Advertising Strategies

Jessica currently has two separate strategies. She has to market her product (the website) to both the retailers buying the advertising and the customers buying a membership. The target market for the advertisers is wedding companies that have services to offer to brides and grooms. This may include florists, limo services, disc jockeys, hotels, ballrooms, etc. Jessica needs to have a solid marketing mix in order to attract these companies, and I don’t think she does. First, there is little to no history on her product. In other words, she is in the market introduction stage of the product life cycle. She needs to build a demand before charging premium prices for her services. Having said that, I think the product fills a very good niche that is missing in most cities. Second, there is no interest in her product because most people either do not know that it is available or do not know how to use it. The target market for customers who may buy a membership to her website are engaged couples planning a marriage, as well as those involved in stages of a wedding (parents of the bride/groom, family, friends, etc.). The product in this case is the centralized database of all aspects that go into planning a wedding and the price is the cost of a membership.

I feel that Jessica should continue with her services/product. However, in order for her idea to be successful, she needs to make some major changes. As I already said, the product is in the market introduction stage. For this reason, I think she needs to lower her prices for advertisers in order to attract more companies which will in turn attract more of her second market. For instance, if she runs a promotion where the first 5 companies in each category (flowers, music, location, etc.) receive a deal on their first year of membership, she can create a buzz among the industry which will attract customers. Once the product catches on and has a good following, Jessica can raise the prices to make her desired profit margins. Another idea is to have membership be on a monthly basis instead of a yearly basis. This will make the investment less of a burden on different companies and allow them to “try” it out before dishing out all of that money. In addition, in order to attract customers (such as the bride and groom), she needs to get her name out in a better way than she currently has. As I said earlier, I think there is potentially a great demand for this service, as when I was planning my wedding, this website would have been extremely helpful. However, a website on its own will not generate results. Jessica needs to get herself linked from other wedding websites, such as weddingchannel.com. While it says that Jessica has listed her website on 25 different search engines, she first needs to get the website up and running with numerous sponsors before attempting to attract new customers.

As for her financial goals, no, I do not think that they are realistic- at least not currently. A business needs to get settled before making a large profit margin. While the business is trying to succeed, Jessica needs to reduce prices until a demand has been created. Once the demand is there, then, and only then, Jessica can start to increase prices slowly and try to make a larger profit margin.

List three key issues to be addressed. Give the results of the computer aided problem and explain.

1. Ticket sales have been low and the PTA needs to figure out a way to attract more people.

2. One possibility is to have a t-shirt give away as a promotion, however, this poses a risk with an initial investment.

3. The second possibility is to lower the price of each ticket in hopes that people will pay the lower amount, however, this will require an increase in required sales in order to match the profit they are currently seeing.

a. Based on the data from the initial spreadsheet, does the T-shirt promotion look like a good idea? Explain your thinking.

Without Promotion:

300 People X $5.00/ticket

=$1,500.00 in sales

With Promotion:

600 People X $5.00/ticket 900 People X $5.00/ticket

=$3,000.00 in sales =$4,500.00 in sales

500 T-shirts X $2.40/shirt 500