Entrepreneurial Marketing

Executive Summary

Herrco Cosmetics specialises in manufacturing and distribution of cosmetics and skincare products in the country as well as internationally. The firm is subjected to a wide recognition recently due to effective formulation of various aromatherapy, body, bath and skincare products. In addition to this, the firm is indulged into providing effective innovative solution to its clients.

The firm maintains the sustainability of its products by usage of Palm Oil, which is one of the main component in the firm's 90% of the products. However, to prevent the environmental harm for this oil's production, the firm is paying extra premium for green palm sustainability. To stay ahead on its organic agenda, the company is adopting various methods of recycling of its cardboard and waste products. Herrco Cosmetics, in order to convey its business practices, is willing to develop social media marketing plan for a span of 4 months.

Marketing Audit

Internal Environment

Herrco Cosmetics is a family owned business which was founded in 1988 by Nigel Herrmann. For more than two decades, the company has established itself as a crucial company within the UK market. The firm is currently taken over by Derek Herrmann, son of Nigel Herrmann, who operates as Technical Sales Director within the firm. The firm has a team of skilled technical staff such as various chemists and R&D employees. The organisation has experienced growth in its production rate within the last 5-7 years from half a million units to eight million.  To keep up with the consistency, the company is investing its resources in various plants and machinery for organic production of its skincare and cosmetic goods.. The biggest agenda of the firm is to enhance its production in an organic and natural way which is environmental friendly and attracts major customers globally (Herrco Cosmetics HERRCO TO WELCOME NEW FACTORY INTO THE FAMILY, 2019).

The vision of Herrco Cosmetics is to service customers all around the world with their organic skincare products and effective service quality. The mission of the company is to manufacture and distribute skin-friendly and medically advanced products covering all the skincare markets such as skincare, body, bath, etc.

Having being led by family members, culture of the company promotes supportive management and providing effective environment to the members to ensure maximum input from the employees and utmost competence.

The organizational structure of Herrco Cosmetics consists of various departments such as production, manufacturing, R&D, sales, etc. that allow the company to gather information about the immediate needs of its customers to that it could satisfy their demands in a better manner.

External Environment

The current external market situation of the company is quite favourable in various aspects which could contribute in the company's long-term success. Politically, the firm is getting support from governments to enhance its business operations and produce better products for future prospects. As per various sources, the firm is under contract with the US governments to develop almost 100 organic merchandises, which would be its biggest range till date.  Economically, despite events like Brexit, Herrco Cosmetics is planning to enhance its production capacity by at least 400% for which the company is willing to invest almost £600,000 for further future projects (Herrco Cosmetics HERRCO TO WELCOME NEW FACTORY INTO THE FAMILY, 2019). Socially too, the firm would attract a lot of customers who keep themselves away from artificial products with added chemicals that could damage their skin or cause serious infections. Where as Technological aspects are concerned, the investment of the firm for its new production vessels would allow it to employ efficient technology to enhance the process of production. Where is Legal and Environmental facets of the environment are concerned, the company would be complying with laws such as Environmental Protection Act and would also be complying with various environmental standards set for cosmetics company.

SWOT Analysis

Before developing and implementing the social media marketing plan, it is imperative that the firm undergoes a detailed SWOT analysis to identify factors which could contribute to its growth and those areas which needs the firm's attention (Miles and et. al., 2015).

Strengths

• The firm is situated almost 100 miles from Heathrow Airport, London, and about 40 miles from Felixstow Docks which contributes to an easy export of products to its global customers
• Herrco Cosmetics focuses on an organic and healthy way of producing skincare products which even have support of governments.

 

Weakness

• As per various statistics, the organisation has witnessed a decline in both its revenue as well as its employees in last one year which could hinder the support the firm needs to expand its operations.

(Source: Herrco Cosmetics Ltd. Company Profile, 2019)

• The firm has a weaker social media presence which fails the company to reach customers outside its target markets.

Oportunities

• The biggest opportunity of the company is the inclination of the customers towards environment-friendly and healthy skincare products which the firm specialises in. This would help the organisation seize future opportunities for growth.
• The government support the firm is being given could shape its future operations in a legal and competent manner.

Threats

• Herrco Cosmetics' biggest threat is the existing competition in the market with the companies like The Body Shop. Lush, etc. which have a huge market share in the UK.
• Another threat for the firm would be the dynamic nature of cosmetics industry around the world. With such aggressive changes in customer preference overtime could reduce the consistency of the company to produce effective products that match the demand of the marketplace.

Smart Objectives

These objectives are those which are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic as well as Time-Based (Lodish and et. al., 2015). These goals help a company to develop strategies to achieve specific targets set by the organisations in an appropriate and systematic way. For Herrco Cosmetics, the SMART objectives are listed below:

Business Objectives

• To enhance the overall sales by 6% by the end of first quarter of 2019.
• To expand overall customer base by 12% by the end of April 2019.
• To increase the turnover by 10% by the end of April 2019.

Marketing Objectives

• To increase the website traffic by 40% the end of April 2019.
• To increase the number of followers of Facebook by 20% by the end of first quarter of 2019.
• To increase YouTube followers by 16% by the end of April 2019.

Target Audeince

It is quite imperative for the firm to effectively identify its target customers to channelise its strategies on a specific group of buyers which would enhance the odds of maximising the profits. Herrco Cosmetics must identify these customers by market segmentation (Whalen and Akaka, 2016). This along with the targeting process of the company is mentioned below:

Market Segmentation

• Geographical:This factor divides the customers on the basis of their geographical location. For the firm, the most suitable locations for implementation of its marketing plan would be the urban parts of United Kingdom.
• Demographics:This aspect divides consumers on the basis of age, gender, income and marital status. For Herrco, these customers would be females of the country, aged between 18 to 60, with income more than £10,000 of any marital status.
• Psychographics:This divides the consumers on the basis of their personality and lifestyle. The customers for the firm would be those who use beauty products regularly and incline towards use of natural products as well as users of social media platforms.

Market Targeting

Out of all the segments, it is imperative that the company targets the customer groups most likely to contribute to the success of the social media marketing plan (Kilenthong, P., Hultman and Hills, 2016). Herrco Cosmetics would target customers of the urban areas of UK having income more than £10,000, who prefer using natural products and active on social media.

Social Media Zones And Vechiele

For effectively developing social media marketing plan, it is important that the company to determine various social media zones and vehicles to reach customers in order to convey its strategy and business practices (Ahmadi and O'Cass, 2016). Herrco Cosmetics, in order to communicate its strategy of product recycling and extra premium for Green Palm Sustainability, the social media zones and vehicles to communicate the customers about the same are as follows:

Community/ Relationships

The Community refers to the relationship of Herrco Cosmetics with the people of that area in which it operates. It will make strong the relationship between people and company increasing their engagements on:

• Facebook:In making people aware about the eco friendly ways of working, showing Herrco's way of working to others.
• YouTube: Getting reviews on recycling process used, telling others to use the same way to increase contribution towards environment protection.

Publishing

It refers to distribution of content to audience. It will be accomplished through:

• Blogs:used for publishing any improvement in technology which concerns with waste management and saves environment for creating transparency.
• YouTube: perfect for getting customer supports, for giving any new products advertisement.

Entertainment

The entertainment can be done through social media in following ways:

• Facebook: use of Facebook in entertainment can be done by providing fun quiz on the Facebook page.
• Videos:use of videos can be done by creating a short film on some products and its manufacturing process.

Commerce

The sites used for selling products in UK and abroad.

• Ebay: used to sell the cosmetic products, healthcare products.
• Amazon: can also be used to sell the products and as an e commerce partner for Herrco Cosmetics.

Experience Strategy

As per the discussion of various zones, Herrco Cosmetics would use all the zones and vehicles to spread the message about the organic inclination and environmental friendly practices of the firm. These zones would help the company launch a strong and effective social media campaign that could reach millions of customers worldwide and could spread the message of such nature-friendly processes adopted by the company (Chaston, 2015). To enhance its effectiveness, the firm would launch a marketing campaign by the name of “Natural Beauty” which would clearly deliver the messages to the customers of the company about the processes adopted by the firm..

All the content and videos related to the process of production of cosmetic products will be effectively posted under this campaign using various social media zones like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. For this purpose, the campaign would be positioned as #NaturalBeauty that would attract a lot of customers within limited time.  

To develop the emotional attachment with customers, the company will create compelling videos about the nature and why organic offerings by the organisation would enhance the beauty of women. Moreover, the fun quizzes about nature and various celebrities associated with the firm would help the firm connect with customers.

The strategy would also undertake various feedbacks acquired by the customers which would help the firm in adopting strategies and methods that could increase and satisfy more customer demands. Effectiveness in commerce would allow the firm to expand its customer base beyond the UK.

Activation Plan

This stage would require the firm to actually implement the set strategy and develop a plan which would involve the activities and the estimated timescale for its completion. Since the plan is of 4 months, Herrco Cosmetics would develop its plan to effectively satisfy its agenda within the given period.

What will be done

To effectively launch and monitor the campaign, the company, in the span of 4 months would use social media portals like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Amazon to communicate to customers about its processes and to trade its products in the market.

When it will be done

To spread the campaign, the company would first set out the resources to be used in the pre-planning phase. This would include the human resources, as well as software and advertising methods which would allow the firm to effectively implement the plan and monitor it. The timeline for the same would be 25-30 days. The firm would then launch the campaign #NaturalBeauty on these social media platforms. This would require Herrco Cosmetics at least a month to create videos, images, animation and everything necessary for the same. The final step would be the monitoring of this campaign by benchmarking and KPI tools. For the next two months, the firm would just interact with the audience through social media and monitor effectiveness of its campaign by continue to effectively manage its posts, public profile and media interaction.

Timescale

To maximise the effectiveness and satisfy the agenda, the firm within 4 months would use these social media portals to implement and monitor this campaign and attract majority of customers towards its organic cosmetic products and processes.

Management And Magerment

This aspect requires Herrco Cosmetics to manage its campaign and employ various methods that would help in measuring and controlling the marketing plan (Yang and Gabrielsson, 2017).

Budget

The most important aspect of the company is to determine the budget of the project. The estimated budged for #Natural Beauty is mentioned below:

BUDGET CATEGORY	AMOUNT
Writing	4500
Graphics	7000
Videos	9000
Social advertising (Facebook, Twitter and Youtube)	11000
Contractor's cost for social engagement	7500
Analytics and Monitoring Software	13000
Discounts and Promotions	6500
Total	58500

Control

The firm would control the campaign by employing various KPI and Benchmarking methods like shares on the post, profile visits, likes on the videos and the content, retweets, people following companies profile on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube which would help the company to ensure completion of its marketing objectives which were to increase website traffic by 40% and enhancement in Facebook and YouTube followers by 20% and 16% respectively. Lastly, the firm would also set the sales from Amazon as its KPI.

Conclusion

Thus, it is concluded that it is essential for a company to develop and implement a Social Media marketing plan in order to effectively enhance the visibility of its processes to its customers. The firm must audit its marketing scenario and must internally analyse to judge its capacity. SMART objectives would allow the firm to set up strategies to attain its business and marketing objectives. Social Media zones and vehicles would be effective for the company in terms of reaching out to customers worldwide. Lastly, it is imperative for the firm to develop an activation plan and manage and monitor the same to enhance the effectiveness of its Social Media marketing plan.

References

• Ahmadi, H. and O'Cass, A., 2016. The role of entrepreneurial marketing in new technology ventures first product commercialization. Journal of Strategic Marketing. 24(1). pp.47-60.
• Chaston, I., 2015. Entrepreneurial Marketing: Sustaining Growth in All Organisations. Macmillan International Higher Education.
• Kilenthong, P., Hultman, C.M. and Hills, G.E., 2016. Entrepreneurial marketing behaviors: impact of firm age, firm size and firm’s founder. Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship. 18(1). pp.127-145.
• Lodish, L.M., and et. al., 2015. Marketing that works: how entrepreneurial marketing can add sustainable value to any sized company. Pearson Education.
• Miles, M., and et. al., 2015. Exploring entrepreneurial marketing. Journal of Strategic Marketing. 23(2). pp.94-111.
• Nijssen, E.J., 2017. Entrepreneurial marketing: an effectual approach. Routledge.
• Whalen, P.S. and Akaka, M.A., 2016. A dynamic market conceptualization for entrepreneurial marketing: the co-creation of opportunities. Journal of Strategic Marketing. 24(1). pp.61-75.
• Yang, M. and Gabrielsson, P., 2017. Entrepreneurial marketing of international high-tech business-to-business new ventures: A decision-making process perspective. Industrial Marketing Management. 64. pp.147-160.