Question

Topic: Strategy

Developing A New Marketing Plan

Posted by Anonymous on 3/9/2009 at 8:27 AM ET 250 Points
I have recently been appointed Marketing Manager for a Tour Operator in Ireland, we have several different brands including Group tours, Conference & Incentive Tours, Rugby Tours, Golf Tours, Active Retired Tours and Gourmet Tours. This is my first managerial role having held a number of lower level marketing positions in the past so it is all a bit overwhelming at the moment. I need advice as to how best approach this given the number of different brands we offer, should I have a seperate plan for each brand whish i assume i should, the main USP's of the company are we are the longest established DMC in Ireland (43 years) we have an amazing product (Ireland) and we offer personalised, bespoke tours with great attention to detail. all ideas welcome and appreciated. I know its quite vague and i have started putting a plan together but just need some ideas as I'm on my own here with noone to bounce off so to speak!
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 3/9/2009 at 10:27 AM Member
    Well, longest established, and Ireland aren't USPs, but customized tours might be.. The key is something that makes you different and special (remarkable). Extra access to places normally off limits, custom tours - see what YOU want, flexible scheduling, etc.

  • Posted by wnelson on 3/9/2009 at 10:49 AM Accepted
    Congratulations on your new position! As the new manager, I'd treat your first 100 days as an opportunity to look at everything through fresh eyes. Start at the beginning and search for information the company already has concerning who their target customers are (by segment), what their needs are (by segment), what their influencers are for each segment (words and images that bring them to a "buy" decision), how well the competitors satisfies their needs and where they don't, SWOT analysis, brand awareness, the company's core competencies and how they have been developed into unique selling points (remember that "do nothing" is key competitor - many customers buy nothing and they are your targets too), product/service definition and how it uses the core competencies to satisfy the customers' needs better than the competition, price strategy, and brand strategy. Given all this, take a look at their present marketing plan and see how well it is aligned with the analysis and resulting direction setting.

    Next, you can move to how well the plan is being executed (on time, on budget), and how well the plan's established goals and resultant metrics are being measured, reviewed, and met. And if they aren't being met, then look at the analysis and corrective action steps that are taken.

    Based on your findings, you will have two directions:

    1) You find much of the information outlined above in place and your role is to fill in the blanks as needed, maintain the processes and systems, and drive continuous improvement in terms of department efficiency and increased return on investment.

    2) You find little in place and you put a plan together to implement the marketing process as referenced above.

    As far as implementing a branded house or a house of brands, this really depends on your analysis. If you are marketing to the same demographics for all of your products/services, then you have a branded house. If each product/service is aimed at a different demographic (I would suspect so), then you may have a house of brands. I say "may" because products/services do not necessarily need separate brands. If the products/services are closely related and support the overall brand well, then you still have a branded house with different activities to promote a particular product/service to a particular audience in a particular way that communicates well to that audience how well you satisfy their needs versus the competitors' products/services. However, overall, you'd still promote the company to all segments because you want them to thing "your company" when they think tours - no matter what kind of tour. The company tagline can be such that it communicates something like, "Delight for every curious, wondering, and adventurous soul." That carries through to everyone in your target, perhaps, and could go on a rugby tour specific ad as well as a retired tour ad. The ad copy would be the different, but the logo and tagline would be the same. And you can promote the company all by itself to everybody and it would build recognition.

    If you had a situation where promoting products/processes under the same brand would detract from the products/services or brand, then you would want to have a separate brand for each product. For instance, if you sold a brand of insulin and a brand of candy bars, you probably would want to have those as separate brands. Toyota separated away Lexus because Toyota brand had an "economy" image to combat the US manufacturers and a "luxury Toyota" would have muddied the brand and the luxury Toyota probably wouldn't have been believed.

    Note, however, that promoting multiple brands is highly inefficient and expensive because you have to spend (basically) the same for each brand to build the recognition. If in Ireland, it costs #1 million to promote a brand to achieve the desired level of recognition, since you have six potential brands, you would need to spend #6 million. In the case of a branded house, you can spend less than #6 million and achieve your results. Sort of. It will cost you more than #1 million because you will be trying to get a wider reach and you will be changing up copy/content/media source to reach your multiple targets - but you can achieve some economies because you can promote the overall brand in broad media and it supports the products.

    I hope this helps.

    Wayde
  • Posted by michael on 3/9/2009 at 12:13 PM Member
    You should have one brand. Think of A&K. Their brand says quality no matter what the product.

    You can have a different plan for each product, though. They are marketed to different groups.

    Michael


    You're on conworld.net, right?
  • Posted by telemoxie on 3/11/2009 at 11:05 AM Member
    I'm just curious, do you have a package which focuses on the bars in Ireland?

    I have only traveled internationally a dozen or so times, but if there is one place in the world I could visit again, it is Dublin, Ireland.

    You have the best beer in the world. (In my opinion - but in fairness, I have never been to Germany...)

    The people in the bars were singing and dancing and playing instruments, and were very hospitable to tourists.

    The countryside was beautiful, the accents were exotic yet understandable, my accommodations were hospitable... my whole experience in Ireland was wonderful, which causes me to think you might be better off trying to give folks the whole picture, rather than dissecting your "offering" into a series of subsets.
  • Posted on 3/11/2009 at 12:00 PM Author
    Thanks for all the comments guys, basically there was nothing in place before i started, no official marketing department, so I am starting from a blank canvas, the offers we have are amazing value and all bespoke, currenty im working on getting us a decent website and a strong internet presence as the current one is pretty pathetic, i am developing databases to get our flyers and ezines out to and researching trade shows and associations we can benefit from, another point is that we do not have much of a budget either, but with contra deals i am starting to make a little progress. as regards the bars package, we do actually incorporate some irish pub crawls into some packages, as i say, all tours are bespoke and we can do anything the client requires as we have a strong supplier base throughout the country. Thanks again for the comments, hopefully there will be a few more :)

    Slainte,

    Dave.
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