Nn15 Business And Marketing : Assessment Answers

Answer:

Introduction

Marketing plan refers to a comprehensive document which outlines the marketing efforts of a business for the coming years. It gives a brief description of all the business activities which are involved in the accomplishment of specific objectives within the time period. In addition to this, it also comprises a description of the organization’s existing marketing position, its target market and marketing mix, used for achieving the business goals. The plan’s structure is formal yet flexible, which consists of some past data, predictions and strategic methods for achieving the objectives (Armstrong et al., 2015).

The report throws light on a marketing plan of a new personal loan company, located in a central area. Assure Finance Limited is a new personal loan company, which is located at Texas. The marketing plans of the company consists of the situation analysis of the market, budgets, action programs, financial statements and sales forecasts strategies. Furthermore, it contains full analysis of strengths as well as weaknesses of the company.

The report highlights the marketing plan of the company along with its situational analysis, thorough market research, target market and others. In addition to this, it consists of a SWOT analysis of the company, in order to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of their services.

Mission Statement and the Current State

Assure Finance Limited is committed to meet all the banking needs of their customers. Their mission is to offer value added services and products to the customers and build strong and meaningful relationships with them, resulting in superior customer service level. They provide unique services to their customers in a friendly environment of working. Their services are based on retaining and hiring of the employees who works hard with integrity, honesty and higher standards of ethics. The major purpose of marketing plans is to set up a specific course for the company’s marketing strategies. The marketing goals help in aligning with the company’s objectives (Best, 2012).

For a new company like, Assure Finance, the marketing plan must emphasize on the strategies for increasing the consumer base. The company’s goal is to improve their services for the customers as well as the communities they live and work in. Their purpose is to make life easier for the ordinary people and bring convenience. The company provides their customers with instant loans at a very reasonable rate. They value their customers without compromising on integrity and honesty. However, as the company is new, it is important to help the business grow by setting up strong goals and implementing innovative technologies. Moreover, improving collaboration and teamwork will also help in achieving the targets easily (Ehrlich & Fanelli, 2012).

Products and Services

The bank offers a number of services and products to its consumers. They offer the customers with loans at floating and reasonable interest rates. The services are government guaranteed and their solutions include; multi family, residential construction, official, rental, specialized industry and others. The company provides easy loan solutions which are easily approved by seamless applications processes. Moreover, it offers the customers with doorstep services for collecting the documents of loan application as well as their processing. There are options of easy repayment within the tenure of twenty four months to more than sixty months, in case of personal loans. However, the tenure for home loans is up to twenty years.

To understand the competitive advantages of the company, it is important to conduct a SWOT analysis.

Identification of the Target Market

Identifying the target audience is very important and many factors are to be kept in mind before making selections. On deciding the target market, the company needs to set an age group of the consumers to whom they are going to serve. Moreover, they should gain an understanding of the behavior and the forces affecting the consumer’s purchasing power. In addition to this, the company must also keep a track of the competitive environment. Knowing and identifying the target market is very crucial before starting a business organization (Khan & Bhatti, 2012). The market segmentation is to be done in the following manner;

Non Customers

The non customers are the ones who have never been in that particular bank before. This primarily consists of the competitive banks’ customers and also the younger section of the society, who are yet to form a banking relationship of the company. The company must expand their banking services for targeting that segment by implementing more value added services. However, this can be done by introducing new offers and deals for capturing the market (Leeflang et al., 2014).

Low value customers

Low value customers comprise two groups; one is the limited income group and the other is the one who diversifies financial products among financial institutions. For instance, an individual might choose to save his/her money in four different banks. Therefore, the bank’s major challenge is to convince them by offering more flexible services, in order to stand apart from other competitive banks (McDaniel & Gates, 2012).

Medium value customers

This group is segregated into two different segments. The first group comprises the consumers having majority of their businesses with a particular bank and thus it limits their potential of becoming higher valued customers. The second group comprises the people who have financial businesses with other banks as well, due to special offers and benefits, in order to diversify the accounts (Mitic & Kapoulas, 2012).

High value customers

They are the ones who have large deposits as well as loans with a particular bank. They are responsible for forming the basis of the bank’s profitability. They are highly valued and get additional benefits and services as the overall contribution is higher (Sørensen, 2012).

Ex customers

This segment mainly consists of the customers who became inactive and stopped getting services from that particular bank. This can happen due to the competitive banking environment. The preferences of the consumers might change anytime; therefore, the financial institutions need to keep a track record of their behavior and attitude, so that they do not lose customers (Weiss & Pollak, 2016).  

Meeting the needs of the customers

The expectations and preferences of the customers changes, especially in banking services. It is important to keep a track record of their behavior and changing preferences. They prefer those banks which gives flexible services with less interest rate. However, Assure Finance Limited can assure its customers with value added and flexible services. It can implement new and innovative strategies for grabbing the attention of the customers. Internet banking can help a lot in this. Now a days, applying for loans have become easier. Customers can get services at their doorsteps; therefore, the company needs to be more efficient in these segments (Westwood, 2016).

For successfully accomplishing the goals and increase customer engagement, Internet banking is the best solution. Assure Finance Limited must adapt new online technologies as well as strategies for optimizing their online services. The websites and web pages must be updated on a regular basis. Offering smart phone banking applications will help in providing with necessary functionalities and security to the modern day consumers. This will be convenient for the users as they can make payments sitting at their homes and at any time. However, the financial institution needs to update and send text messages to their customers, related to the services, offers or deals on a daily basis (Wu, 2012).

Moreover, alert messages can also be sent to the customers through texts for the maximum convenience. This would help in meeting payment deadlines, preventing forgery or frauds, wire transfers, large purchases, foreign transactions and more. Moreover, Assure Company can also improve the customer’s digital experience by enhancing their data analytics capabilities. In addition to this, it would also help in reducing the operation costs and meet compliance and regulatory requirements. The bank also needs to enhance their security and authentication as it is new in the market. Improvement in the business processes can help in gaining a strong customer base. The customers must not face any issues regarding the repayment of the loans. Therefore, the bank must have all the policies and procedures in a written format signed by the authority, in order to gain the trust of the customers (Ehrlich & Fanelli, 2012).

Conclusion 

To conclude, the marketing plan of the new loan company Assure Finance Limited is feasible. However, the bank needs to be more effective and efficient in order to prepare their strategies and compete with the existing competitors. New and innovative technologies must be implemented. In addition to this, identifying the target audience also plays a major role in the success of the business. Furthermore, a SWOT analysis of the bank has helped in gaining useful insights. Identification of the threats and weaknesses are very important and actions must be taken in accordance with that. This will help the company achieve its goals and objectives, while benefitting the industry in a huge way. Therefore, before entering the market the financial institution must do a thorough research of the current marketing strategies, competitive environment, customer’s needs and demands, trends and other changes in the technological aspect.

References

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R. (2015). Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.

Best, R. (2012). Market-based management. Pearson Higher Ed.

Ehrlich, E., & Fanelli, D. (2012). The financial services marketing handbook: Tactics and techniques that produce results (Vol. 150). John Wiley & Sons.

Hollensen, S. (2015). Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson Education.

Hull, J. (2012). Risk management and financial institutions, Web Site (Vol. 733). John Wiley & Sons.

Kaplan, R. S., & Mikes, A. (2012). Managing risks: a new framework.

Khan, S. A., & Bhatti, R. (2012). Application of social media in marketing of library and information services: A case study from Pakistan. Webology, 9(1), 1.

Leeflang, P. S., Verhoef, P. C., Dahlström, P., & Freundt, T. (2014). Challenges and solutions for marketing in a digital era. European management journal, 32(1), 1-12.

McDaniel, C., & Gates, R. (2012). Marketing research essentials. Wiley Global Education.

Mitic, M., & Kapoulas, A. (2012). Understanding the role of social media in bank marketing. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 30(7), 668-686.

Sørensen, H. E. (2012). Business development. In Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management. Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

Weiss, A., & Pollak, S. R. (2016). Million dollar consulting: The professional's guide to growing a practice. McGraw-Hill Education on Brilliance Audio.

Westwood, J. (2016). How to write a marketing plan. Kogan Page Publishers.

Wu, H. Y. (2012). Constructing a strategy map for banking institutions with key performance indicators of the balanced scorecard. Evaluation and Program Planning, 35(3), 303-320.