Overview of Product
Grape Valley is a wine trading company engaged in importing and distributing premium and exclusive wines in North America. The beverage range consists of more than a thousand products. Currently, the company’s collection includes more than 1,500 items of wine and spirits. The main distribution channels are the food service industry and retail sales, wineries, events, and tastings. Regarding strengths, the company’s main advantage is the quality and authenticity of the goods. Experts carefully select all drinks in the assortment. Suppliers have passed mandatory certification confirming their quality; many are certified organic. Storage and transportation conditions are characterized by control at every stage, careful attitude to products, and optimal conditions for preserving wines and spirits.
Moreover, Grape Valley has a Grape Valley Family Club, whose members receive privileges, including discounts and the opportunity to participate in private events and make purchases with special promotions. The company organizes free and paid events for wine enthusiasts to taste and buy a drink. As a result, the Grape Valley has an opportunity to attract potential customers from all over the world by providing loyalty programs and educational and informative services. Weaknesses include the difficulty of applying family technology to mass production, as traditional winemaking technology is time-consuming. The second constraint is insufficient information about the state of the industry. The company did not independently conduct market research and relied only on secondary details. The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has aggravated the situation, resulting in high competition in the domestic market and decreased tourist flow.
Overall Strategy
The marketing goal is to introduce a new product to the market and attract potential customers through Internet promotion. The company will achieve this goal in 2021 using three strategies – a blog, social networks, and video hosting. This is a marketing strategy plan for a month, emphasizing SEO, Instagram promotion, and content. Concerning the character of marketing strategy, it is suggested to use niche marketing. Wine manufacturer directs all efforts, not to the entire market but concentrates marketing efforts on their small segment (Akbar et al., 2017). Niche marketing is applicable to small firms with limited resources.
Regarding current circumstances, it is necessary to develop a marketing strategy plan for 2021, taking into account the following metrics: cost per click, budget, and costs for each transaction, excluding advertising, conversion, and profit (Thabit & Raewf, 2018). In the wine sector, the culture of socializing and sharing knowledge prevails (Tomažič, 2017). Therefore, the message should be shifted to promoting a particular lifestyle, education, and stimulating interest among not versed clients.
Objectives
There are three types of principal objectives; these are sales goals, profit, and customer loyalty. For the wine house “Grape Valley,” the following sales goals are to increase sales by 5% in the Hotels-Restaurants-Café (HoReCa) segment and achieve a sales volume of 1,850 units in 2021. The profit goals are to increase the company’s net profit by 10% over the next three years and achieve an average return on investment (ROI) of 15% over the next three years. Analyzing conversion, the object is $ 30,000 in revenue per month. The customer’s average purchase is $ 300, and the standard conversion is 10%. Therefore, it is required to conclude 100 deals to get 100 buyers.
Objectives also include customer-focused goals, such as enhancing brand awareness among consumers aged 25 to 45 in foreign countries. Most of them are tourists traveling to North America; the marketing campaign aims to find the best ways to encourage consumers to buy products. Positioning the brand in the consumer’s mind should be related to the product in the highest quality category. Within the framework of these strategies, Grape Valley has set restrictions on changing the elements of the product policy and the formed pricing strategy of the company.
Target Audience
The target audience is divided into two groups: experts who are well versed in wine and amateurs who do not understand the differences between some sorts of wines. The first group chooses wine consciously, comparing alternatives, both in retail and in online stores. Customers prefer the best in terms of price/quality ratio. Their moods and desires determine the purchase result, not brands or specific terroirs in their experience (Tomažič, 2017). They need updated information and constantly enrich their knowledge about wine by visiting wineries, exhibitions, and tastings (Tomažič, 2017). Such clients also read a lot and often buy wine directly from an importer or wineries.
The second segment of consumers is looking for a simple, affordable wine in price and perception complexity. For instance, they like aromatic, slightly sweet wines (Tomažič, 2017). Purchasing a bottle may be stressful for them, so they need tips in the form of images and suggestions on the label (Tomažič, 2017). According to Tomažič (2017), they move about 80% of the time spent in the store; however, they buy less if they move more. Thus, these customers are more likely to look for discounted and promoted wines in supermarkets and make the least informed choice regarding where the wine comes from.
Message & Implementation
Types of Appeals
Several types of marketing communications will be used to deliver the planned messages to the consumer: the Internet and social media, public relations, and direct marketing. The Internet and integrated marketing communications are forms of communication paid to promote a product or service (Belch & Belch, 2021). Messages will be distributed via media and social networks. Another type of appeal is public relations – coordination of efforts to create a positive image of a particular product in people’s minds — for example, publications on social media and publicity on television (Belch & Belch, 2021). Furthermore, direct marketing is an interactive and mobile marketing system that allows consumers to obtain information about wines and purchase them using various distribution channels (Belch & Belch, 2021). The brand will promote and expand its audience through social media by getting instant feedback from customers in comments and forums.
Basic Media Plan
Niche brands, especially those looking to gain a solid foothold in the marketplace, need marketing tools that will work. First of all, this is a promotion on the Internet through a blog, social networks, and video hosting. The first step is launching a series of blog articles. It requires improving the company’s website regarding user-friendliness and concept design, and promotion on professional winemaking sites. The latter will allow Grape Valley to declare itself as a reliable company among a professional audience. This also involves advertising on infotainment portals and search engines to promote the brand to a younger audience.
Secondly, it is suggested to create a Youtube channel devoted to wine culture. Videos are one of the most popular content creation formats at the moment. These days, 92% of marketers cite video as an essential element of their marketing strategy (Sedej, 2019). Compared to the past few years, this indicator increased by 14 percentage points (Sedej, 2019). Additionally, 88% of marketers say video content provides a positive rate of return (Sedej, 2019). The relatively low cost of posting can be attributed to the advantages of video marketing on YouTube as a way to promote business. The benefits include the accessibility and clarity of delivering the advertising message to the target audience and a high degree of loyalty (Thabit & Raewf, 2018). Thus, this method of promotion can have a more substantial impact than other types of online marketing. At the same time, it is affordable compared to television advertising and allows the company to contact an audience more targeted.
Social media will be involved as an instrument to get feedback. Instagram account will serve as a platform where customers will obtain the latest information about the company’s offers (Sánchez-Cobarro et al., 2021). It aims at attracting the audience who lives and works near stores while not owning a loyalty card (Sánchez-Cobarro et al., 2021). For them, Grape Valley develops a number of promotional events right in the store, for instance, tastings, a gift for purchase, and a discount coupon. Access to the promo is valid only upon presentation of the saved advertisement on Instagram. Ads should be shown on social media to get a coupon when the customer clicks on the link to the official website.
Implementation
After the development of the leading marketing strategies, the stage of forming a clear schedule of marketing activities begins to implement the intended goals and objectives. The first step is to optimize the Grape Valley website; the managers in charge are marketers and IT managers. The priority is high; the time is one month. This is followed by training with managers, advanced practice, and staff coaching; the leader, managers, and marketers are engaged in this task. Then, it is the formation of a customer loyalty program with senior management assistance; the term is three weeks. The next step is to launch a video channel and a blog, the time for the action is a year. The creation of promotional materials is the responsibility of the marketing team and the involved content makers. Additional steps that should be taken care participation in the international wine exhibition Winexpo in the summer of 2021 and participation in seminars and masterclasses for wine exporters. Grape Valley is a small business and has allocated 25% of the planned revenue in the HoReCa segment for the current 2021 year.
Evaluation Strategy
Key indicators are determined based on objectives within the framework of a marketing strategy. KPI 1 evaluates the effectiveness of marketing activities based on the assessment of demand in monetary terms. KPI 2 assesses the effectiveness of marketing activities based on the evaluation of demand in product units. KPI 3 estimates the benefits of marketing activities based on demand assessment depending on the number of consumers. The expected results are increased sales growth by 20%, customer base growth by 40%, and average purchase rising by 12%. The executors of the marketing strategy are the head of the company, the marketing manager, the production department, and the accountant. It is advisable to involve key employees of various organization departments in the development and approval of the marketing plan. The approved marketing plan must be brought to the attention of service managers, track its implementation, and make the necessary adjustments in accordance with the procedure specified in the “Evaluation” section.
References
Akbar, F., Omar, A., & Wadood, F. (2017). The niche marketing strategy constructs (elements) and its characteristics: A review of the relevant literature. Galore International Journal Of Applied Sciences & Humanities, 1(1), 73-80. Web.
Belch, G. E., & Belch, M. A. (2021). Advertising and promotion: An integrated marketing communications perspective (12th ed.). The McGraw Hill.
Sánchez-Cobarro, P. D. H., Molina-Castillo, F. J., & Alcazar-Caceres, C. (2021). The brand-generated content interaction of Instagram stories and publications: A comparison between retailers and manufacturers. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, 16(3), 513-524. Web.
Sedej, T. (2019). The role of video marketing in the modern business environment: A view of top management of SMEs. Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development, 12(1), 37-48. Web.
Thabit, T., & Raewf, M. (2018). The evaluation of marketing mix elements: A case study. International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies, 4(4), 100-110.
Tomažič, T. (2017). The importance of social media from the wine marketing perspective. Lex Localis, 15(4), 827-844. Web.