Marketing Plan for a Small Computer Technology Company

Executive Summary

This marketing plan presents the various strategies that All Technology Computer (ATC) will use to enhance its competitive market advantages. The paper discusses the company's mission statement and the strategies the company will use to align that mission with its strategic objectives. Brand differentiation is identified as an effective marketing tool for enhancing market advantages, and integrated marketing communication (IMC) has been identified as a complementary tool within the business environment. Importantly, ATC will operate in the U.S. economy and will leverage the economic and technological strengths of the United States to deliver high-quality products and services.

ATC (All Technology Computer) is a computer hardware and software provider operating in the United States. The company is dedicated to providing products and services to home offices and small businesses. In addition to its U.S. operations, the company intends to expand beyond the United States in the future. ATC's primary line of business covers computer and networking services delivered to small businesses and home offices across the country. The company also provides supplementary services such as networking system installation, training, and technical support for small businesses.

Company Background and Marketing Objectives

ATC is currently facing challenges related to general trends in the IT industry, including lower inventory turnovers, margin squeeze, and longer collection periods. This marketing plan is designed to address those challenges and assist the company in enhancing its competitive market position.

ATC has established the following marketing objectives:

To record sales of more than $10 million by the end of the 2013 fiscal year; to improve the company's inventory turnover to 7 turns by 2013; to capture 20% of the market share from home and small businesses across the United States; and to record a gross margin above 35% and maintain that level.

The mission of ATC is to offer customers the best computer experience by providing high-quality computer products and services. The company's mission statement is to excel in the computer resale industry and to build strong relationships with both customers and suppliers. Over the years, ATC has focused on personalized services by providing rapid and convenient customer support. The company will also achieve its mission by developing strong vendor relationships to meet customer needs and by using technology expertise to enhance competitive market advantages within the computer industry.

Branding, Pricing, and Distribution Plan

Brand is an intangible asset that organizations use to achieve competitive market advantages. Branding represents company identity and is used to achieve market superiority. ATC will use its branding as a marketing tool to achieve its mission.

One of the major objectives of this marketing plan is to use branding to assist ATC in enhancing its competitive market advantages. Branding is one of the key aspects of business strategy used to manage product image and create customer value. A brand is an image, emotion, and perception that customers hold toward a company's products and services. Branding refers to what customers feel about the company's products and services and has been identified as playing an important role in enhancing corporate identity (Cheskis, 2012).

Holt (2010) argues that branding strategy is a key aspect of marketing strategy, assisting in delivering overall business goals. Brand strategies should be designed to enhance business value, and a brand connotes brand identity. For example, Mercedes-Benz has used brand strategy to position its products as the most valuable vehicles in the auto industry (Schmidt, 2012). The benefits identified in branding will lead ATC to use brand strategy to win both domestic and international market advantages.

ATC will create brand awareness to capture market share, positioning its products and services in both domestic and international markets to build trust in the customer's mind. Creating a strong brand is critical to establishing a firm's identity and developing a customer franchise. Moreover, a strong brand is a strategic weapon for strengthening a firm's position within a competitive market environment (Douglas & Nijssen, 1999). Thus, ATC will use a combination of product and corporate branding to create customer awareness for its products and services.

Herrmann et al. (2010) argue that organizations face challenges when developing a positive brand image and a unique brand identity. To ensure that a brand contributes to overall company success, there is a need for full managerial support aimed at building a distinct brand image. ATC will provide maximum managerial support to promote its product and corporate brands. The corporate brand will be used to enhance awareness of the company's products and services in order to create a lasting impression in the customer's mind.

ATC will use a different branding strategy to create product awareness at the international level, because the approach effective in the domestic market will differ from what is appropriate internationally. Firms must adopt different strategies within the global market to achieve competitive advantages due to differences in culture and consumer tastes. ATC will therefore use a management-supported branding policy for its global strategy, employing strategic partnerships to launch its products internationally and emulating the business strategies used by top Fortune 100 companies. For example, Adidas uses an alliance strategy, collaborating with Porsche and Stella McCartney to design sport-inspired fashion products with broad customer appeal. Similarly, many firms use a hybrid-branding strategy that combines corporate and product branding. Coca-Cola, for instance, uses a combination of a global corporate brand with product-level brands such as Cherry Coke, Coke Lite, and Diet Coke. Organizations such as Shell, Apple, Philips, and Nike use corporate branding to enhance competitive market advantages. ATC will use a combination of corporate and product branding to launch its products and services globally, employing the company logo and name to promote its offerings in international markets.

ATC will seek to alleviate the challenges that firms face when setting prices for new products. Krishnan (1999) argues that optimum pricing policies are the best strategy organizations can use when fixing prices for new products. The appropriate optimum price should depend on customer price sensitivity. Krishnan recommends that organizations may fix higher prices if customers are less sensitive to price, while firms should set lower prices when customers are price-sensitive. The current economic conditions in the United States have made customers more sensitive to high prices, and stiff competition gives consumers more options to switch to substitutes.

ATC will fix the premium price for its products using the Parsons (1987) technique. Parsons (1987) argues that organizations need to use a combination of factors to determine the optimum price, including: competitive factors, market conditions, consumer behavior, and utility perceptions. ATC will evaluate the competitive market environment of the domestic market to set the optimum price. The company will also consider the prevailing industry price and current competitor pricing before fixing prices for its products and services. At the global level, the company will evaluate the economic, sociocultural, political, and technological environment of each country in which ATC operates before fixing prices. Coca-Cola provides a useful parallel — as a global company, it does not apply uniform prices across countries but instead considers local market conditions, economic conditions, and the competitive landscape before setting prices in each market.

ATC will use a strong brand position to ensure that customers accept the prices set for its products and services, employing a differentiation strategy to make those prices acceptable. By creating a strong brand position, ATC will be able to set prices that support its brand. Extensive promotion will help consumers understand the high value they derive from purchasing ATC products. By building strong brand awareness, ATC will be able to influence customers to accept its pricing. In 2007, Apple demonstrated this principle when it built strong brand awareness for the iPhone 8G version, priced at $599, and millions of customers lined up to purchase it.

A distribution channel describes the chain of businesses through which a firm distributes its goods and services to customers. ATC will use distribution channels including wholesalers, distributors, retailers, and the internet to distribute its goods and services. The company will also use an indirect distribution channel through which consumers can buy products directly from wholesalers and retailers. This indirect distribution strategy will allow the company to reach a large number of consumers simultaneously.

To reach a larger number of consumers, ATC will focus more on retailers than wholesalers, because retailers are closer to the end consumer. The company will offer its products to a large number of retail units across the country, increasing total sales while lowering operating costs.

ATC will also use internet technology and e-commerce to distribute its products and services both domestically and internationally. Recent developments in information technology have made the internet an effective and efficient tool for distributing products and services globally. ATC will integrate e-commerce into its distribution channel to reach more customers in both the United States and international markets.