Marketing Plan for Vision Center, Marketing Plan Example

Introduction 

The company known as Vision Center will conduct business employee training services. All services will be offered on an online environment, meaning that a website will be the main platform where all business transactions will be conducted. The main objective of Vision Center will be to establish a brand that comes with little risks and maximum returns. This will be achieved through a very ambitious online marketing strategy.

The main areas of focus in this business will be skills training for different companies, including manufacturing entities, municipal governments and large enterprises. The organization will be driven by the market demand for employee training services relating to information technology.

Situational analysis

In the first fiscal year, the financial goal of this company will be to generate gross revenue of $1.5 million. By the end of the first year, the company should be able to generate a pre-tax profit of $130,000. By the end of the following year, the pre-tax profit should hit the $600,000 mark. The biggest determining factor for profitability will be stability of the global economy on which online businesses are heavily dependent.

Relevant Market Research

The most important areas to concentrate on during market research include online advertizing, cost of maintaining a website, cost of maintaining maximum security of online transactions, methods of generating more online traffic into the company’s website and blog, generation of relevant content for the website. Labor costs, amount of capital required, rate of profit turnaround cycles and methods of attracting the best online facilitators and trainers who will be help establish a stable foundation for the business’s operations.

Required Information

The most important information for Vision Center is human resources. Information on how to make the best use of the internet to reach out to customers will be of utmost importance. At most, five employees are enough to bring about a visionary approach for internet marketing by accessing and making use of the most up-to-date marketing information for the benefit of the business.

Availability of information

There are many sample business plans on the internet to model this business on. Additionally, online information on the cost of doing business is easy to find. The systems of operating Internet-based businesses keep changing all the time. Information on these changes will be easy to get from operators of similar online businesses as well as websites that are dedicated to matters of online employee training businesses.

Obtaining necessary information

Information involving the legal requirements, legal policies governing online business, and different regulations that touch on a business of this nature will be accessed through local municipal and federal authorities.

Proposed project description

Vision Center will offer 40 short and long format courses which will involve different price points in order to meet the needs of different clients. Each course will be offered through use of a special online software that is only accessed upon subscription. In order to subscribe, clients will be required to pay a specified amount of money, depending on the choice of the course.

New product or service information

The software will be designed in such a way that whenever need for introduction of a new online course arises, some changes can be made on the software by engineers in order for the additional courses to be made available. Reviews online courses will always be made quarterly basis by experts and changes recommended by a specialist in online business employee training expert.

Environmental factors and market trends

The main determinant of profitability in the business will be the success of initial online marketing programs. Once the marketing strategies prove to be successful, it will be relatively easy to initiate new marketing strategies whenever need arises. The main environmental factors to put into consideration include: global economy, demand for new online business employee training courses, success of lead generation efforts and competition from other providers of online business employee training services.

Prospect Segmentation

Vision Center business strategists will take time to understand different prospects including entrepreneurs in the manufacturing sector, business leaders, and operators in the customer service sector. The business website will have different portals containing different kinds of information that fit into different prospect segments.

Customer category characteristics/demographics

The needs of different customers are expected to keep changing depending on the dictates of the job markets. During quarterly reviews of business courses, the main determinant of revision of online courses will be shifts in customer demographics.

Customer history

The company will maintain an inventory of customers’ business transactions’ details so that this information can be reviewed historically to determine historical patterns involving how they enroll into different training programs. Follow-ups on customer feedback will be a good tool of determining whether the training services are satisfactory or not.

Competitive Analysis and Evaluation

When the business website is being designed, considerations will be made on how the websites of competitors look like. Then, the web designers will embark on a model that borrows on the strengths of these websites while improving on their weaknesses in order to come up with a website that has a competitive advantage for purposes of search engine optimization.

Expected level of service for customers

For purposes of interactivity, the website will have a forum section where different users of the training program can interact and share ideas, opinions regarding the relevance of the program. Additionally, at any given time, an administrator will be online such that customers can ask questions and chat with the concerned training facilitator. As the online community of customers becomes larger, the company will become more popular, more easily accessible to internet users, leading to generation of more revenue. Increase in revenue will always be kept at proportionate levels with the level of service offered.

Assessment of Niche Opportunity

The niche for Vision Center will be Business Employee Training, specifically in matters of information technology. Today, every business employee requires some training in information technology. Some existing workers will require to be taking through training courses for them to understand all emerging information technology infrastructure systems. The company strategists believe that managers of different businesses will find it easier paying an online company such as Vision Center to oversee the training process.

Marketing Planning

The primary areas of focus in the process of market planning will include customer surveys and competition. Customer surveys will revolve around existing and potential customers. Competition will be planned on with the main areas of focus being solutions, niches and technologies.

The secondary areas of marketing planning that will be used include educational resources, market research firms, chambers of commerce and trade information provided by different governments where the company hopes to establish a niche market. Market research firms are expected to provide specific information as well as general market profiles.

Proposed project description

During market planning, a list of expected outcomes will be highlighted. The information contained in the list will be a result of marketing planning strategy that focus on the need of different target employees. The marketing planning process will involve an overt description of the expected specific outcomes, the unique tools to be used to attract customers, metrics and reinforcement issues. Marketers will clearly define the process that will be used to measure whether the desired change in behavior has taken place in order for customers to gain confidence in the training services offered and therefore to become loyal. Similarly, marketing planning will also entail choice of appropriate methods of instructions as well as training content.

Proposed project description

This will be determined greatly by the marketing planning measures that are chosen. The main aspects of information technology that will be planned for during marketing include computer literacy, information systems, database management systems, surveillance systems and multimedia applications. Specialization will be a key element in marketing planning. For instance, multimedia applications will be directed only to companies that deal with multimedia communications while marketing of surveillance systems training will be targeted at employees of security solutions companies.

New product or service information

This information will be made available to new markets through explicitly spelt-out online lead generation methods including blogs, email marketing, search engine optimization, provision of downloadable educational material, use of e-newsletters and online affiliate marketing.

Environmental factors and market trends

These factors will be evaluated through online marketing journals, government publications, press releases by trade associations and periodic assessment of financial position of the company. The impact of minor course promotion systems will be assessed with a view to analyze the different environmental factors that are likely to negatively affect the online business in the foreseeable future.

Prospect Segmentation

Prospect Segmentation for purposes of marketing planning will be assessed through a lead conversion plan which will require creation of integrated tools, the most important one being an automated follow-up system. All those who download the generation educational brochure from the website will receive follow-up emails thanking them for showing interest in the training services. Those who respond to the follow-up emails by requesting for additional product information will be categorized as potential customers.

Customer category characteristics/demographics

The characteristics will be determined through identification of potential customers, market research analysis, choice of target market, compilation of a customer profile and resource management. customer characteristics will be defined on the basis of demographic information (age and nationality), psychographic information ( hobbies, opinions and interests), geographical information (the local training support facilities that are accessible to the customer), behavioral information (how the customer/employee intends to use the skills acquired) and benefit information (what the employee perceives the functional benefits of the training to be). These characteristics may easily be derived from customer history.

Competitive Analysis and Evaluation

One year after the introduction of the online training services, it enough information will have been gathered that will be used for carrying out a competitive analysis. The business will be considered to be competitively well positioned if at least 10 percent of all customers will have expressed loyalty to the training services on offer. The website will also require all present customers to indicate how they got to hear about the company. This will enable the success of lead generation campaigns to be assessed and evaluated for purposes of understanding the strength of the company’s competitive advantage. In the same vein, it will be possible to assess the present niche opportunity.

Marketing Implementation

Customer tracking strategy

The website will be installed with a customer tracking software that is designed to safeguard the employees’ privacy while tracking all the changes in demographics that necessitate a change in Vision Center’s marketing strategy. Although the system will be automated, it will have all the necessary features of an interactive online communication system.

Staff Responsibilities

The website company will come up with a clear policy that ensures that every staff member who is monitoring online communications with clients takes responsibilities for queries, concerns and complaints raised by trainees. Where issues remain unresolved by the time there is a handover between staff members, the incoming staff member has to take over the matter raised and seek a satisfactory answer for the client. It will be the responsibility of staff members to take the shortest time possible when responding to clients’ queries so as to win their trust.

Online Resources

The company will make the best use of marketing opportunities that exist on the internet. All articles published on the website will also be published on reputable online web directories where they can be easily accessed by powerful search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and Bing. Additionally, article marketing strategies will be used to popularize the website through use of keywords that relate as much as possible to the information technology niche.

Supplier needs and tasks

Vision Center will have to rely on different suppliers of online information and solutions in matters of logistics, accounting, customer demographics analysis database management, software solutions, search engine optimization web design and website management. The tasks performed by these suppliers will be directed by an online operations manager who will be responsible for the establishment of a unique online brand founded on the information technology niche.

Measuring performance

Performance levels will be considered to be satisfactory if the targeted pre-tax profits will have been realized by the end of the first fiscal year. However, a positive trend will be a more dominant indicator of long-term predictions in performance. Indicators of improved performance levels include high customer numbers, high levels of follow-ups, increased profitability, a rising trend in sales, increase in number of corporate clients, increased revenue through new and emerging online income generating activities such as affiliate marketing and reduced expenditure on marketing and branding.

Conclusion

Vision Center promises to be a good web-based employee training business that specializes on the information technology niche. The online training courses embarked on will include but not limited to computer literacy, information systems, database management systems, surveillance systems and multimedia applications. The greatest challenge will be the task of setting up a high-tech website that has enormous capabilities typical of a successful modern-day e-commerce portal. Through am ambitious marketing planning, research and implementation program, the company is set to have been transformed from a mere business plan into a unique, highly competitive online brand that is popular, effective and profitable.