Executive summary

This is an innovative marketing plan devised for a new business that involves selling herbal teas online. The business involves importing three ranges of herbal tea – Rugose Rose flower tea, Carnatation flower tea, and Jasmine Bud flower tea would be from China to UK and selling over the website healthy-herbal.co.uk. The main competitive advantages associated with the business proposal include innovative marketing plan, competitive prices and high quality of products.

A comprehensive situation analysis conducted on the basis of formulating key assumptions and conducting SWOT analysis has preceded the choice of marketing tools and techniques in order to well healthy-herbal.co.uk herbal teas.

Marketing strategy formulated for healthy-herbal.co.uk consist of specific marketing techniques belonging to advertising, sales promotion, and direct marketing communication mix components.  Moreover, the innovative marketing plan relies on viral marketing techniques due to their high level of cost effectiveness and speed. Namely, viral marketing techniques to be used by healthy-herbal.co.uk include e-mail marketing, Facebook marketing and marketing through YouTube.

The marketing plan focuses on integration of all individual programs and initiatives in order to communicate the brand value proposal of healthy-herbal.co.uk which is associated with adopting a proactive approach in leading healthy lifestyle. The plan also contains provisions for the measurement of results.

 

1.      Introduction

This is an innovative marketing plan for a new online business that would be selling a range of herbal teas – Rugose Rose flower tea, Carnatation flower tea, and Jasmine Bud flower tea over a website, healthy-herbal.co.uk. Focusing on integrated marketing communications, the marketing plan addresses each component of marketing communication mix an individual manner.

The range of herbal teas offered by healthy-herbal.co.uk – Rugose Rose flower tea, Carnatation flower tea, and Jasmine Bud flower tea and others have significant health benefits and they are also very delicious, and these would serve as the main selling points for these products.

The marketing plan starts with conducting a comprehensive situation analysis for healthy-herbal.co.uk. This is followed by identification of target market profile and objectives/goal setting for the product. Then, marketing communications strategy for healthy-herbal.co.uk is explained in an in-depth manner with a focus on integration of different marketing initiatives.

Moreover, the marketing plan contains detailed explanation of schedule and implementation of the marketing strategy, as well as, allocation of the budget of up to 8,000 USD that has been assigned for the project. The marketing plan is concluded by explanation of proposed measurements and review associated with the implementation of the integrated marketing communication strategy.

2.      Situation analysis and review

Key assumptions associated with the marketing plan need to be clarified in order to increase the level of its validity. This is because “assumptions establish the basis for objective and strategy setting. Facts and assumptions can become blurred at times, to the extent that one can be mistaken for the other, and it is important to distinguish between them” (McDonald et al., 2011, p.177).

Key assumptions made for the implementation of this marketing plan include the following points:

• There would be no dramatic changes in RMB to GBP and USD exchange rates
• No major government legislation would be introduced in UK that restricts import from China
• The level of interest rate of GBP would not change significantly in the foreseeable future

Situation analysis can be specified as a foundation of the strategic planning process of a marketing plan. The situation analysis is conducted with the application of marketing audit involves a comprehensive analysis of internal and external factors affecting the business. Internal factors are organisation and its products and services.

The business operations of healthy-herbal.co.uk would be commenced with three product ranges to be expanded gradually to reach at least 10 product ranges by the end of 2013.

Namely, healthy-herbal.co.uk would start trading with Rugose Rose flower tea, Carnatation flower tea, and Jasmine Bud flower tea ranges of herbal tea due to a wide range of health benefits associated with these products that would serve as main selling points.

The following table represents healthy-herbal.co.uk product review:

Product	Health benefits	Cost
Rugose Rose flower tea	Reliving menstrual pain Easing stomach bloat Calming effect	100 grams – $15.99
Carnatation flower tea	Assistance in blood circulation Strengthening metabolism Effective antitoxin Abundant supply of natural minerals	100 grams – $11.99
Jasmine Bud flower tea	Reducing risks of cancers Calming effect Aiding in weight loss	100 grams – $12.99

Table 1 healthy-herbal.co.uk product range review

The external parts of marketing audit include analysis of competitive environment, analysis of business environment, and market segmentation.

The marketing audit for healthy-herbal.co.uk also includes the application of SWOT strategic analytical tool, the abbreviation standing for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with a business. Strengths and weaknesses associated with a business are considered to be internal factors, whereas opportunities and threats are internal factors that affect healthy-herbal.co.uk.

It is important to note that “SWOT analysis is a beneficial tool for decision – making and understanding dependencies between a company and its environment” (Pahl and Richer, 2009, p.27).

The following table represents SWOT analysis for healthy-herbal.co.uk.

Strengths Cost – effective product distribution channel Competitive prices Innovative marketing plan High quality of products	Weaknesses Lack of financial resources Lack of experience in online business Lack of strong competitive advantage Limited product range
Opportunities Potential for innovation with product flavours Forming strategic partnerships with other businesses Development of niche target market Gaining global influence	Threats Allergies and other side effects of products Emergence of new competitors with stronger financial position Possible supply-chain issues Issues with sustaining internal capabilities

Table 2 SWOT analysis for healthy-herbal.co.uk

The SWOT analysis illustrated above provides valuable business information for effective decision making. Specifically, healthy-herbal.co.uk strengths need to be build upon, at the same time when specific measures need to be implemented in order to minimise the negative impact of weaknesses.

PESTEL analysis represents an alternative strategic analytical tool that specifies external factors affecting healthy-herbal.co.uk. The abbreviation stands for political, economical, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors that impact the business

The following table illustrates PESTEL analysis for healthy-herbal.co.uk.

Political Political situation in China Corporate taxations levels in UK Competitive regulation in UK	Economical RMB:GBP exchange rate Rate of inflation Changes in costs of labour
Social Emergence of new lifestyle trends Public attitude towards healthy lifestyle Influence of role models	Technological Technological breakthroughs in e-commerce Target customer segment access to internet The level of potential for innovation
Environmental Environmental pressure groups Seasonality and weather issues	Legal Trade regulations between China and UK Rules and regulations related to e-commerce

Table 3 PESTEL analysis for healthy-herbal.co.uk

3.      Target market profile

Market segment can be defined as “a group of customers with similar requirements which can be satisfied by a distinct marketing mix”(McDonald, 2002, p.56). Definition of an appropriate target market is important part for healthy-herbal.co.uk’s marketing plan. The following table presents target customer segment for healthy-herbal.co.uk products:

Type of segmentation	Elements	Target market profile
Demographic/socio-economic	Age Gender Education level Annual levels of income	35 and older 70% females & 30% males College and professional degrees £28,000 and more
Psychographic	Psychological traits Lifestyle	Proactive towards maintaining own health Experimenting nature Aiming to lead a healthy lifestyle
Behavioural	Degree of loyalty	High level of loyalty to the product

Table 4 Target market profile of healthy-herbal.co.uk customers

4.      Objectives / goal setting

The mission statement of healthy-herbal.co.uk is formulated in the following way:

“Promoting a proactive approach towards personal health through offering healthy herbal teas of a superb quality”

In accordance to this mission statement, the marketing plan would attempt to achieve a set of objectives that meets SMART criteria, the abbreviation standing for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound (Kotler, 2011). These objectives are formulated below:

• Achieving the sales of at least $150,000 by the end of 2012
• Obtaining the global market share of no less than 5% of online herbal tea sales during the first six months of operations
• Attracting more than 60% of clients through viral marketing initiatives alone by November 2012
• Achieving the level of repeat purchases of no less than 80% compared to total sales during the fist year of operations.

5.      Marketing communications

The marketing strategy for healthy-herbal.co.uk is based on effective utilisation of various components of marketing communication mix. Defined as a “dialogue between business unit and its present and potential customers that takes place during pre-selling, selling and post-selling stages” (Trehan and Trehan, 2011, p.42), communication mix, or promotion mix is considered to be a fundamental aspect of business marketing initiatives.

Communication mix is divided by Kotler and Keller (2009) into the following six categories: advertising, sales promotion, events and experiences, public relations and publicity, direct selling and personal selling. Marketing strategy to be used by healthy-herbal.co.uk is going to integrate specific components of advertising, sales promotion, and direct marketing.

 

5.1 Advertising

Advertising is “a paid non-personal communication about an organisation and its products transmitted to a target audience” (Pride et al, 2012, p.411). Specific advertising methods to be employed by healthy-herbal.co.uk in order to sell herbal teas imported from China is going to include the development and distribution of leaflets.

Leaflets are going to be designed in an attractive manner and they will contain specific information about various health benefits of healthy-herbal.co.uk herbal teas that include being antioxidants, reducing the risks of various cancers, aiding the weight loss, cholesterol reduction etc. Moreover, Jasmine Bud flower tea is renowned for being an effective antidepressant. All of this information would be presented in leaflets in a bullet-point manner.

Moreover, leaflets are going to be distributed in areas where healthy-herbal.co.uk target customer segment reside, thus maximising the return from this marketing initiative.

 

5.2 Sales Promotion

Sales Promotions represent another component of marketing mix that is going to be used by healthy-herbal.co.uk. Defined as “incentives and offers that encourage people to behave in a particular time and place” (Mullin, 2010, p.30), sales promotions would be used by healthy-herbal.co.uk as an effective tool for increasing the level of revenues.

Specifically, free samples of Rugose Rose flower tea, Carnatation flower tea, and Jasmine Bud flower tea is going to be sent to individuals belonging to target customer segment, as well as, online coupons are going to be issued in order to provide customers with discounts.

 

5.3 Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is going to be adopted as the most significant marketing method within the marketing strategy of healthy-herbal.co.uk. This form of marketing is best defined as “the interactive use of advertising media to stimulate an (immediate) behaviour modification in such a way that this behaviour can be tracked, recorded, analysed, and stored on a database for future retrieval and use” (Stone and Jacobs, 2007, p.5)

Adopting a popular variation of a direct marketing method, healthy-herbal.co.uk would rely only on online sales channels in order to sell its products. Lamb et al (2011) specify the main advantages of direct marketing as cost-effectiveness, flexible targeting possibilities, and ease of management.

 

6.      Viral Marketing

Viral marketing can be explained as “a marketing tactic relying upon the some aspects of the system to cause the promotion to propagate itself as initial targets pass the promotion onto others” (Investowords, 2012) and this form of marketing is going to be used by healthy-herbal.co.uk in an intensive manner.

Interestingly, “viral marketing is based on the premise that members of a social network influence each-other’s purchasing decision. The goal is then to select the best set of people to market to, such that the overall profit is maximised by propagation of influence through network” (Yu, 2010, p.156).

Numerous advantages of viral marketing include its low cost, possibility to achieve short-term and long-term gains, the high speed of impact and ease of implementation compared to many alternative marketing techniques. Specific viral marketing techniques to be used by healthy-herbal.co.uk include e-mail marketing, Facebook marketing and marketing through YouTube.

 

6.1 E-mail Marketing 

Personalised e-mails are going to be sent to current and perspective healthy-herbal.co.uk customers notifying them about new additions to product ranges. It has to be noted that “because e-mail makes the transmission of the messages to multiple correspondents so simple it is the medium of choice for a viral marketing campaign. To get the process started, however, there must be some motivation for the target audience to pass on the message” (Logan, 2010, p.159).

For healthy-herbal.co.uk viral marketing campaign this motivation would be highly effective and professional e-mail contents and design that would efficiently highlight the health benefits of products with the web-link provided towards the end of the e-mail to forward the e-mail to friends and relatives.

 

6.2 Facebook Marketing

Today, the biggest social networking site in the world, Facebook offers great potential for businesses to engage in an effective marketing. The website attracts more than 845 million monthly active users, and the numbers of people who visit the site on a daily basis exceed 483 million (Fact Sheet, 2012, online).

Effective Facebook marketing for healthy-herbal.co.uk would commence with the development of a separate marketing plan for Facebook. Setting up a customised Facebook page can be specified to be a cornerstone Facebook marketing plan. Thus, daily posts made by the company would inform subscribers about important company news and new product ranges.

Moreover, viral discussions about innovative flavours of healthy-herbal.co.uk are going to be initiated on Facebook that are going to benefits for the company on several levels. Specifically, such a marketing initiative would provide valuable customer feedback for new products, at the same time increasing the level of brand awareness of healthy-herbal.co.uk.

 

6.3 Marketing with YouTube

YouTube, the most popular video sharing website in the web offers great marketing potentials for businesses that are going to be fully utilised by healthy-herbal.co.uk. The importance of YouTube from a marketing perspective can be explained in a way that “100 ad million people took a social action on YouTube, such as likes, shares, or comments, every week. Millions of subscriptions happened each day. More than 50 per cent of videos on YouTube had been rated or included comments from the community” (Jarboe, 2011, p.xx).

YouTube marketing strategy for healthy-herbal.co.uk includes creating a compelling video that would highlight the health benefit aspects and delicious taste of healthy-herbal.co.uk herbal teas. Importantly, the content of the healthy-herbal.co.uk viral video to be uploaded on YouTube would effectively address the need of its audience. This video would be effectively integrated with other components of healthy-herbal.co.uk social media marketing.

Moreover, healthy-herbal.co.uk YouTube marketing strategy involves the development of a branded YouTube channel with a customised background and this channel would accommodate additional viral clips to be introduced at a later stage.

 

7.      Integration of Marketing Communications

Integrated marketing communications (IMC) can be defined as “a communication process that entails the planning, creation, integration and implementation of diverse forms of marketing communications that are delivered over time to a brand’s targeted customers and prospects” (Shimp, 2010, p.10).

The key features of IMC can be summarised into the following table.

1	Profile and identified target market
2	Use of relevant media channels
3	Achieve communication synergy; that is, speak with a single voice.
4	Influence the target market’s behaviour
5	Build customer relationships

Table 5 Key features of IMC

Source: Chitty, W., Barker, N., Valos, M. & Shimp, T. (2011) “Integrated Marketing Communications: Asia Pacific Edition”, Cengage Learning

The integration of all marketing efforts specified above for healthy-herbal.co.uk is necessary, due to the fact that the core meaning of the brand need to be stressed by each individual marketing technique. As Raab et al (2008) confirm, the formulation of an effective brand core meaning has significant positive contribution to the growth of the business.

First of all, it needs to be specified that the core meaning of healthy-herbal.co.uk brand relates to the adoption of a proactive approach towards healthy leaving. Accordingly, advertising, sales promotion and direct selling activities initiated by healthy-herbal.co.uk is going to remind this core meaning of the brand in one way of the other.

The marketing communication strategy of healthy-herbal.co.uk is integrated in a way that all of the marketing initiatives specified above ‘speak with a single voice’ in a synergetic manner in order to communicate the core meaning of the brand which is closely associated with the adoption of a proactive approach towards healthy leaving.

It needs to be stressed that IMC is not just a buzzword or a management fashion. On the contrary, “IMC is not a fleeting but rather has become a permanent feature of the marketing communications landscape around the world” (Shimp, 2010, p.9). Accordingly, healthy-herbal.co.uk marketing strategy ensures that all of the marketing initiatives of the company are highly integrated in a synergistic manner in order to increase its competitive advantage in the marketplace.

8.      Schedule and implementation

Implementing the various components of healthy-herbal.co.uk marketing plan in a coordinated and synergetic manner is going to contribute to maximising return from marketing investments. At the same time, it is important to understand that “creating a master schedule of marketing activities can be a challenging task because of the wide variety of activities required to execute the plan, the sequential nature of many activities, and the fact that time is of the essence in implementing the plan” (Ferrell and Hartline, 2010, p.348).

The schedule and implementation of the marketing plan formulated above is represented in the following Gantt-Chart:

2012

2013

Activity

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Preparation of leaflets

Designing Facebook page

Preparing YouTube clip

Distribution of leaflets

Viral marketing via Facebook

Uploading YouTube clip

Viral marketing via YouTube

Sending free samples

 

 9.      Resources

The high level of innovativeness this marketing plan is associated with enables the implementation of marketing campaign for the total budget under $8000. The budget allocation for each individual marketing initiative is planned to be implemented in the following format.

Marketing initiative	Cost ($)
Preparing and distribution of leaflets	1235
Designing customised Facebook page	750
Preparing YouTube video clip	3250
Designing the YouTube branded channel	600
Sending free samples	2105
Total	7940

Table 5 Marketing budget allocation

10.  Proposed measurement and review

Measurement and review of the results of marketing plan would involve analysis of the level of achievement of each individual marketing plan objectives in an individual manner. Thanks to the adherence to SMART principle when formulating the marketing plan objectives the measuring the results of marketing plan is a fairly straightforward task. In other words, successful implementation of the marketing plan is directly related to the achievement of all of its objectives.

Moreover, the progress associated with the implementation of the marketing plan is planned to be monitored on a quarterly basis, and necessary modifications might be introduced to the plan if the findings of quarterly measurements and reviews require doing so.

 11.  Conclusions

This marketing plan has provided an outline for a new online business, healthy-herbal.co.uk, that involves importing a range of herbal teas from China and selling them in UK through online sales channels.

The marketing plan aims to achieve a range of specific objectives that include achieving the sales of at least $150,000 by the end of 2012 and obtaining the global market share of no less than 5% of online herbal tea sales during the first six months of operations. However, the achievement of these objectives according to the plan is associated with a set of assumptions.

Namely, it is assumed that there would be no dramatic changes in RMB to GBP and USD exchange rates, no major government legislation would be introduced in UK that restricts import from China, and, the level of interest rate of GBP would not change significantly in the foreseeable future.

Marketing strategy formulated for healthy-herbal.co.uk consist of specific marketing techniques belonging to advertising, sales promotion, and direct marketing communication mix components.  Moreover, the innovative marketing plan relies on viral marketing techniques due to their high level of cost effectiveness and speed. Specific viral marketing techniques to be used by healthy-herbal.co.uk include e-mail marketing, Facebook marketing and marketing through YouTube.

The integration of all marketing initiatives and techniques to be engaged by healthy-herbal.co.uk can be justly specified as the cornerstone of the marketing plan. Specifically, adoption of a proactive approach towards healthy leaving has been specified as a core meaning of the brand, and the marketing plan ensures that each healthy-herbal.co.uk marketing initiatives serves to highlight this core meaning in various ways.

Moreover, marketing communication strategy of healthy-herbal.co.uk is highly integrated because all of the marketing initiatives specified above serve to communicate the core meaning of the brand which is closely associated with the adoption of a proactive approach towards healthy leaving.

Due to the reliance on highly cost-effective viral marketing techniques, the implementation of the marketing plan requires the investment of financial resources less than $8000. Furthermore, the marketing plan provisions quarterly measurement and review initiatives that enable the introduction of some modifications to the marketing strategy according to the results if it is necessary to do so.

Nevertheless, the measurement of successful implementation of the marketing plan is directly related to the achievement of all of its objectives.

 

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