MARK 7032 : Marketing Objectives and Strategies : Mountain Designs is

Among the major issues that are facing Mountain designs is a decline in sales. This is one of the reasons as to why the company decided to close down some of its stores in the country. This makes increasing sales one of the market objectives of the organization. Through increasing sales, the company will be able to make enough sales of their product. Also, the company will be able to settle all their bills and still remain with reasonable profits for which can be used in expansion operations such as introducing more product brands as and share in form of dividends to their shareholders.

Build brand awareness

The stiff market competition that the organization is facing is because the brand is not known by man customers in the market. This has given the competitors advantage over Mountain Design Company as man customers can access their market (Hickman 2018). Additionally, the marketing methods that the company is using do not allow awareness of the brand among the customers. Mountain design is therefore obliged to enhancing their brand awareness as part of the ways of which they will be able to get their more customers, so as to increase sales, which is the key priority for the company. Having enhanced brand awareness, mountain Design will be assured of competing actively against other organizations that supply the customers with similar products.

Grow market share

Considering the fact that the company brand awareness is still low among the customers, the share that the company has in the market is still very low. This makes them unable to have their products supplied and sold ton as may customers as other brands (Bruffy 2016). Customers who do not know about their brand are likely to automatically turn down their bids and go for another brand in the market whose profiles is known by more customers. Mountain design is therefore in the need of increasing their market share by using any marketing strategy. This would help them get customers, not only those who are regular customers but also those who have heard but have not used the product before.

Enter new markets

Considering the facts about the company, the supply of their products is only within Australia. In fact, some of the parts of Australia are not run by the company (Zhang 2018). This has given room for external companies selling similar products to take a share of their potential market. However, as a way of increasing the number of customers buying their products, the company needs to get to new markets. This would involve going to the rest of Australia and even acquiring international markets.  The organization should consider entering markets with potential users of their items s that the impact on customer range can increase significantly. When the company enters new markets, the quantity of sales will increase significantly. Also, Mountain Design products will have enough opportunities for getting new customers whose potential to purchasing their high quality products are relatively higher.

Marketing strategy

From the research findings discussed above, the following are the recommended marketing strategy of Mountain Design Company:

Bringing in new customers

In the bid to realize an increase in their sales, mountain Design needs to bring in new customers for their items. This is dome though enhancing brand awareness and entering new markets which are part of the marketing objectives that the company considers a priority. By bringing in new customers, the company will be able to increase their sales. Bringing in new customers will provide favorable grounds for increasing the sales. In addition, the amount of profits realized will also increase significantly. The company will stand the chance of being in the industry and compete with other international companies.

Enhancing customer loyalty

The company seems not to have adequate strategies for reaching their customers, to discuss their issues, get their preferences. This can be evident by the fact that the company has not implemented some marketing methods that most customers want. The company can also award their customers and bring in conditions for qualifying for an award. This will make the customers feel that the company is good enough and is valuing them (Taylor 2015). Once this happens, customers will always prefer their products over other companies’ because of the increased loyalty. Also, the company can ensure customer loyalty through listening and ding necessary adjustments that their target customers requests. This would help the company in knowing the purchase potential of their main customers, and set prices at affordable rates, aiding in increasing sales.

Market segmentation

Mountain design traditionally manufactures and sellers premium quality products. This has made the organization to lose customers to other companies such as anaconda which sells low-quality products at lower prices (Kim, 2016). Mountain design, therefore, needs to recognize that their customers have different economic income and thus cannot be grouped similar in the market. Segmentation would help the company in both positioning in the market as well as targeted at customers based on their economic potential. These are two important factors for consideration when marketing products to consumers.

Online retailing

Mountain Design does much with physical retailers.  This has been making them lose a lot of customers to other similar good providers that have online shopping and payment options (Ryan, 2016). The organization should, therefore, introduce online marketing procedures to make sure that they compete favorably with the other companies dealing on the same products. The company will, therefore, be able to gain more customers, especially those who prefer online shopping and payment systems.

Product strategy

A product is the good or service produced by a company to fill a market gap by fulfilling customer needs. A product strategy involves planning for the product from its production to the time it reaches the end consumer in a market set up. It is important for the producers and marketers to understand the plans for their products, strengths, opportunities, and challenges. The potential clients of the product need to be also identified. The most important aspect in product strategy is to know how to make your product unique in order for it to be accepted in the market. For instance, Mountain design has products that can be offered elsewhere by other companies at a similar price range which creates the need for a well-established strategy.

Product differentiation is the right strategy to ensure a competitive advantage over other companies. It involves creating products with unique characteristics that make them stand out from other products in the market (Miller,1992). Mountain design needs to add value to their products in order to increase customer loyalty.

Pricing

Determining the price of products is a difficult endeavor and it requires a company to make some deep research and testing on prices in order to ensure customers are not pushed away by the pricing. The prices put in place will always determine the margins in profit including supply and demand. The price range of mountain design products must be within the perceived value of the products to the customer (Martin, 2014). If a product’s price is higher than the customer’s product value, the price might need to be lowered and vice versa. The price might also be affected by the competitor’s prices.

Most of the sportswear often have fixed prices that do not allow substantial margin discounts. This makes more customers to shy away from purchasing these products (Paudyal, 2017). However, Mountain Design can use the psychological pricing strategies to attract customers to buy their products. This would involve indicating prices like $99.98 at the expense of $100. Despite the fact that the costs are always fixed and can’t be lowered, the company can consider using different qualities of items for the customers. This is with regard to the fact that most of the customers are between the ages of 16-25. This category of individuals is often unemployed or newly employed and has low income. Their purchase potentials are often lower and therefore may not be willing to spend high amounts on buying games kits (Tang 2017). Mountain Design must, therefore, put this into consideration so that all of their customers can easily find affordable items that satisfy their needs. This will add on the fact that the materials for making their items are known for high quality, a factor that will earn the organization more customers.

Promotion

Promotion involves communicating the product’s information to the consumer. There are several ways in which a product can be promoted to increase its market share. Promotion can include advertising the product on the internet platforms, social media, email marketing local newspapers, radio, and television. Promotion could also involve the use of offers to attract customers.

Although the company has been promoting their customers, there is a need to strategize on how to do their promotion. It is necessary for the company to advertise their promotion through the social media so that more of their customers can know about the proceeding of their promotions (Ottman, 2017). This can help significantly in publicizing the company and hence increasing their customer base. Moreover, the multitudes who come to know about the company promotions and products may later become regular customers of their services and products.

Distribution

Marketing of a product has to ensure that the product is at the right place for the consumer to find/access it. It is important for a company like mountain designs to think about converting their potential markets into actual markets. Distribution is the key to making the product available for customers (Martin, 2014). Various channels could be used by the company including making use of online platforms. Online is the most viable place to make the products available to clients. Though transactions might not necessarily happen on the web, potential clients are converted on the internet.

Bibliography:

Anand, A. and Mandal, M., 2017. National Marketing Conference-Contemporary Practices in Modern Marketing: A Roadmap for 2020. FIIB Business Review, 6(3), pp.23-25.

Bruffy, K., 2016. Global Sports Marketing: Contemporary Issues and Practice, M. Desbordes, A. Richelieu. Routledge, Abdington, Oxfordshire (2012), 194 pp., ISBN: 978-0-415-50720-2.

Carere, D.A., Couper, M.P., Crawford, S.D., Kalia, S.S., Duggan, J.R., Moreno, T.A., Mountain, J.L., Roberts, J.S. and Green, R.C., 2014. Design, methods, and participant characteristics of the Impact of Personal Genomics (PGen) Study, a prospective cohort study of direct-to-consumer personal genomic testing customers. Genome medicine, 6(12), p.96.

Hickman, C.R. and Silva, M.A., 2018. Creating excellence: Managing corporate culture, strategy, and change in the new age. Routledge.

Kim, C.S. and Aggarwal, P., 2016. The customer is king: culture-based unintended consequences of modern marketing. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 33(3), pp.193-201.

Martin. (2014). Understanding the Marketing Mix Concept – 4Ps. Retrieved on October 8, 2018, from https://www.cleverism.com/understanding-marketing-mix-concept-4ps/

Meisel, S.F., Carere, D.A., Wardle, J., Kalia, S.S., Moreno, T.A., Mountain, J.L., Roberts, J.S. and Green, R.C., 2015. Explaining, not just predicting, drives interest in personal genomics. Genome medicine, 7(1), p.74.

Miller, D. (1992). The generic strategy trap. Journal of Business Strategy, 13(1), 37-41

Ottman, J., 2017. The new rules of green marketing: Strategies, tools, and inspiration for sustainable branding. Routledge.

Paudyal, K., Putzel, L., Baral, H., Chaudhary, S., Sharma, R., Bhandari, S., Poudel, I. and Keenan, R.J., 2017. From denuded to green mountains: process and motivating factors of forest landscape restoration in Phewa Lake watershed, Nepal. International Forestry Review, 19(4), pp.75-87.

Ryan, D., 2016. Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation. Kogan Page Publishers.

Tang, Z.H., Li, X.G., Nie, X.P., Wang, J.C. and Shuai, S.X., 2017, February. Studies of Composition and performance of mountain sand concrete powders. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 170, No. 1, p. 012023). IOP Publishing.

Taylor, J., Coates, E., Brewster, L., Mountain, G., Wessels, B. and Hawley, M.S., 2015. Examining the use of telehealth in community nursing: identifying the factors affecting frontline staff acceptance and telehealth adoption. Journal of advanced nursing, 71(2), pp.326-337.

Westwood, J., 2018. Web Design Signal Mountain TN.

Zhang, Z. and Luo, Y., 2018. Study on Influence of Emotional Marketing on Consumers' Purchase Intention.