My Product Research, Marketing Plan Example

Target Market

We have based our market segmentation on the internet usage rate according to customers’ age. Segmenting the market by the customers’ age gives us an opportunity to choose and target our potential market by size, selecting those segments that seem to include more customers. After careful research, it was concluded that our company’s target market will be represented by two age groups: Age 18-29 and Age 30-49, who are supposed to be most frequent users of internet, as well as most frequent buyers of books (Morales).

Industry Trends

The analysis of the overall book market tendencies revealed that the greatest market shares are occupied by Adult Non-Fiction, Adult Fiction, and Juvenile Fiction.  It is also clear that book market is constantly growing, as well as prices on books. That is why the market of used book has a great potential since it might become a highly qualitative alternative to the existing bookshops, and propose both multiple choice and reasonable pricing (Rosenthal).

Table 1: Overall Book Market – Week Ending: 2008-12-28

Source: Hendrickson, Mike. “State of the Computer Book Market 2008, Part 1: The Market.” O’Reilly Radar. 17 Feb. 2009. 23 Apr. 2009. <http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/02/state-of-the-computer-book-mar-17.html>.

Goals

Starting as an online used-books store servicing reading population of Ohio, we are going to expand our business activities by covering as a big share of US book market as possible. We strive to position ourselves not as a customary company with an add-on “cause” factor. Our goal is to position ourselves in the minds of our potential customers as a company greatly concerned about its social and environmental responsibility considering it the core of our business. Since we are focused on selling used books, we want to establish a well-organized and successfully operating network of books’ exchange that will never fail to provide us with necessary product, preventing our company from being short of demanded items for sale. Customer satisfaction is our major goal. We are also planning to occupy a comparatively large market share.

Strategies

We are planning to maintain book drives and accumulate used books and textbooks through a network college campuses and partnerships with libraries all over US. We will also buy up secondhand books from our potential customers which we hope will encourage them to use our additional trade/payback services. We believe that books can change the world. Because we accept as true the fact that most books has long-lasting value we see our mission as assisting our customers to find new homes for superfluous books. That’s why we’re so concerned about attempting to provide the best price, assortment, customer service, and overall shopping practice.

We focus on the people we serve, on the environmental responsibilities we have, and on the profits we gain by operating successfully. The key aspect of our marketing strategy is to operate in line with our overall organizational mission which is to bring literacy and possibilities for self-development to people all around US.

Yearly Marketing Budget

Internet Advertisement:

1. Search Engines Result Pages (Google): $15,600
2. Social Network Advertising (Facebook): $9,000
3. E-mail Marketing (AWeber Communications): $500

Total : $25100

Marketing Mix

• Product

“LaBook” is an online store of used books. We provide a wide range of different types of books of various genres and specializations. We also provide shipping and handling of the ordered products all over the Ohio (for the start), and hope to eventually be able to serve the entire book reading population in US. In addition, trade/payback services are going to be provided. Customers are appreciated to sell their books to our online store, where they can get special discounts and choose something from our book collection.

• Price

Our major pricing objectives are market share and profit. The constraints we are going to face are competition and costs of buying up the selection of books. We prefer to apply such pricing methods as penetration and discounting pricing (aimed at attracting customers by competitively low prices), customary prices (dictated by environmental factors such as channel of distribution, competitor’s pricing, costs of operating the business) and standard markup pricing (adding fixed percentage of approximately 15 -20% to the cost of each item). We are going to sell with a low price on a value principle.

• Placement (Distribution)

As the company plans to receive orders on its website and deliver books directly to the customers, location of the central office is not considered to be a significant factor of affecting company’s image, number of potential customers, or sales volumes. Therefore, to minimize overall expenditures we are planning to locate office and books storehouse in the area of low-cost renting premises.

• Promotion

Marketing mix is developed to attract greater number of clients by means of online advertising mostly. Delivery of the product will be limited to the territory of Ohio on the preliminary stage. Clients will be attracted by pre-paid advertisement on search engines results pages (Google), social network advertising (Facebook, Myspace), and by e-mail marketing (sending messages to current and potential customers’ emails). By the means of Internet advertising we are going to reach our predetermined target markets.

Top Three Competitors

• Amazon Media
• AbeBooks
• Powell’s books

Mentioned online bookstores mostly provide online services. They propose the wide range of books, and their pricing methods are operating successfully for many years now. They apply discounting pricing which makes their prices comparatively low. They provide great amount of used books, as well as the proper search services and convenient delivery services.

Our Strengths

Our greatest strength lies in the fact that we position our product as the one bringing obvious benefits to consumers, which makes our image clear and bright without unnecessary promotional tricks. The features that make us stand out of other companies providing similar services are following:

• We are concerned about environmental responsibility we owe.
• We provide choice.
• We treat books as valuables.
• We cherish the “cult of book”.
• We are greatly concerned about the quality of product and services we provide.
• We are concerned about our customer’s satisfaction.
• Our company is not simply about profits, but is also about providing people with what we believe they have a certain right to possess.
• We provide low priced books and alternative services that present our customers the opportunity to adjust price to their opportunities.

Our Weaknesses

As well as each newly created company, our general weaknesses are customers’ unawareness and poor organization. We do not yet have experience, so we are going to learn our lesson by means of trying and mistaking. Our product line is not yet developed, so we have to operate successfully to gain a book collection that will be competitively advantageous.

Works Cited

Eaton, Adrienne. “Used Book Stores in the Present and the Future.” ForeWord Magazine. 7 Mar. 2009. 2 Jan. 2009. <http://www.forewordmagazine.com/blogs/shelfspace/PermaLink,guid,7210b0d9-a97b-4cdd-a3b7-4795904f4058.aspx>.

Hairong, Li. “Advertising Media Planning: A Primer.” 2007. 2 Jan. 2009. <http://www.admedia.org/>.

Hendrickson, Mike. “State of the Computer Book Market 2008, Part 1: The Market.” O’Reilly Radar. 17 Feb. 2009. 23 Apr. 2009. <http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/02/state-of-the-computer-book-mar-17.html>

Morales, Lymari. “Nearly Half of Americans Are Frequent Internet Users”. Gallup. 2 Jan. 2009. 23 Apr. 2009. <http://www.gallup.com/poll/113638/Nearly-Half-Americans-Frequent-Internet-Users.aspx>

Rosenthal, Morris.“North American Book Market.” Foner Books. 2009. 23 Apr. 2009. <http://www.fonerbooks.com/booksale.htm>.