Marketing Week 2 Mandatory assignment PDF

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Week 2 HW, worth 40%. Big Foot Consulting and have been assigned to the New Balance account. Use the product/market expansion grid to give New Balance some new strategy
ideas. Explain what each quadrant represents and give a suggested strategy to
New Balance for each quadrant., Marketing...

Description

WEEK 2 HOMEWORK - Product/Market Expansion Grid You are the newly hired consultant for Big Foot Consulting and have been assigned to the New Balance account. You might want to become familiar with New Balance by looking at their website: www.newbalance.com. New Balance wants some new thinking about where and how to profitably grow. Use the product/market expansion grid to give New Balance some new strategy ideas. Explain what each quadrant represents and give a suggested strategy to New Balance for each quadrant. Submit through the Turnitin link. 1) Market penetration is when New Balance use better techniques to sell more of their current products to their current market. New balance could attract the current customers to purchase more of their products by first re-designing their stores. Human beings are visual creatures, and if the store is designed beautifully, could it be by the arrangement, colors or product feature, more people could be attracted. This way, we could attract potential consumers to first come inside to take a look of their products.

(In the picture above, the right one showcase some New Balance products that could attract potential customers more by allowing them to have a look at the products even without entering the store.) After making the potential consumers pay a visit inside the store to have a look of the current products, we have to also make sure that the potential consumers are happy by providing them an excellent service. Invest in employee training and keep on reminding employees to always put customer satisfaction a priority. Employees should also be as helpful as possible to help customer find their perfect fit by asking relevant questions and patiently answer their questions too. Other things such as offering customers drinks while waiting, but also make sure they don’t wait for too long. These small things will at least make consumers stay longer in the store and

therefore they could see more products, hear more explanations about more products and hence higher chance of being persuaded to buy. 2) Market development is when New Balance tries to achieve higher sales of their current product by finding new buyers/expanding the potential buyers and market. According to The Daily Gazette newspaper article on January 20, 1998, page 15, the average customer demographics age for New Balance is 42. With this information, we could tell that New Balance’s customers are mostly towards the older people. In this case, we could tell that New Balance is lacking younger customers, and should allure the youngsters to purchase New Balance. The first way we could use to boost sales amongst the targeted market, in this case the young people is through celebrity endorsements. We first need to change young people’s perceptions about New Balance, and by using public figures to endorse their products, we could ingrain to the young people that the product has a celebrity-attached-status to it. However, not just randomly endorsing any celebrity, we also need to make a selection to the figure. We need to make sure that the figure aligns with New Balance brand, also that the figure is creating a huge impact to a numerous number of young people at the moment. We could endorse Selena Gomez to attract more sales from the youth ladies because based on statista.com, she is the most followed celebrity that appeals to ladies most with 86.16 million followers. She is also a good fit because her style is sporty. To persuade the gentlemen, we could endorse Cristiano Ronaldo because also according to statista.com, he is the most followed athlete with a 64.33 million followers. After altering New Balance image amongst the young people, we should make it more accessible for them to purchase the products. Therefore, we should open up new stores in location where a lot of young people live. According to CNBC.com, Austin is the best city to live for young people and according to NewBalance.com, there are 8 stores in Austin, so they could probably open more new stores in the city. Another idea is that they could also open up stores such in an area where there is a cluster of high school districts. However, keep in mind that we will still have to enforce the service as stated before. Improving on our quantity does not mean we disregard the quality. After having an easier access to purchasing New Balance products, we further encourage them to purchase by giving special promotion, such as student promotion by using their student ID. This way, they could see that they are paying a good value for a product they want, and that could attract them to buy more. As young people are usually a larger market for sportswear, hopefully after having a collection of New Balance products, they will still buy even when the promotion ends.

3) Product development is when New Balance improves aspects of their current product or when it creates new products to provide more choice or benefits to current market and hence attracting them to buy more.

According to The Daily Gazette newspaper article on January 20 1998, New Balance’s appealing aspect is that it’s comfortable and highly recommended by orthopedists. We should improve this perception, and emphasize that that New Balance products are not just bought for its comfort aspect. But also other aspects such as colors, designs, product accessories and packaging. Re-designing New Balance products in a way that fits the current trend will appeal more to consumers, so aside from being comfortable, they would also be confident wearing New Balance products since it fits with the current trend. Have it in a lot of colors too so it will not look boring. It will make customers think that it is more worth it to have a shoe that fulfills both aspects. Also, we can enhance the quality of the products by creating accessories that goes along with the products. For example, for sneakers, New Balance could provide one bottle of special shoe spray per shoe purchase which could only be applied to New Balance sneakers, to prevent users from soaking their sneakers in extreme weathers such as thunderstorms, snow, etc. Not only will it attract more product sales, it will also compels consumers to purchase the accessories separately when they run out of the first complementary one. Besides these, having better packaging increases the value added to the products. It will also give customers a better first impression of the products, drawing their attention and affecting their buying decision.

4) Diversification is when New Balance introduces new products through expanding their current business or starting a new business that could attract a larger market. Not just sportswear, New Balance could potentially launch products that is used for everyday activity, and still emphasizing comfort. For example, as I browsed products in newbalance.com, I realized that most of their products only have one style with different colors. Let’s say the tank tops for women, I found that all the style is the same. We could research on current trends and improve the design, add more variation to the design so that consumers have more options to shop from.

New Balance could also be the first to introduce innovation by having both sportswear and fitness related accessories and supplements. This way, aside from selling more of the new products, the new product’s consumers could also be attracted to buy the older products because of the branding. We could also do bundles for products so it is as if consumers benefit by buying more.

Resources https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1957&dat=19980120&id=wIlGAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UkMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1440,4601511&hl=en http://www.cnbc.com/2011/05/13/Top-10-U.S.-Cities-for-Young-People.html?slide=11 http://www.statista.com/statistics/421169/most-followers-instagram/ Image Courtesy: http://stores.newbalance.com/toronto/home.aspx https://s-media-cacheak0.pinimg.com/originals/43/8b/c1/438bc17c3665d78ff49af5832ce7ce9a.jpg...