Marketing plan assessment of the four Ps and controllable strategies

Marketing Strategy: Travel Today

The focus of Travel Today is to grow its business extensively through i) differentiating its services from those offered by competitors and ii) nurturing clients by understanding and tending to their specific travel needs. We intend to market our brands and services extensively so that clients are aware not only of our existence, but also of our ability to address their specific travel needs and deliver value for their money. Having been in existence for over two decades, we enjoy a more established reputation than most of our competitors. A recent audit into the company's operations revealed that business has been slow for us because of our slow response to changes in technology. Our competitors have built on this inherent weakness to draw competitive advantage. For this reason, our marketing strategy will be focused on three core areas -- offering competitive and reasonable prices to our clients; ii) increasing our presence in social media platforms and iii) delivering value for money by ensuring that the products and services we offer can adequately address the needs of our clients.

Product Strategy

Travel Today commits itself to easing the processes of travel planning and making traveling an easier and more convenient experience for clients. This it achieves through a range of service offerings that include identifying travel destinations for clients based on their needs and budget; making transport arrangements and hotel reservations; selling vacation packages from tourist destinations, resort and cruise lines; and providing insight to clients and potential clients on required documentation, travel advisories, and weather conditions. Our mission is to deliver value for money by ensuring that our clients receive the best airfare rates, hotel guides, hotel reservations, travel guides and package deals given their budget and travel needs. With the fast pace of globalization and trade liberalization, people will always find a need to travel, be it for leisure or for business purposes. Globalization and trade liberalization, therefore, present massive growth opportunities for Travel Today and other companies within the tours and travel industry. Another fundamental opportunity for growth of our brand is the U.S.' recent removal of sanctions against Cuba. This increases opportunities for tourism and opens up new business platforms for Travel Today over the next few years as clients seek to explore Cuba's viability as a business and tourist destination.

Well, there are many companies both locally and internationally that offer the same services as ours. However, differently from most of our competitors who just do it for the money, we strive to establish long-lasting relationships with our clients through differentiated products. First, our service offerings are designed to cater for traveler groups as opposed to individual travelers, and this makes us better-placed to cater for the traveling needs of families. Moreover, our contract does not end when the client gets on that plane. We form strategic alliances with popular resorts and hotels and extend the information that we collect on customer needs through market research to them so that the clients we refer to them get value for their money and have their specific travel needs met. We do not put hotels and resorts in competition with each other; rather, we share information on consumer needs with them so that they too are able to deliver value for money

Instead of pitting hotels, resorts and destinations in competition with each other, we form some form of outsourcing relationship, where they outsource the market research function to us, and concentrate on their core functions. This helps us to establish strategic relationships, where the client, as the core beneficiary, has their needs satisfied regardless of their budgets. This has given us a competitive edge because if we are able to help all our suppliers understand the needs of customers, then we are able to provide our customers with a wider range of satisfying destinations to choose from. Our customers are, therefore, almost guaranteed that their travel needs will be satisfied once they associate with Travel Today, regardless of the season and their budgets.

Promotional Strategies

Our promotional strategy will be geared at i) making our existence known to potential clients, ii) making our target customer aware of the range of services we offer, and iii) making potential clients aware of our ability to address their unique travel needs. The overriding aim is to communicate to the consumer the potential benefits they stand to derive from seeking out our services:

i) Value for money through exclusive travel destinations

ii) Comprehensive information packages

iii) Access to special interest vacation destinations in line with their needs and preferences

The specific strategies that we intend to use to spread the word include:

Advertising: this will be undertaken through local newspapers, as well as industry and trade publications popular among tourists and members of the business fraternity. The marketing department will be advised to constantly look out for special editions in local newspapers that the company could take advantage of to market its brand. Other forms of advertising will include brochures, which will be professionally-done and distributed by our sales agents located in strategic points, including in selected bookshops and hypermarket stores, and bill boards, which will be put up strategically outside conference facilities, hotels and within airport facilities to communicate the services we offer. This form of marketing has the advantage of getting the intended message to a larger audience (Ferrell & Hartline, 2012).

Word-of-Mouth Referrals: the organization intends to retain face-to-face referrals as a primary form of promotion for its brand. The organization will offer initiatives such as discount facilities to clients who successfully refer new clients to the organization. Owing to its heavy reliance on word-of-mouth advertising, the organization will be keen to ensure that it maintains high levels of customer satisfaction by staying at par with changing client needs. Word-of-mouth referrals will also be a crucial way of monitoring customer satisfaction (Ferrell & Hartline, 2012)