Why Facebook Marketing is Important for Every Business?
Keeping the idea of improving the lives of our customers in mind, our primary focus is on women with an associate degree or above who make more than $30,000 annually. Our secondary focus will encompass individuals and families in the United States between the ages of 25-and 50 and who make more than $30,000 annually who take their lunch and/or pack a lunch for their children more than three times per week. It allows the consumer to manage and maintain their space in the kitchen but is also an eco-friendly product. Zip Tops are also a great product for travelers or commuters looking for an eco-friendly and convenient way to travel with their lunch or snack. It is the objective to set a goal of reaching between 18 to 50 million customers in the initial year of sales, which would be between 4% to 11.5% of the total market. According to a survey done by Statista, released in September 2018, Ziploc had 203 million users which accounted for nearly 47% of the plastic container/storage bag market, followed by Store Brands with 86 a million users (20%), Glad 75 million (17%), Hefty 50 million (11%) and Other brands at 19 million (4%). We would attempt to enhance our sales by 10% after the first year with goals of 14%-21% of the total market. To be a viable competitor in this market we would need to hit these goals to survive. Within 5 years we would like to have a 30% market share and 10 years; 30-45% or more of the market to be a major supplier of reusable containers. Zip Top containers will be manufactured in the United States and the product will be available for global shipment once production begins. Zip Top offers an innovative, eco-friendly, durable solution to traditional bags and storage containers.
Contents
Overall marketing strategy
It is our goal to increase brand awareness and increase promotions. Since we are introducing a new product in an already existing market, we need to inform our target markets of our products and encourage them to buy. We can use our competitor’s mistakes to our advantage and avoid pitfalls previously made by competition to focus our marketing strategy. The use of social media outlets to reach our markets will be essential in the early promotional stages. In a survey done by Smith and Anderson on the dates January 3-10 of 2018, they found that 82% of adults ages 25-30 said they used Facebook and 88% used YouTube. As for the 30-49 age group, 78% admitted using Facebook and 85% used YouTube (Smith & Anderson, 2018). A significant portion of our target markets utilize these social media and online platforms and could be reached relatively inexpensively and easily. A secondary online marketing objective is to target popular bloggers that have subscribers that fit in our target markets and offer them free samples, to offer a product review to their audience. As recognition for our product increases, we will incorporate television ads, infomercials, and a push strategy that includes in-store displays to gain more awareness and more market space in retail/convenience stores to reach our 10-year goal of 30-45% market ownership.
Positioning
Positioning statement: For eco-conscious, middle-class Americans, Zip Top containers offer lid-free, durable, earth-friendly storage solutions.
Value proposition:cost-efficient
- Target market: eco-conscious, middle-class Americans
- Benefits offered: eco-friendly, lid-free
- Price Range: above that of similar products, $7.99 for a one-piece cup to $97.92 for a complete 9-piece set
Product decisions:
Our objective is to introduce an eco-friendly solution to the plastic container market. Eco-friendly Zip Top containers are available in different sizes, shapes, and colors all of which are designed to fit a specific need of our target market. Zip Top will be used as a family brand name that will be associated with all product lines making it more cost-efficient when introducing new product lines or creating modifications to existing brands.
Pricing decisions:
Our main pricing objective is to increase sales volume and maximize short-run profits. Employing premium pricing, the customer-oriented strategy allows us to charge higher prices based on consumer perception derived from a marketing strategy that aims to promote a better, higher-quality product. Zip Top containers hold several patents and utilize unique materials for production making it difficult for the competition to imitate the design. Premium pricing allows us to recover invested funds quickly and allocate them towards the research and development of new products and features. By utilizing the “Value-in-Use” approach we were able to base our pricing decisions on our customer’s perception of value (Mullins & Walker Jr., 2013).
Distribution decisions:
Aligning with the social media and online marketing strategy, applying a business-to-consumer strategy will be the most cost-effective. We aim to make Zip Top containers convenient and easy to order through an online ordering system that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As demand improves, we will add a push strategy, marketing to vendors and convenience stores to ensure that demand is not constrained by placement.
Promotional strategy:
Zip Top containers are intended to reach eco-conscious middle-income families looking for an alternative to plastic containers. By offering an earth-friendly solution, Zip Top aims to change the wasteful perception of the plastic container market. Goals of 4%-11.5% are estimated for the first year, 14%-21% for the second year, 30% in 5 years, and 30%-45% in 10 years. Initially, a great deal of demand has been created through Kickstarter. By allowing customers to buy into the product in the infant stages, it has allowed customers to have a vested interest in Zip Top Reusable Containers which has helped drive the demand for the product(s). Using Facebook and YouTube as sources of online and social media advertising platforms we will be able to reach target markets cost-efficiently leading to more aggressive strategies such as marketing to vendors and convenience stores as demand increases.
Marketing Budget
The average American uses approximately one-pound worth of plastic sandwich bags a year, equaling approximately 540 plastic baggies a year (Smith K., 2017). As mentioned previously, there are 111,242,978 people in the United States between the ages of 25 and 50. With 42% of this population identified as environmentalists, this equates to approximately 46,722,051 Americans in our target market. Using a conservative approach, the assumption is made that 2% of this target market will purchase Zip Top Containers, which is approximately 934,441 Americans. This estimation is used to project gross sales as detailed in Appendix 2. For year one, total gross sales are projected at $62,079,588. In projecting gross sales, it is assumed that 75% of purchasers will order individual pieces and 25% will purchase a complete set. According to the Zip Top Containers website, preorders can be placed for individual pieces: a dish for $11.99, a bag for $7.99, and a cup for $7.99. Complete sets are priced at $97.92. This results to $39,204,472 in individual piece sales and $22,875,116 incomplete set sales.
Appendix 3 details the marketing budget for Zip Top Containers covering the first three years with the first year broken out monthly. The marketing budget for year one was calculated by taking 10% of the projected gross sales. This results in a $6,207,960 budget. Approximately 37% of the marketing budget will be comprised of public relations activities such as public events, press releases, sponsorships, and sales campaigns. Another 25% of the budget will be comprised of internet marketing/advertising and 20% will be comprised of additional advertising placements such as magazines and newspapers. The remaining 18% will include sales force expenses such as market research. For years two and three, it was determined that the marketing budget would be 90% and 85% respectively of the year one’s budget as it is expected that word of mouth will result in the increased familiarity with the product. For further detail regarding marketing expenses, please see Appendix 3.
A large portion of the marketing budget will support social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. As of 2017, 2.8 billion people currently use social media; this represents a 22% increase from 2016 (Ahmad, 2017).
Facebook is the largest social media platform with over 1.9 billion unique users. In addition, it’s especially popular with millennials (those who were born between 1981-and 1996) and Generation X users (those who were born between 1965-and 1980). These groups spend more than 7 hours a week on social media. Furthermore, over three-quarters of these users spend 20+ minutes on Facebook every day (Ahmad, 2017).
Advertising on Facebook is similar to that of an auction. To place an ad on Facebook, one has to know how much they are wanting to pay for actions such as views, clicks, and conversions. Many factors contribute to the cost of advertising on Facebook including the time of the year, specific hours of the day, placement of the ad on the page, and type of ad. Every company advertising on Facebook is targeting the same users’ newsfeed; Facebook limits the number of ads each user sees, and this leads to some competitive bidding.
Since advertising on Facebook includes the bidding system, there may be the misconception that by advertising on Facebook, we would only be competing against those in the industry. This is not the case. Zip Top would be in direct competition with every other product and company. Our target market consumer may also love fishing, mountain climbing, etc. They may be cat or dog owners. All of these unique qualities will be targeted. A good measure of effectiveness and efficiency is the cost per click (CPC). Facebook helps track many measures to show the level of effectiveness and efficiency of ad placement. For example, Facebook tracks the click-through rate. The click-through rate is the number of clicks on the ad divided by the number of impressions. A higher click-through rate will indicate a higher relevance, and thus more valuable to your audience. Facebook will help identify this calculation and lower the overall cost for a marketer, though if a company is optimizing for CPC, the more clicks obtained the more money will be spent in that sense. One of the main goals of advertising on Facebook is to aim for a high click-through rate (CTR), which will help lower the cost of ads and improve their performance.
Instagram has over 700 million users who share an average of 34 billion photos per day. These users spend on average 32 minutes per day using Instagram (McCormick, 2017). Companies investing advertising dollars on Instagram are looking to increase brand exposure. With these types of figures as well as being a start-up company, Instagram is a great place to promote Zip Top Containers. Companies that advertise on Instagram see a higher return on investment in comparison to other advertising campaigns (Cunha, The complete guide to advertising on Instagram, 2018). With 83% of Instagram users under the age of 49, our target and subsequent target markets are heavily visible on Instagram. Lastly, now that Facebook has acquired Instagram, Instagram uses Facebook’s demographic data for ad placement for its users. This makes it extremely valuable when looking for niche audiences such as environmentalists.
YouTube
YouTube has over 1 billion unique monthly users. In addition, more and more people are “‘cutting the cable’” and doing away with traditional TV cable subscriptions and favoring alternatives such as Netflix and YouTube. There are over 5 billion videos watched every day and 300 hundred hours of video uploaded every minute (Cunha, 6 easy tips for more profitable Youtube advertising, 2018). YouTube is a great social media platform to market Zip Top Containers. However, there are several different ad formats in which to advertise on YouTube. As a startup company looking to gain brand awareness, the best way to advertise on YouTube would be to utilize a TrueView ad or discovery ad. For example, when someone searches for a topic they are interested in, an ad for Zip Top Containers would be listed on the search results page at the very top. Another ad format that would be used is bumper ads. These ads are non-skippable video ads up to 6 seconds in length that must be viewed before the video that the user selected can be viewed. Both examples listed above would be able to run on desktop and mobile devices.
With over 317 million unique monthly users, one can’t ignore advertising on Twitter (Ahmad, 2017). Advertising on Twitter is easy to set up and relatively inexpensive. The first step in advertising via Twitter will be setting up follower campaign ads. The purpose of these ads is to increase visibility and grow followers. With being a start-up company, this first step is important. Another type of advertising campaign to use on Twitter would be the “click and conversion campaign”. The purpose of this campaign would be to encourage traffic to the Zip Top® website and gather information such as email signups, orders, and page views. A final advertising campaign to use on Twitter is the “generate and lead a campaign”. This gives users a one-click option. Since Twitter already has their name and email address, their information auto-fills when they click on your tweet.
Print advertising placements (Magazines, Newspapers, etc.)
Not everyone is computer savvy and users of the social platforms listed above. Magazine ads and other forms of paper ads such as the newspaper will be used to reach these consumers. Even though print circulations are down, there are cases where those who still do read the publications are extremely involved. Fero states, “Print is interesting because it provokes people to read it. Just buying it or getting it in the mail provokes the reader to engage in a way that digital doesn’t. If you have time to read a magazine, then you’re going to engage with the ads there. Print ads should inspire you to look at them even longer,” (Soat, 2015)
According to Andy Blau, SVP of Finance and Advertising at Time, print is a top-of-funnel medium (Soat, 2015). This means that print advertising focuses on targeting customers at the upper-most portion of the marketing funnel. Top-of-funnel is important because it helps to spread awareness and educate potential customers. It also helps to create hype for the product. Appendix 4 lists the top overall magazine subscriptions as well as the top 10 environment and conservation magazines. With millions still in circulation, it’s still a critical segment of the population. For these reasons, it is important to advertise in magazine publications such as National Geographic and Nature Conservancy as well as Better Homes and Gardens and O, The Oprah Magazine to reach out to the target market and segmented markets.
Forum and blog marketing can be a high return on asset strategy because many forum users are also respected experts and bloggers on the topics that are covered in the forum (Go, 2018). Another great way to advertise Zip Top Containers and reach the target market would be to advertise on some of the top environmental forums/blogs such as Grist, Treehugger, The Cleanest Line, and Seeker: Earth. In addition, advertising on top parenting forums and blogs such as FamilyEducation, and Parenthood will reach additional customers.
Why Facebook Marketing is Important for Every Business?. (2022, May 02). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/why-facebook-marketing-is-important-for-every-business/
