Marketing Strategy

Question :

- Use of analytical marketing management concepts to analyze the company and its products in a competitive marketplace. This should, at the very least, include a PESTEL analysis, a short SWOT analysis, as well as segmentation and positioning information for the product.

- Evidence of research into academic sources, such as journal articles, to support the application of marketing concepts and theories. Just searching for your product on Google will not be sufficient here; 

- Analysis of the marketing approach for the selected product. This should include presentation and evaluation of what the company has recently done to market the product, the concepts applied to the marketing campaigns, and a solid analysis of this approach. It will also include your own recommendations and conclusions.

Answer :

Company Background 

Bare Necessities is one of the American companies that offer swimwear, lingerie, as well as loungewear. It is an online retailer that offers its services throughout the country. The company was established in the year 1998 in Avenel, New Jersey. The founder of the company is Noah Wrubel and Bill Richardson. The headquarter of the company is in Edison, New Jersey, the United States of America (Harris et al., 2018). It serves the following area or it offers its services in the following area; the United States, US Virgin Island, Guam, and Puerto Rico. The main products of the company are lingerie, loungewear, and swimwear. The total revenue of the company is $66 million and there are 44 employees currently working with the company. 

The company offers shapewear products for women who are looking for a more fashionable figure. Shapewear is also called a foundation garment that is an undergarment designed that can impermanently alter the body shape of the wearer (Padin, 2019). It has been designed to achieve a more fashionable figure.  

Market Analysis

Market analysis can be defined as a qualitative as well as quantitative assessment of a market that helps in analyzing the attractiveness of the market. The company targets only women for its product or it can be said that it offers shapewear for women. The target market for the product is women from 20 to 70 years old. The company uses a combination of segmentation approach to segment its market (Hueter & Quandt, 2019). For example, the company uses the demographic approach, attitudinal approach, as well as the behavioral approach to segment its market. Under demographic segmentation, the organization targets on the basis of sex (female), age (20-70), education (graduate or higher), and income (high-income group). Under the attitudinal approach, the organization target those women who look for a more fashionable figure while under the behavioral approach, the organization target on the basis of buying behavior of the customer such as brand loyalty and benefit needed.

The trend shows that there is a large number of women who are looking for a more fashionable figure and hence there is a significant growth opportunity for the organization (Kassem & Succar, 2017). Considering the trends for shapewear, it is assumed that the sales of the organization will grow by 25% over the next year.

SWOT Analysis

PESTEL Analysis 

Existing Marketing Strategy

The marketing objective of the organization is to enhance brand awareness and increase customer base by 25% within the next six months and sales of the product by 20% within the next six months. The company also aims at increasing the profit margin by 10% during the same duration.

The product is positioned on the top among the products of competitors. The company has successfully positioned its product into the mind of the customer (Olson et al., 2018). Hence, the potential customer of the company can recognize the product among the competitors’ products. 

4Ps of the marketing mix

Product: the company focuses on the quality and design of the product so that it can attract its customers. The company believes in providing customized products for every customer so that they can be attracted to buy more products.

Price: the company charges a higher price for the product that can demotivate the customer to purchase the product. However, charging a premium price increase the value of the product and makes its luxury product. Hence, it will find a niche market.

Place: the company is an online retailer that provides the product at the doorstep of the customer (Dhakar et al., 2017). The company focuses on providing the product at the convenient place of the customer so that they can prefer to purchase the product.

Promotion: the organization focuses on the effective promotion of the product to increase the customer base. The organization uses traditional as well as digital media to promote the product.

Existing marketing strategy 

The company identifies its target market effectively and then designed its promotional campaign and deliver it in the market. The organization believes in freebies and hence it sends a coupon to its customers with a free gift to attract them to make a purchase. It focuses on the direct marketing approach and communicates with potential customers and makes them understand the benefit of shapewear (Key & Czaplewski, 2017). In order to improve sales, the company during a specified period of time the organization keeps the product on sale. It also provides a secret award to its customers in order to motivate the customer to involve in the repetitive purchase. 

The organization believes in delivering values to the potential customer of the organization to attract them to the organization and affect their buying behaviour. The organization significantly focuses on positioning its product above the products of competitors so that the potential customer can identify the product easily. The organization tries to create long-term relationship with its customers and for this purpose it uses customer relationship management strategies (Kotler & Keller, 2006). Customer relationship management helps the organization to retain its existing customer while attracting new customers. 

Recommended Marketing Strategy 

The organization should focus on aggressive promotion in order to improve brand awareness as there is less brand awareness in the market. The organization should communicate with potential customers in order to know their taste and preference so that it can provide the product according to the taste and preference of the customer (Zang et al., 2017). The organization should also seek feedback from the customer in order to further improve the product and its services. 

The organization should extremely focus on its core competencies and improve that in order to improve its performance and productivity. The organization focuses on providing customized product to its customer and hence it should be promoted and delivered to gain the trust of the customer (Kotler & Keller, 2006). It is also necessary for the organization to create loyalty in the customer because loyal customer does not shift to the competitors’ product. It will help the organization to improve performance in the short as well as long term. 

Conclusion 

Bare Necessities is one of the famous brands that is specialized in women's clothing. It has successfully promoted its product in the market and trends are showing extensive growth opportunity for the business. The marketing strategy of the organization is effective to help the organization to improve its performance however, it needs to focus on aggressive promotion to increase brand awareness.

References 

Dhakar, G., Tripathi, S., & Rathore, N. S. (2017). Redefining Marketing Mix for Digital Marketing. Pacific University Journal of Social Sciences, 26.

Harris, A. M., Black, A. D., & Durrand, J. P. (2018). U.S. Patent No. 10,058,132. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Hueter, G. J., & Quandt, S. C. (2019). U.S. Patent No. 10,290,039. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Kassem, M., & Succar, B. (2017). Macro BIM adoption: Comparative market analysis. Automation in Construction, 81, 286-299.

Key, T. M., & Czaplewski, A. J. (2017). Upstream social marketing strategy: An integrated marketing communications approach. Business Horizons, 60(3), 325-333.

Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2006). Marketing Management 12e. Upper Saddle River, New.

Olson, E. M., Slater, S. F., Hult, G. T. M., & Olson, K. M. (2018). The application of human resource management policies within the marketing organization: The impact on business and marketing strategy implementation. Industrial Marketing Management, 69, 62-73.

Padin, C. (2019). U.S. Patent No. 10,294,593. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Pan, W., Chen, L., & Zhan, W. (2019). PESTEL analysis of construction productivity enhancement strategies: A case study of three economies. Journal of Management in Engineering, 35(1), 05018013.

Zang, W., Wang, X., & Hu, Y. (2016, June). A Fast Algorithm for Competitive Recommendation Marketing Strategy. In 2016 IEEE First International Conference on Data Science in Cyberspace (DSC) (pp. 620-625). IEEE.