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Marketing Plan for Happy Floral Company
Introduction
The Happy Floral Company is an American flower company in California. Happy Floral Co specializes in providing the best flowers that make customers feel satisfied with the services. It delivers natural flower services to parties, weddings and other gatherings to enhance aesthetic beauty and make the place look naturally beautiful. The company has been marketing its flowers in the California domestic market. Due to the expanding size of the company in the supply of large volumes of flowers produced in the last five years, it is increasingly fundamental for the company to increase its market outlook and coverage in other untapped, but profitable markets in America. Furthermore, the company faces increased competition from other American selling and supplying marketing companies decreasing its profits. As a result, it is important for the company to come up with a concise marketing plan.
Situation Analysis and SWOT Analysis
Happy Floral Company is a reputable flower company in California. The company is already operational. It delivers high quality and fresh flower services to individuals and organizations for various events. It has a working website and a team of employees who ensure that it delivers its services according to the mission and vision. Happy Floral Co. employs the contender and extender strategy mainly by appealing capabilities and matching resources in one niche. The company is currently expanding its reach to other similar markets by using marketing environmental competencies as an advantageous tool developed in California.
Strengths
Committed and highly talented staff: The company has highly experienced staff across all sections. The staffs take part in the day to day running of the company’s operations including management, lead generation, sales, customer care and delivery.
Search engine optimization: The company is well known online. It has a good internet presence. Anybody searching for flowers in California can easily stumble on the company’s website since it is well optimized. It also has social media pages through which it shares photos and latest events to the followers.
Happy Floral is niche-specific: The company appeals to a specific market segment. It specialize in flower
Low Overhead: The company has a low operational overhead. It does not have any unnecessary expenses unlike its competitors.
Local presence: Happy Floral is a local company whose employees and owners are local. It has a competitive edge against its foreign competitors in California.
Weakness
Higher Prices: Happy Floral charges higher prices for service delivery than the competitors because the services are better and timelier.
Marketing budget: Happy Floral has not set aside enough money for advertising and other methods of promotion due to insufficiency of funds.
Local availability: The company has a strong local presence. It is yet to establish a strong presence in overseas.
Opportunities
Online Dominance: Happy Floral Company has an opportunity of dominating the flower business through online search engine optimization, social media and other online platforms. This will create more awareness of the brand and increase profits.
Online Advertisement: The company has a nice opportunity of increasing its profits and market reach by online advertising to promote its services.
Website enhancement: The company’s website needs further improvement to cater for online order processing, live chat with customers, real-time tracking of orders and a dedicated blog section for updates.
Search engine optimization: Search engine optimization is an ever-changing aspect of marketing. Happy Floral has an opportunity to keep at the top of search engine results pages through continuous optimization in keywords and local searches.
Direct marketing: The company is yet to distribute and market fresh flowers through direct channels without using agencies. It can achieve his through creation of retail outlets.
Threats
Competition: Happy Floral faces stiff competition from other floral shops such as FTD, Teleflora. The competitors try to out-compete Happy Floral by lowering prices.
Regulatory Issues: State regulations such as taxation, packaging, export regulations can affect the bottom-line and revenue goals of Happy Floral.
Flower Limitations: The company faces limited selection of exotic flowers
Seasonal variation of profits: The demand for flowers is seasonal. People tend to consume more flowers in the festive seasons than in other seasons.
Artificial Flowers: The uptake of synthetic flowers gives natural flowers stiff competition since synthetic flowers are cheap and do not fade away.
Marketing Objectives
Happy Floral Company’s marketing intents are to take full advantage of its brand. In terms of growth strategies, Happy Floral Co is focusing on yearly continuous improvements in operational performance. The company keeps high standards of its brand in most markets, thus staying ahead in specified areas of efficiency and flexibility with an aim of reaching new markets in different states. The company emphasizes on flower development. This is achieved through introducing a new outlook and branding of flowers, its price ladder embraced within a strategy of increasing the price of the flower. During the next five years, Happy Floral Co plans to concentrate on the following financial and non-financial goals:
- Generating total revenue of $80,000 in the year one
- Maintaining an average direct cost of sales 3% or lower, and high gross margin
- Building pricing program based on assumption of 10% profit
- Increasing sales, approximately 73% in two years and 22% in year after
Non-Financial Goals
- Posting photos on our website to show modern floral design
- Tapping into new geographic markets, including Australian and international recognition regarding quality
- Creating product awareness within our target audience, young age between 25-45 years old
- Using technology to develop repeat purchasing of male clients instead of traditional, retail and walk-in shoppers.
- Providing complimentary in-store events, such as book signings, wine tasting, and art showing that corresponds with other nearby gallery openings
Market Analysis
According to the analysis and survey by Head & Atchison (2008), the percentage of consumers who buy flowers online or in the established markets depends on location. In their comparison of flower consumption in France, Netherlands, Germany, and U.S., they found out that approximately 37 % of the US consumers buy flowers annually while France follows with 32%. The findings indicate that the average spending in the purchase of flowers in the US is much higher than in France, Germany and in the Netherlands. Marketing of flowers in the United States is likely to lead to higher sales and higher profits.
According to the IBIS World Florists’ market research report of 2014, approximately 51.4% Americans between 25-45 years purchased flowers within the year. This accounts for approximately 51.4% young Americans. Anderson (2005) provides that this population demography represents a favorable market that can be utilized to increase the sales volume from fresh flower companies. Happy Floral Company will mainly exploit this population structure among the youths.
Flower Buyers’ Characteristics
The ideal buyers of flowers from the Happy Floral Company are:
- Buyers are professional clients of 25-45 years of age
- They work in Midtown or Downtown locations
- Most of them are male clients buying for ladies
- They are married, engaged or in long-term relationships
- They probably work as a real estate agent, banker, financial analyst or lawyer
Market Projection
Using the target markets in this section and the Midtown and Downtown California demographics, Happy Floral Company has made the following assessments regarding market revenue and opportunity potential.
Midtown | Downtown | Total | |
Total Number of Businesses | 3,380 | 3,216 | 6,596 |
Law Firms | 959 | 17 | 976 |
Banks | 30 | 93 | 123 |
Securities & Commodities | 43 | 25 | 68 |
Real Estate | 150 | 87 | 237 |
Insurance | 8 | 40 | 48 |
Hotels | 27 | 31 | 58 |
Positioning Strategy
In order to succeed in its marketing plan, Happy Floral Company aims to enhance its operations in the domestic US market. The company plans to offer a classy Recurring Flower Gift Program targeted to well-to-professionals. It shall also offer high-quality floral arrangements featuring custom and personalized service. Additionally, the company plans to create a distinctive shopping experience with its floral design gallery which is located in a rising arts district area. In so doing, the company is likely to beat its competitors and increase its profits.
Marketing Mix Strategy
The marketing mix strategy Happy Floral Company will focus on targeting the Special Occasions and Wedding segment, and also focusing on organizations and establishing ties to supply them with an ongoing service. By optimizing on the product strategy, price strategy, promotion strategy and distribution strategy, the company aims to enhance its marketing efficiency.
Product Mix
The product mix shows that the two main items that are in demand are bouquets and gift basket & hampers. This shows the trend that customers are buying items that are ready for gifting to someone, it’s seen as more convenient for the customer. Happy Floral Company shall focus on bouquets, gift basket and hampers since they are highly demanded.
Distribution Channels
Currently, Happy Floral Company has one main distribution channel which is its retail shop. It wants to establish other ways to reach its customers. They have considered establishing an online service where customers are able to view their products, select and order what they want and get it delivered. The cost of setting up a website can cost around $500 and will need ongoing support to maintain and update the service. They can also hire an in-house team to build the website and carry out content marketing. This would bring another advantage to the business. Just as the competitors are trading online, it will place Happy Floral Company on a level playing field to market its product outside of its current demographic.
Customer Service Level
Happy Floral Company aim to provide customers a high level of service, and taking customer service to the next level by getting to know certain details of a customer to make them feel more valued, for example remembering a customer’s birthday or anniversary, gives the impression that you have taken time to listen to the customer. Also offering regular custom store discounts or free delivery on their purchases, this is to ensure that they are rewarded for the loyalty to the brand.
Customer Service Standards
As outlined above Happy Floral Company’s main concern is to deliver the highest quality of customer service, the staff is encouraged to make the customer feel welcomed and valued by meeting and greeting them as soon as they enter the shop. They are to communicate with the customer and direct them to the product that they desire. Staffs are advised to inform customers on special promotions and discounts that might be on offer.
Promotional Activities
The promotional activities that Happy Floral Company has undertaken are having indoor floral displays for customers in the store to give them visual choices. There is also the use of outdoor signage and window displays to be visually enticing to people walking past the shop front. Happy Floral Company has expanded its advertising to local radio station and newspapers to get a better coverage on its target customers. They have recently sponsored a signing from overseas who was touring Australia.
Prices
In order to compete effectively with the companies offering floral services, Happy Floral Company shall reduce prices. The prices shall be at the same level with other companies. Since Happy Floral Company is already popular, reduction in prices shall trigger more sales. As the quantity demanded increases, the company will make more sales, reduce its inventory and get profits. Occasionally, Happy Floral Company shall offer free offers or sales promotions to boosts sales. This will increase brand awareness and attract more customers giving the company an upper hand against its competitors.
Implementation and Executive Summary
Human Resource Requirements
The overall marketing effort will not need to hire additional staff as marketing has been outsourced to media and publications. The internal marketing of Happy Floral Company will be handled by staff that is experienced and trained in the area of floristry. They will be required to constantly update the store displays on a 2-3 day basis as flowers are perishable and require a cool room. They are to also display business cards, flyers, and brochures at front of desk and are to encourage customers to take one. The staffs that are hired must be competent at flower arrangements and must have a strong customer background to ensure that customers are dealt with a great experience.
Consulting with the customer on floral arrangements | Taking the Order |
Staff/Management | Staff/ Management |
On-Going | On-Going |
Immediately | Within 15 minutes of serving |
Arrange Flowers | Getting Customer Orders Delivered |
Organizing the order and making the floral arrangement | Ensuring that orders are processed and ready to be delivered |
Staff/Management | Staff/Management |
On-going | 12/1/2017 |
Have it completed within an hour | Delivered on the same day |
Promotional Activities Yearly Costs | Cost/ Timeframe |
Activities | |
Radio | $1500 6 Months |
Flyers | $1000 12 Months (Quarterly) |
Newspapers | $600 8 Months |
Sponsors Events | $2300 3 Months |
Online | $800 12 Months |
Executive Summary for Happy Floral Company
The Happy Floral Company is an American flower company located in California which focuses on delivery of floral services. Due to the expansion of the company and stiff competition from other providers of floral services, the company must get a working marketing plan. The marketing plan specifies the company’s SWOT analysis, marketing objectives, market analysis, positioning strategy and its marketing mix strategy. Happy Floral Company enjoys popularity, internet presence, skilled staffs and low overhead costs. Although its weaknesses such as high prices and insufficient promotion hinder its growth, it has many opportunities. The company has the potential of developing a nice ecommerce store from which it can manage its online business and engage with customers directly. Its main threats include competition from other providers, seasonality of the services and regulatory requirements. In order to succeed in marketing, the company aims to target specific buyer personas that constitute mainly of middle-aged American men having relationships. By reducing prices, enhancing its promotion and distribution strategies and selling highly demanded products such as bouquets, gift baskets and hampers, it shall make more sales.