Task 4

(a) Promotional mix plan

Marketing is a very essential factor in success of any organization. This is because it gives an organization to sensitize potential customers on the existence and price of their product and services. Though National Trust is a not-for-profit organization, it must ensure that it has a perfect promotional mix that will help get the value for money. A perfect marketing mix involves the 4Ps (product, place, price and promotion). All the four elements must be integrated perfectly to get a desired balance among them. Such a balance is very essential as it ensures organizational success in terms of increasing its sales and profitability. Even with the best product in the world, if a business promotes it to the wrong audience, overprices it or distributes it in a way that is inconvenient for consumers, then the business will not generate sales. National Trust has ensured an integrated relationship between product, price, place and promotion.

Promotion in an organization is equally important and is carried out for different purposes and with different techniques and tools. The promotional exercise can raise awareness of a brand or business, highlight the benefits or value of its products to attract sales or help change the image of the firm. The process involves communicating to customers and potential customers via a variety of techniques. These communications may have different forms and content to ensure that the target audience can understand and receive the messages properly.

National trust has adopted different tools and techniques to communicate to its customers and potential consumers.  The organization has embraced both modern and traditional methods as its promotional tool. For instance, National Trust has adopted advertising through daily papers, TVs, Radios, bill boards, banners and posters. The organization has also embraced modern advertising and promotional techniques. For instance, National Trust has embraced social media such as face book and twitter. Websites and online networks have also been very effective in promoting national trust products.

(b)   The AIDA model

AIDA model demonstrates the stages in promotion as follows;

• Initiating awareness/attention to potential customers and increase knowledge of new offers to existing customers.
• Generating interest to customers by focusing and demonstrating advantages and benefits.
• Create desire by convincing customers that they want and desire the product that will satisfy their needs.
• The last step involves action to purchase product and services.

The ultimate objective in the promotional exercise is to keep customers loyal so that over time they become advocates and promote the product to other consumers.  Customer recommendation is a very strong form of promotion and has been vey instrumental to the success of National trust.  As a business, the National Trust has few direct competitors, but there are many alternative ways for the public to spend their leisure time and money (Curtis, 2007).  However the intensive promotion has been very essential in ensuring that the company has been on the rise over the years. Moreover, recent research has shown that few young people considered National Trust as possible place of work despite the awareness created.

National Trust is using digital media and social networking sites such as face book to highlight huge variety of roles it offers. These channels enable the Trust to present practical and personal insight into different job roles, such as skilled professional posts, catering staff or young volunteers, through the use of employee profiles, articles or guest blogs. The AIDA model has been very effective in creating awareness, interest, desire and ensuring that customers purchase their products and also take the job opportunities offered in an organization (Curtis, 2007). The modern technology has also been embraced whereby the organization takes poster ads to help advertise.

Task 5

• Questionnaire that will act as a marketing survey

Conducting a marketing survey is very important in an organization as it helps in making future plans. The survey will help the organization understand its areas of excellence as well as its weak points and take the necessary action. There are different techniques through which an organization can conduct its marketing survey depending on the finances and the kind of data needed. For instance, one can use direct interviews, questionnaires or an open forum where existing and potential customers can give their views (Eagle, 2015). After collecting this information, it is important for the organization to ensure that it act accordingly to improve the overall performance of the organization. In this case, we will use a questionnaire to assess the developments made by National Trust.

Sample questionnaire

Kindly take a few moments to complete this satisfaction survey.

Your name                                                                       ……………………….……..

Gender                                                                                    male/female

Marital status                                                                         married/single

Age                                                                                  …………….………………..

What is your monthly income                                           ……………………………

Which of our places have you visited this year                 ……………………………

How often have visited these sites                                  ………………………………

Level of satisfaction                                                       very/moderate/dissatisfied

How did you learn of the site                                        TV, radio, newspapers etc

How were the prices                                                      fair/not fair

Recommend any area of improvement    ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Thank you for taking your time to fill the form, we promise to improve the services and products to match your wishes.

• results of survey

After every survey, it is important to analyze the information gathered so that one can understand whether or not the objectives of the survey were realized. Analysis of the information is also important in enabling the organization to take strategic plan for the present and future use. Marketing research will help the organization understand whether its marketing and promotional mix is effective or not.  It is therefore very important to have a critical analysis of the survey.

For instance, the questionnaire was distributed to over 1000 people who responded to the questions. One of the most observable points from the results of the questionnaires is that middle income earners and the rich are the most common people who visit their sites. The poor and below average people do not usually visit these sites due to lack of finances and leisure time. It has therefore become important for the National Trust to review its charges to encourage the poor people to visit these sites (Curtis, 2007).

It has also been noted that the young people forms a great number of the people who visit the National Trust sites. This is possibly due to their high levels of energy and plenty of leisure time at their disposal. The young people are also energetic therefore making them capable to earn more money to spend during their leisure time. Young people are also able to access information as compared to the old folk.  This is because they have access to all the avenues used by firms and organizations to promote and market their products.  The recent step by the Trust to adopt online marketing with social media (face book and twitter) has provided positive results. This is because most of these young people are in these social networking sites thus having access to this crucial information. The organization must strive to ensure that the number of elderly customers increases substantially (Roberts, 2001). This means a change in promotion tactics is necessary to ensure that the elderly get this information.

(c) Evaluate the marketing plan developed earlier based upon the result of the marketing survey and make recommendations and reflects upon your understanding of Marketing in Hospitality.

It is always important to carry out an evaluation of an organizations marketing plan. This is because it will enable the organization to analyze its performance as far as marketing is concerned. The evaluation exercise is also important as it enables the organization to lay strategic foundation upon which its marketing plan will be a success (Roberts, 2001).

For instance, National Trust had a marketing plan which though it produced results, it had some gaps which needed to be filled. The marketing plan adopted by the organization was the traditional advertisement thus limiting the information coverage to the target group. Advertising through newspapers, magazines, radios and other traditional means made the information not to reach as many people as possible. Especially the young people lacked this information since they are not friendly to such old means (Needham & Dransfield, 2000).

However, with the change of the marketing plan in the organization, it is possible for the organization to increase its membership by 25 % even before 2020. The organization has embraced technology to have an effective marketing plan. The use of networking sites to promote the Trust’s products has increased the number of customers immensely. The methods have also increased the number of young people who have become members of the Trust. It is therefore recommended that the organization should embrace both traditional and modern advertising modes to ensure that the success of the organization is on the rise every year (Curtis, 2007).

Marketing in hospitality is just like any other marketing in any other industry. The only major difference is that hospitality industry mostly deals with services while others mainly deal with products. However, it involves taking a marketing initiative from concept to executable plan. In hospitality industry, they gather essential information which they analyze and identify strategic opportunities and develop campaigns to convert prospects into paying customers (Roberts, 2001). In essence marketing involves adding the list customers and maintaining the already existing customers.

References

Curtis, T. (2007). Marketing in practice 2007-2008. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Eagle, L. (2015). Marketing communications. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Needham, D., & Dransfield, R. (2000). Advanced business. Oxford: Heinemann Educational.

Roberts, I. (2001). Advanced leisure and recreation. Oxford: Heinemann.

Roberts, I. (2001). Leisure and recreation. Oxford: Heinemann Educational.

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