This section of the marketing plan provides the marketing objective, the
selected target market, the selected services, our marketing statement and our
promotional recommendations. Goals tell were a business wants to go; strategy
answers how to get there. Every business must tailor a strategy for achieving
its goals. The strategy must then be refined into specific programs that are
implemented efficiently and corrected if they are failing to achieve the
objectives. Michael E. Porter, author of the book “competitive strategy:
techniques for analyzing industries and competitors” has categorized
strategies into 3 generic types, which are: Overall cost leadership Here the
business works hard to achieve the lowest costs of production and distribution
so it can price lower than its competitors and win a large market share.
Differentiation Here the business concentrates on achieving superior performance
in some important customer benefit area valued by the market as a whole. It can
strive to be the service leader, the quality leader, the style leader, the
technology leader, etc. Focus Here the business focuses on one or more narrow
market segment rather than going after the whole market. The firm gets to know
the needs of these segments and pursues either cost leadership or some form of
differentiation within the target segment. As said before, Cumeco n.v. is in the
business of steel construction, pipefitting and welding. We think that Cumeco
n.v. must adopt a strategy that is based on a combination of the differentiation
and focus strategy. Our recommendation is that Cumeco n.v. must start focusing
on becoming a niche-player. As explained in the opportunity and issue analysis a
market nicher is a smaller firm that chooses to operate in some part of the
market that is specialized and is unlikely to attract larger firms. Now we can
start developing a marketing strategy statement. The different clients we
visited for our research had one thing to say: Cumeco n.v. delivers quality. The
one word that kept coming back was QUALITY. The marketing statement should
therefore be “to become known in the industry as the symbol of quality in the
business of metal construction, pipe fitting and welding which can be
accomplished by always meeting the deadline and delivering quality works”.
With this marketing statement in mind we will start developing the marketing
plan. In our opinion, our main objective is to increase the awareness of the
company’s name and the services it provides and to position Cumeco n.v. in
such a way that when you hear the words Cumeco n.v you immediately think of
quality. By introdusing such concepts as Total Quality Management it will be
able to create a sustainable competitive advantage. We believe that with our
recommendations this can be accomplished. To evaluate the effectiveness of our
plan, we recommend a survey to be done 6 months after the execution of the plan
has started. The image of a company is very important, because it’s what your
target market perceives of your company. The selected target market is 8 The
general contractors as they are in charge of big construction projects and take
on smaller contractors like Cumeco to do a specific construction job 8 The
architect bureaus as they make the drawings and in most cases make the
calculations 8 The construction bureaus as they are specialized in making
construction calculations 8 Various companies e.g. manufacturers, factories (Amstel,
Coca-Cola) 8 Utilities companies e.g. Kodela, Setel, KAE The perception of the
customer is very important even in the steel construction business. If the
general contractors have a good impression of your company, it will be easier to
get a job order. Cumeco n.v. is being associated with quality, which is a good
sign, but it is also being associated with high prices. So we’ll have to work
on their price strategy. Cumeco n.v. has to start lowering its cost in order to
have a better competitive advantage. Although it is nice to be innovative and
come up with a new product, we feel at this time Cumeco n.v. must not come up
with a new service but work on the existing ones. We feel they should: ·
Increase their steel construction job orders · Increase their pipe fitting
(steel and PVC) job orders · Increase their aluminum welding job orders ·
Heavily promote their new sandblasting and coating facilities Recommendations
Since the first visit to Cumeco, we unanimously decided that a major problem at
Cumeco was the absence of an employee in charge with all the marketing &
public relations activities and mostly sales. Mr. Chirino is a person who wants
to be and is on top of each project. He makes sure the contract is negotiated
and signed, the project planning is done, the project calculations are correct,
the job is started, finished and delivered on time. As you can see, he does not
have the time to keep himself busy with the marketing and PR activities and
perform as a salesperson. We know it’s costly to take someone extra on the
payroll. If Cumeco wants to make marketing the key to increase the awareness of
its company and products or even their sales, a marketing officer with
additional duties such as sales is a must. This person would be working closely
with Mr. Chirino so he/she must be trustworthy. With the marketing officer in
place we can make as much suggestions as we like, because we know there is
someone in charge of the execution. Job description marketing officer In this
type of business personal selling is the key to success. You have to know your
clients, visit them regularly and build a long lasting relation with them. The
Marketing officer must function as a sales person. It is the job of the sales
person to give customer service. He/she will go to the general contractors, the
utility companies, the architect bureaus and the construction bureaus and try to
establish contacts and build relationship with these clients. The sales person
is in charge of making these companies aware of the existence of Cumeco, it’s
products and services and that Cumeco stands for quality in business of metal
construction, pipe fitting and welding. Once they are interested in offering
Cumeco a job, Mr. Chirino steps in. He is the one negotiating the contract as he
has more knowledge of the company’s capabilities, the work and the
calculations. After the job has been taken and delivered, the sales person goes
back after say 6 months to check up on the customer to see if everything is
still satisfactory and maybe even if they have another job. The marketing
officer is in charge of coordinating the marketing efforts. Our main objective
is to increase the awareness of the company’s name and the services it
provides and to position Cumeco n.v. in such a way that when you hear the words
Cumeco n.v you immediately think of. We tried to incorporate all the marketing
tools we believe will give results. Advertising We are aware that Cumeco does
not have the funds to do much advertising. If we want to achieve our goal one
point in the future we will have to start paying for some advertisements. Our
suggestions are: 8 Newspaper adds in “De Makelaar” 8 Adds in the yellow
pages of the telephone book 8 Direct mailing of informative folders to the
target market We do not recommend any event or sponsorship marketing as we
perceive it not to be effective. It will not reach the target market
specifically. One of the main promotional activity Cumeco must start working on
is PUBLICITY. We can start working immediately on publicity. Our suggestions
are: 8 For the inauguration of the new sandblasting and coating facilities, give
an inauguration party and invite the press. Give out press releases together
with a folder containing all the work you have accomplished. Invite your target
market (head of the departments in charge of maintenance of the various
utilities companies and the project leaders of the architect bureaus,
contractors companies etc). In marketing we also have promotional items to put
at what we call the Point-of-purchase. We can make posters to put at the
hardware stores. These posters must make frequent visitors of the hardware
stores (who may be in the business of construction) aware of the name Cumeco.
Actually it’s difficult to come up with sales promotion items for a
construction company. We do recommend free merchandise in the form of calendars,
mugs, pens and key chains to be distributed to the target market. These items
must have Cumeco’s logo very clearly printed on it to increase awareness with
its target market.