Marketing Project Proposal for Occasion Ltd.’s New Smartwatch (LifeTime)

This business report presents a marketing project proposal for the new smartwatch (lifetime) to help Occasion Ltd penetrate the market. It proposes a marketing plan that will last twelve weeks with a budget of £100,000. It also states the specific marketing goals that the marketing project and plan will achieve within the first quarter of the financial year. It further highlights the benefits, risk factors and distribution of the budget for the marketing plan. This report will help the management team at Occasion Ltd to identify the viability of the proposed marketing project and its potential for penetrating the highly competitive market.

Project Plan

This marketing project includes a comprehensive strategy for launching the LifeTime smartwatch to help Occasion Ltd achieve its marketing goals. This will help Occasion leverage various marketing channels and tactics, including social media campaigns, Influencer marketing, content marketing, email marketing and event marketing, to optimise its marketing and advertising capability. For example, this marketing project will help Occasion to create a strong social media presence for the LifeTime smartwatch through targeted advertising and social media campaigns (Desai and Vidyapeeth, 2019). This project’s advertising campaign will highlight the unique features and benefits of the LifeTime smartwatch. For instance, the project will ensure that the advertising campaign provides valuable content, such as promoting the smartwatch features, including its long battery life, water resistance and advanced health monitoring features, to the targeted customers (Desai and Vidyapeeth, 2019, P. 197). This advertisement campaign will target individuals interested in health, fitness and technology by displaying ads on social media platforms, the company’s website, search engine and other relevant online resources.

The marketing project will also help Occasion Ltd. use social media to engage its customers and build a community around the LifeTime brand. For example, the marketing project will help Occasion to create valuable content through a partnership with social media influencers and hosting product launch events. The content from this marketing project will focus on educating the targeted audience on the benefits of the LifeTime smartwatch and how it can help them achieve their health and fitness goals (Desai and Vidyapeeth, 2019, P. 197). The social media influencer will help Occasion reach out to a wider audience and increase the credibility of the LifeTime brand.

The strategic planning in this marketing project will help Occasion create a seamless online purchasing experience for all customers. For example, it will help Occasion Ltd. Create a user-friendly website optimised for search engines, including all the necessary product information, customer reviews, email sign-up forms and social media share button. The user-friendly features of this website will encourage customers to share their experience with the LifeTime smartwatch (Desai and Vidyapeeth, 2019, P. 199). This will help Occasion collect insightful data about customers’ preferences, expectations and needs which can be used to improve the quality of the LifeTime smartwatch. The marketing project will also help Occasion Ltd. Leverage events marketing to create buzz and generate interest for the LifeTime smartwatch. For example, the marketing project will include a strategic plan on how Occasion Ltd. Will host a product launch event in key cities across the UK to showcase the LifeTime smartwatch and create a hands-on experience for its potential customers. The project will also ensure that all launch events are promoted through social media channels and targeted advertising campaigns. This will support Occasion Ltd.’s effort to promote the LifeTime smartwatch and effectively penetrate the competitive market.

The marketing project will further help Occasion Ltd. Use a strategic approach to create an effective email marketing campaign to nurture potential customers and encourage them to purchase the LifeTime smartwatch. For example, the marketing project will provide Occasion Ltd with a strategic plan to create personalised and targeted email campaigns that showcase the benefits and unique features of the LifeTime smartwatch. This will give the LifeTime smartwatch competitive advantages by creating a positive perceived value among the different categories of the targeted customers. Table 1 below outlines how each marketing campaign will be carried out during the 12-weeks marketing project (Khandare and Nagare, 2021, p. 243).

Table 1: Occasion Ltd Marketing Plan For the Life Time Smartwatch

Project Scope

This marketing project aims to help Occasion Ltd penetrate the highly competitive market within a 12-week period or the first quarter of the company’s financial year allocated for launching the new smartwatch product, LifeTime. It will help Occasion Ltd. increase brand awareness, capture market share and generate higher revenue. This will increase the market by 30% within the next 12 weeks by creating a strong brand presence and high product awareness among potential customers. For example, the marketing project will help Occasion Ltd. create an engaging social media campaign, foster partnering with social media influencers, create valuable content and host product launch events. It will also help Occasion Ltd. to achieve a 5% market share of the smartwatch by the end of the first quarter. The 5% market share will help Occasion to capture a significant portion of the smartwatch market and establish this new product as a major player in the industry. The marketing depart will use this marketing project to create a targeted marketing campaign that resonates with the target audience and showcase the unique features and benefits of the LifeTime smartwatch. Furthermore, the marketing project aims to generate a revenue of 1 million pounds in the first quarter through sales of the LifeTime smartwatch. This will help Occasion to generate a significant return on investment for the marketing budget allocated to the launch of the LifeTime smartwatch. For example, the marketing project will provide an effective marketing campaign to drive traffic to the LifeTime website and encourage potential customers to purchase the smartwatch.

Budget of the Project

The total budget for this marketing project is £100,000. This budget will cover the cost of the marketing activities that will be carried out for twelve weeks. The entire budget will be distributed among categories, including research and development, branding and identity, advertising, public relations, event activations, and contingency funds. Table 1 below illustrates how the budget will be distributed in this marketing project.

Table 2: Budget Distribution for the Marketing Project

Risk and Mitigation

While this marketing project has the potential to yield significant rewards, it also involves several risks that may hinder it from being implemented successfully. With this in mind, the marketing team needs to identify these risks and develop strategic interventions to mitigate them and minimise their impact. Some of the risks that the marketing team in this project should consider include a high level of competition, limited budget, limited awareness, technical issues, negative reviews and other external factors.

The marketing plan has a limited budget of £100,000, which may be insufficient to execute all the marketing tactics effectively. However, one of the strategic plans in this project is prioritising the marketing tactics that are most likely to yield the highest return on investment. This will help Occasion mitigate most of the risk associated with a limited budget in the marketing project (Pun and Heese, 2015, p. 85). Since the LifeTime smartwatch is a new product, the targeted market may have limited awareness. This may require the marketing team to put more effort into increasing product awareness than when marketing products already exist in the market. Fortunately, the marketing plan in this project is targeted advertising campaigns and influence marketing tactics that will help develop a strong brand identity and awareness of the product through targeted advertising campaigns and influencer marketing tactics (Nurfarida and Sudarmiatin, 2021, P. 73). Moreover, the LifeTime smartwatches that will be used as samples may have technical issues that can lead to negative reviews resulting to lower sales than expected.

Nonetheless, the marketing plan in this project includes conducting a thorough quality control test before launching the product and sharing samples. This will ensure that the marketing project provides the customer with clear and concise product information. It will also help Occasion maintain exceptional customer support services and hence mitigate the risk of negative reviews by addressing any issues that arise proactively and engaging customers on social media (Li, Larimo and Leonidou, 2021, P. 5). The market also keeps on changes which can cause changes in customer behaviours and preference. With this in mind, part of the marketing plan in this marketing project is to regularly monitor market trends and adapt marketing tactics that change the conditions through agile approaches. Overall the marketing plan in this project is designed to mitigate the potential risk that may arise during the marketing campaigns to ensure that it can be executed effectively and successfully.

Project Success

This project will require a marketing team, advertising budget, social media management tools, website development and hosting, event planning resources, email marketing platform, a product sample and performance tracking tools to measure its success. The success of this project depends on the availability of a competent and experienced marketing team. The marketing team should have diverse skills, including social media management, content creation, email marketing, advertising and event planning (Girton, 2018, p. 84). It will also need a significant portion of Occasion Ltd.’s financial resources allocated for marketing activities such as advertising and product promotion which are essential for creating brand awareness and capturing market share. Some marketing activities where Occasion will allocate its financial resources include online advertising campaigns, search engine marketing and email advertising. The financial resource allocation to each of these activities will be proportional to the marketing goals set out in the marketing project.

During the marketing activities, Occasion Ltd will need social media management tools such as Butter or Hootsuite to schedule posts, monitor engagement and track performance. The project will also need website development and hosting service from a professional web developer and content management system from professional social media influencers to develop a user-friendly website that will help Occasion optimise the search engine and include all the necessary product information and customer review. The marketing project will also need event planning resources such as venue, event staff and promotional material for the marketing team to successfully host the product launch event (Thapa and Skinner, 2015, p. 95). The marketing team will also need an email marketing platform like Mailchimp or Constant Contact to effectively execute an email marketing campaign. One of the benefits of this platform is that Occasion can use them to create personalised and targeted email campaigns.

Moreover, the marketing team in this project will need product samples sent to different stakeholders, including social media influencers, event attendees and reviewers. Finally, the marketing team in this project will need performance tracking tools such as Google Analytics, Social media analytics and email marketing analytics to measure the effectiveness of each marketing campaign (Thapa and Skinner, 2015, p. 93). Overall the availability of these resources will help the marketing team in this project execute the marketing plan effectively and achieve the marketing goals set out in the proposal.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this marketing project has a comprehensive marketing plan to help Occasion Ltd. launch its new product, the LifeTime smartwatch and penetrate the current competitive marketing effectively and successfully over twelve weeks. It will only require a budget of £100,000, including £10,000 contingency funds. Within this budget, this marketing project will thoroughly analyse the target audience, competitors and market trends. This will help Occasion Ltd. develop a unique selling proposition for the LifeTime smartwatch leading to successful market penetration. The marketing plan in this project also includes a mix of different marketing campaigns. Approaches such as advertising, public relations and event hosting will make it easier for Occasion Ltd. to generate awareness about the product and capture the attention/interest of the targeted customers in different ways. Although the marketing plan in this marketing project presents several challenges, it has strategies and risk management approaches that will help the marketing team mitigate them or address them as soon as they occur. Overall the marketing project is designed to help Occasion Ltd. Drive sales and revenue in the current competitive smartwatch market. It will help Occasion establish its smartwatch as a premium and sought-after product, capturing a significant market share.

References

Desai, V. and Vidyapeeth, B. (2019) ‘Digital marketing: A review’, International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development, 5(5), pp.196-200. Available at https://www.academia.edu/download/90185943/ijtsrd23100.pdf

Girton, C. (2018) ‘Creating a marketing plan with a marketing team of one’. Available at http://sc.lib.miamioh.edu:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2374.MIA/6255/Creating%20a%20Marketing%20Plan%20with%20a%20Marketing%20Team%20of%20One.pdf?sequence=1andisAllowed=y

Khandare, M.D.P. and Nagare, MR (2021) ‘Prepare Project Schedule using Microsoft Project’, Journal homepage: www. ijrpr. com ISSN, 2582, p.7421. Available at https://www.ijrpr.com/uploads/V2ISSUE8/IJRPR941.pdf

Li, F., Larimo, J. and Leonidou, L.C. (2021) ‘Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualisation, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda’, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 49, pp.51-70. Available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11747-020-00733-3

Nurfarida, I.N. and Sudarmiatin, S. (2021) ‘Use of social media marketing in SMEs: driving factors and impacts’, Management and Entrepreneurship: Trends of Development, 2(16), pp.70-81. Available at https://management-journal.org.ua/index.php/journal/article/download/292/165/

Pun, H. and Heese, H.S. (2015) ‘A note on budget allocation for market research and advertising’, International Journal of Production Economics, 166, pp.85-89. Available at https://www.academia.edu/download/81877770/44142.pdf

Thapa, S. and Skinner, G. (2015) ‘Review of Social Media Management Tools and Related Literature’, International Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Applications, 2(1), pp.89-99. Available at https://www.academia.edu/download/54848007/sm15020120.pdf