Porter (1980a) identified three competitive strategies which a company could follow: Cost Leader ship; Differentiation, focus/niche strategies. Ansawdd Da will follow differentiation and focus strategies. Before market segmentation Ansawdd Da should have SMART object. Fig. 2 explain SMART objective of Ansawdd Da.

Fig. 2 SMART Goal

3. Market segmentation

“Market segmentation is a process of recognizing dissimilar group of consumers in a market who might probably be targeted with separate product or marketing programme” (Craft, 2005).Market segmentation can be divided into three processes: Segmenting, targeting and positioning.

3.1.Segmenting

The first step in market segmentation is to set the group of consumer together by the side of the ordinary variable which is called segmenting. The profile for the Ansawdd Da customers consists of geographic, demographic and psychographic segment.

Geographic segment: With the foundation of geographic segment Ansawdd Da can deliver their service for consumption in exact area (Stevens, 2005). The Ansawdd is segmenting its marketing in Europe (Ireland, Belgium, German and England) and Australia and New Zealand.

Demographic segment: Demographic segmentation refers to grouping consumer on the basis of characteristics such as age, ethnicity, family stage, gender, income, occupation and religion (Kolb, 2006). The demographic segmentation of Ansawdd Da:

Age: 30% under 40 years,

45% between 41 to 55 years and

25% over 56 years

Psychographic Segmentation: Psychographic segmentation group the people on characterises such as lifestyle, value and social class. Ansawdd Da as a service industry, where the choice is more dependent on psychographic characteristics of customer. Under this segmentation Ansawdd Da segment high class customer with more disposable customer and luxurious life.

3.2.Targeting

Targeting is the procedure of selecting the targets and matching the suitable respone to them on foundation of functioning, condition, capabilities and restriction” (Prokop, 1999). Ansawdd Da uses differentiated marketing strategies to target more market with distinctive marketing strategy and unique selling point (USP) however at the same time this method is very expensive.

The reason to target different segment market:

25 to 40 age of customer: The reason to target the customer age 25 to 40 is: they are young marriage couple with no children and would love to involve in outdoor activities such as paragliding, bungee jumping, etc...

Australia and New Zealand: The reason for targeting Australia and New Zealand is seasonality change. Ansawdd Da can take advantage of seasonality change. When there is summer in Europe it is winter in Australia and vice versa therefore the sales of Ansawdd Da can be increased. Further Australians are concern about English lifestyle as they were their ancestors; therefore they would live to visit UK.

England and Ireland: The reason for targeting England and Ireland is

Distance: England and Ireland are very near to Wales; therefore customer from these countries can be targeted for weekdays and short holidays. Further, similarity in lifestyle and weather condition customers from these countries feels more comfortable and homely.

Germany and Belgium: The reason for targeting German and Belgium are:

Health life style: German people love healthier life style, green environment and outdoor activities, Quality cottage and Wales offers these services.

Disposable income: Although Belgium is a small country people from Belgium have more disposable income and same in case of Germany.

Table 1 shows the numbers of visitors of the targeted countries (visitwales.co.uk, 2009)

Any of the Asian market was not target because of the limited budget provided, cultural differences between Western world and Eastern world and the visa issues for Asian. Applying the Hofstede’s cultural factor to Asian countries, it has more high power distance, collectivism, masculinity, high uncertainty avoidance, and long term orientated. The cultural dimension of Wales and Asian countries is quite different. Therefore, Ansawdd Da did not target any Asian countries.

3.3. Positioning

“Positioning is the marketing strategy which a company tactically carry out to win over consumer, with their solution of value adding” (Reilly, 2003). Ansawdd Da should position its services on the basic of the customer attributes- the place, the product inhabit in consumers’ minds qualified to challenging price and the exiting promotion. The positioning strategy of Ansawdd Da will be the quality accommodation in a country setting.

3.3.1. Product

The product can be differentiated on the basis of a numeral of different dimensions: product forms, features, conformance, style, service, and idea (Kotler, 2008).

Ansawdd Da is service industry. The characteristics of service industry are different than that of product which are intangibility, inseparability, variability and perish ability which is in fig 2. Ansawdd Da should consider these characteristics of services and on excellence delivery of customer service.

Fig. 2 Characteristics of service (Kotler, 2008)

3.4.2. Price

Price is the sum of the value which customers swap for the benefit of having or using the product or service (Philip Kotler, 2008). Price can be positioned as premium price, Low price, value added price.

Pervious price ranges of cottage depend of types of cottage they offer and same price range will be continued by Ansawdd Da and accordingly the premium price will be positioned.

3.4.3. Place

Place can be defined as the material supply and usual retailing in demanding manufactured goods from the manufacturer to consumer. Place (distribution or channel) could be classified as intensive distribution, selective distribution, and exclusive distribution.

In case of Ansawdd Da the channel of distribution are travel agency, flyer, brochure and virtual community such as Facebook, Twitter YouTube, etc.

3.4.4. Promotion

Promotion strategy focuses upon the product flow through the marketing channel to the target market (Jain, 2010). Promotion intends to inform, persuade, remind and influence people through communication. It is importance to choose to mean of communication to reach the target customer. The media scope has shifted from traditional means of communication such as magazines, satellites, to modern means of communication with more programmes and video, internet catalogues, emailed and online audio sites, podcasts, social networking sites, viral marketing (Kotler et al, 2008).

In addition to this, Ansawdd Da can use Prestige promotion, fun promotion, and powerful promotion as positioning strategies in order to differentiate their services in the market place. The key promotion tools which are used by Ansawdd Da are advertising, sales Promotion and personal selling

Changes in websites

Changes is requires in official websites of Ansawdd Da to make it more attractive and user friendly. The videos and photos which are shown in the websites are old and less attractive. Therefore Ansawdd Da should upload more videos and photos and promotional activities in websites. Ansawdd Da could create a separate a place for 24 hours online chatting with customer representative. The main purposes of online representative will be to communicate with websites visitor and give prompt responses to their enquiries. Website should have options where customer can leave the feedback and rate the cottages as per satisfaction.

The key promotional tools for Ansawdd Da are:

a. Advertising

Adverting is a paid form of non personal communication about an organization, products, services and its activities that is transmitted through mass medium to a target audience.(Koekemoer, 2004) Advertising generally engage mass media such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and also include computerized form of communication such as web blogs, CDs, DVDs, etc ( Kurlz, 2008). Ansawdd Da will be using e-adverting which is through virtual communication.

Ansawdd Da needs to make a Facebook and Twitter account. And the link of Facebook and Twitter account should be share with its official websites and visit Welsh websites. Ansawdd can upload more videos and photos of different types of cottages with detail information on Facebook and Twitter. The video should not be more than 5 minutes long. In addition to this, Ansawdd Da could interview the guest and request them to share their experiences about services of cottages and can uploads those videos in Facebook, Twitter, officials websites of cottage and YouTube which act as ‘word of mouth’. Finally make online customer assistant available 24 hours. The reason behind 24 hours online assistant is because Ansawdd Da is targeting countries like Australia and New Zealand and which are 12 hours ahead of Wales.

b. Sales Promotion

Sales promotion is an activity or a material that offers customers, personnel or reseller a direct inducement for purchasing a product. These inducements which add value or incentive for the product might be in a form of a coupon, sweepstakes, refunds or display (Peter, 2004).

Ansawdd Da will be using sales promotion to English and Irish market. During weekdays and Bank holidays promotion tools will be used. Target customer will of age above 56. Short distance between Wales, England and Ireland is the main reason of this promotion.

c. Personal selling

Personal selling is face to face communication with prospective consumer to inform individual and influence them to buy an organization’s product. Pride, 2008 assume that personal selling is the most adaptable of all the promotion mix because the people who are transforming the message can adjust it to the suit of individual buyer however it is expensive method (Peter & Donnelly, 2004).

Personal selling for Ansawdd Da will be done through travel agency. Ansawdd Da will contact to travel agencies in targeted countries for personal selling. Further, different brochure about Ansawdd Da cottages will be available at ravel agencies for customers.

Ansawdd Da will not be using promotional tools such as public Relation (PR), Newsletters and advertising in television (T. V.), newspaper, radio and so on, because these means of communications are expensive and Ansawdd Da has limited budget of 15,000. The quality cottage is focusing on virtual communication such as Facebook and Twitter because customer can be reached easily from these means of communication because this is facebook era; (Shih, 2009) each minute millions of peoples are log on into the facebook and renew their status, to interact with people around the world.

The research by Johnson 2010 showed that 43% of internet user is on facebook and other social networking site. Further Facebook and YouTube are among the top 5 most open websites in the world, having the user more than 600 million of facebook (Fowler, 2011) and 100,000,000 viewer per day of YouTube (The Future Buzz, 2009).

4. Budget

Budgeting is the cost planning which involves predicting the way money will be spent on the project in order people can decide whether to proceed or not, and arrange to have the cash ready at right time (Reiss, 1999).Ansawdd Da will use parametric estimates method of estimating:

Fig. 4 The budgeting Ansawdd Da

5. Timeline

Fig. 5 Ansawdd Da Marketing Timeline

5.1.Grant Chart

Fig. 6 Grant chart (time line of Ansawdd Da)

6. Analysis of personal contribution

In module International Marketing we were ask to prepare a group presentation. We comprised of three members to work in team. We all worked as a team, there was no team leader. We discussed as a group the marketing strategy and distribute the task into three equal parts. I prepared the character of service marketing and promotional strategy including the budget. Before presentation we combine all slides together and practised as a group. Altogether there were about 15 slides. In presentation Nirajan did introduction and segmentation slides. I did the character of service marketing and promotional strategy including the budgeting slides. And Bruno did timeline, conclusion and recommendation slides. As a team member, I contributed well. We all were confident in our presentation skills and the outcome was positive. However, we excess the time limit of the presentation, and although I was nervous I felt I performed well and successfully made my relevant points. Furthermore we focussed too much on promotion on virtual community (facebook). But overall it was good, with confident and team work who worked well together. I felt the question and answer session was especially lively with other students participating in asking questions. We competently answered all questions.

7. Conclusion and Recommendation

Using different promotional tools and techniques Ansawdd Da has great potential to increase its market share in over sea market. In order to increase its market share Ansawdd Da has to focus their market strategy on modernising the company image starting with building team in virtual community. Tourism is one of the biggest sources of income in Wales. According to visit Wales (2009), tourists spend over £9.5 million a day on trips to Wales, amounting to around £3.5 billion a year. Today tourism and holiday market is very competitive, having cheap deals for holiday is not enough. Ansawdd Da has to focus on quality delivery of services, good customer service and give value to money spend by customer. Therefore customers can give ‘word of mouth’ in other word recommended the cottage for their family or friends.

The paradigm has shifted to social media such YouTube, facebook, MySpace, texting from old fashion means of communication such as radio, mass media, and television. At the same time, the concept of service marketing has changed from mass marketing to individual marketing. They are now more concerned toward loyal customer and promote them by giving sales promotion, selling, direct marketing and e-marketing in virtual community. Ansawdd Da should consider these changes happening in media and apply those changes to promote its business using tools such as social site, blogs and other tool according to demand of customer as a promotional tool. Further Ansawdd Da should change its name because it is hard to pronounce and according to (Pipex.co.uk, 2009) business name can help generate sales and affect the way customers see business. Therefore Ansawdd Da can put its second name as quality cottage and first name Ansawdd Da itself. International manager of Ansawdd Da should use the environmental scanning tools such as SWOT, PEST and Porter 5 Forces Analysis to understand what is happening in current business environment. Ansawdd Da should follow USP (unique selling points) marketing strategy through CRM (customer relation management). Proper management of human resources can play a significant role in building the image of the company. Therefore, Ansawdd Da has to ensure that all employees are well trained and rewarded and motivated because staffs are an intangible and valuable asset for all companies.

Bibliography

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Student help center

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Cultural issues in international marketing

1. Introduction

2. Cultural issues in international marketing

2.1. Hofstede’s Cultural factors:

2.2. Trompenaars and Hampden- Turner, ‘seven dimensions of culture’

3.3. Positioning

3.4.2. Price

3.4.3. Place

3.4.4. Promotion

a. Advertising

b. Sales Promotion

4. Budget

5. Timeline

5.1.Grant Chart

6. Analysis of personal contribution

7. Conclusion and Recommendation

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