Market Plan Section 1

You are a marketing consultant to The Waters Bottling Company (WBC) of Munsonville, NH. They have never done any marketing for their water before so they will need to be educated as to the role of marketing in their company’s success. They started their company last year and want to “do it right” according to their president and founder, Dr. M. Waters. (The M stands for Muddy so he prudently only uses the initial. He also is rather fond of Blues music, which he would like to incorporate into the marketing plan in some way.) They want to sell their crystal clear granite filtered mountain water to the “right” market. It is your job to identify that target market. At this point, they don’t even know how the product should be packaged or a name to identify it. They will be relying on you for all of the details to make this product successful. They are well funded and ready to bring this product to market.

Use the attached Marketing Planning Guide to build your marketing plan for their naturally mineral rich pure mountain water. Be sure to relate the marketing concepts/ theories to this product/ company as you build the marketing plan over the length of the course.

Section 1 – The Environment (Module 1)

Introduction to Marketing

The Marketing Mix

Product- The Waters Bottling Company (WBC). What is the best name for their water, something such as “Crystal Mountain Water”.

Promotion- First step is figuring out what amount WBC wants to spend on promoting their product so that they do not spend more than they are bringing in. Things to think about are is there any events that they can sponsor in order to get the product known? What type of message to convey, they would want people to know that their water is “crystal clear granite filtered mountain water”. Promoting the products value to customers will also be beneficial because it shows what differs from other competitors.

Place- There plant is located in Munsonville, NH. Is it close to where they get the water from. It will be more cost effective to do their own distributing or have an outside company do it.

Price- The average cost in 2013 for a bottle of water at a store was $1.21, does the WBC want to be bellow or above that price, also price would depend on the size of the bottle. Balancing the price with the quality is another thing to consider, customers do not want to over pay for something that taste just like the other average competitors.

The Marketing Environment

With many different water companies WBC needs to keep up with the times and new technology i.e. Social media. By adapting to new trends and keeping up with what people want to see they will be able to reach more people. This is when knowing what new economy business beliefs comes in handy.

Marketing and its relationship with other functional areas of business– Other functional areas of business would be Human Resources, Customer Service and Accounting, these are all departments that go into running a business. Each department working with one another ensures the success of the business.

Strategic Marketing

Planning Process:

In the planning process it is important to understand what the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats are. By identifying these factors it will give the company the advantage it needs to overcome obstacles and successfully get its product out. The mission of the company is to provide crystal clear well filtered drinking water to help its consumers have a healthy lifestyle. Creating relationships will help produce profits and keep them high.

Strategy

Organizational Levels

Like any other company The Water Bottle Company needs to be treated like a Strategic Business Unit (SBU) each department within the company must be creative and manage its own costs within the budget and still be able to maintain a high profit margin. With the right planning and the appropriate marketing strategy the company will be able to target the needs and wants of its consumers.

Goals and Objectives:

Having achievable goals is important, the goals that are set forth do not want to be to high making it is impossible to achieve. The main goal should be to create a refreshing, drinkable water in a bottle that is going to catch the eye of its consumers. Having a well-designed bottle will also target implosive buyers. In order to achieve these goals research must be done, research such as looking at competitor products and what they have to offer. Having research done in a timely manner by the company’s marketing team will help to achieve these goals faster.

Planning Gap

Product development is a part of the planning Gap. Developing new products or adapting the current product to appeal to the current market. Intensive growth can be handled through market penetration, market development or product development. Horizontal integration occurs when one firm acquires its competitors in order to pursue synergistic growth in market shares. Vertical integration happens when a firm acquires another firm in the same vertical supply chain, and Diversification is marketing new products to new markets this kind of growth can offer very high growth rates in a short period of time, these are all part of the Planning Gap.

Ethics in Marketing:

Marketing ethics applies to all four components of the marketing mix. Also it applies to the research aspect of marketing the marketing team does not want to use certain things that other companies use for legal reasons. Rather they can look at ideas and change them to develop better ideas.

References

Staff, E. (2015). Small Business Encyclopedia. Retrieved from Market research: http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/market-

researchhttp://myeclassonline.com/re/DotNextLaunch.asp?courseid=12259538&userid=33384943&sessionid=98fc1d8124&tabid=zjmSie8SJ1TJoUHq5cseRkVtekbFqToh2jVUIMICAvA4wD2fwl5z5rk3zgBtIt4CCsslHK1C1Pm1Ju