Marketing Report: Notype and Remindme Products

Marketing Report: NoType and RemindMe Products

Firm B1 Inc.

Emily Cray, Daniel DiLaura & Frankie Murray

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Executive Summary

        Welcome to Firm B1!  We look forward to sharing with you the knowledge we’ve gained through our eight years as a part of this industry.  When we were in your shoes, the initial marketing situation we began in was a young market with strong promise for growth.  Now, the VRD market is in its mature stage; however, there are opportunities for increased profitability in the new DVR market.  Firm B1 has maintained a steady profit and prominent place in this industry.

In this report you will find information about the following:

• Our beginning strategies and how they changed over time:
• A chronological explanation of our objectives about significant actions we made, as well as the results they had.
• Analyses of: our customers and the difficulties we had targeting the market we initially aimed for; our greatest competitor and examination of how they performed; and the future of the market, which we predicted to remain profitable until the next technological advancement.
• Details of our main successes and failures
• Our overall learning experience

        The purpose of this report is to provide you with valuable information about our history and ultimately help you propel Firm B1 in a positive and profitable direction.  We hope you will view this report as a resource during your future years with Firm B1.

We Hit the Ground Running

        Ten years ago, our three team members embarked on this marketing opportunity as verdant college graduates of Elon University.  Knowing only the basics of marketing strategies in combination with our zero experience, it was easy to say Firm B1 had our work cut out for us and we hit the ground running.

        The marketing situation we found ourselves in at the start of our career was exciting.  Firm B1’s opportunity to sell the voice recognition device (VRD) had capable opportunities for success in a dynamic market.  

        Four firms make up the narrow industry we compete in.  Each firm created and introduced their own new VRD with flying colors.  During the first year, sales of the initial device took off, but soon our firm called for a more specialized approach towards competition through differentiating our marketing mix from the other firms’ - that’s when our marketing team stepped in.  In the next section, we’ll explain the “science to our strategies” to better inform you of our work.

        Our previous marketing manager retired from Firm B1 and passed the marketing department into our hands with faith we’d guide it for the next ten years.  He left us under the supervision of the president of our firm, Dr. Sharon Hodge, who initially provided us with a report written by Market-Views, Inc. that described the broad product-market we’d be competing in.  We hope this report you’re reading provides you with the similar insight that the Market-Views, Inc. report provided for us.

The Science to our Strategies

        A smart marketing strategy is mostly based on a marketing mix that is consistent with target market needs.  In order to implement our most effective marketing strategy, we started with analyzing our available market opportunities.  Identifying our target market and blending product, place, promotion, and price to develop our own unique, competitive advantage in our industry was our first and foremost strategy.  

        We had the privilege of maintaining a slush fund, which we chose to save for our second strategic purpose.  By saving our slush fund, we allowed ourselves a financial safety cushion in case of failure as well as the added benefit of earning interest on the saved funds.  During the last period of our term, we had about $950,000 reserved in our funds and the option to spend more on tactics to increase sales.

        A full 15% commission rate for our sales representatives was our third strategy.  This strategic decision to have large incentives proved very successful and was shown in our net profits.

        Finally, utilizing the strategic documents provided to us was an easy way to stay organized.  The budget planning forms helped us plan for our future as well as evaluate our current spending habits.  Market strategy forms kept us focused on targeting our specific markets and maintaining a valuable focus in dispensing our resources.

Shooting for the Stars: Objectives & Results

        Like any other firm, our number one goal throughout the project was to maintain profitability so we could stay competitive in the industry.  The manual was a great beginning resource for our team and our shared general knowledge of marketing helped us create a game plan towards achieving our objectives.  As time passed, we found we learned the most valuable information from the decisions we made.

The Beginning

        Our starting strategy was simple: we wanted to target the student population and we’d do so through keeping our prices affordable and advertising effectively.  We branded our product with the name “NoType” to clearly emphasize its purpose for our customers.  

        We chose to target the students because they represented a high portion of sales in the previous year; a lower cost for sales representatives would be expected, as the students publicly advertise through word-of-mouth; a lower cost for adding product features would be expected as well, as students are usually technology savvy.

        Our product adjustments only fell under increasing the product’s error protection to 8 to keep student frustration low, and increased ease of learning to 4 because ease of use is essential to customer satisfaction.  We stuck with these product improvements for the next six periods because this product design proved to be very effective.

        Unfortunately our performance during our first period yielded us least profitable in the industry; however, we quickly reevaluated our decisions and corrected our mistakes.  We kept our product design in order to save money and instead focused on the selling aspect of our product.  To do this, we dropped our wholesale price to $150, increased our customer service by $35,000, increased our advertising expenses by $243,000 and added sales representatives.  Our efforts paid off, and we went from claiming 11% of the share of market sales to claiming 27% of it.