Marketing Plan for Buckingham Palace

This marketing plan analyzes the internal and external environment of Buckingham Palace and suggests strategies to increase brand awareness and revenue. It includes SWOT analysis, Porter's five forces, segmentation, brand positioning, and marketing mix.

Running head: MARKETING PLAN
Marketing Plan
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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MARKETING PLAN
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Internal Analysis..........................................................................................................................3
SWOT analysis............................................................................................................................3
External analysis..........................................................................................................................5
Porters five Forces.......................................................................................................................5
Objectives....................................................................................................................................5
Segmentation...............................................................................................................................6
Demographic Segmentation.....................................................................................................6
Behavioral Segmentation.........................................................................................................6
Geographic Segmentation........................................................................................................6
Psychographic Segmentation...................................................................................................7
Brand positioning for Buckingham Palace..................................................................................7
Marketing mix.............................................................................................................................8
Product.....................................................................................................................................8
Price.........................................................................................................................................8
Promotion................................................................................................................................8
Place.........................................................................................................................................8
People......................................................................................................................................8

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Processes..................................................................................................................................9
Physical evidence.....................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference.......................................................................................................................................11
Appendices....................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
The purpose to write this plan is to analyze and frame the marketing plan for
Buckingham palace. It is situated in Westminster, London. The Buckingham palace is the
London residence and administrative headquarters of the monarch of United Kingdom (The
Royal Family 2018). The plan will highlight the internal analysis and external analysis with the
help of two framework specifically, SWOT and Porter’s five forces. The analysis will help to
evaluate the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat, and the effect of suppliers, new entrants,
substitutes and buyers in the existing industry. The palace is beautifully built in an area of 77,000
square meters. The objective of the Buckingham Palace is to create awareness in the market
regarding its history to all its consumers and establish the palace as a strong competitor and
brand in the market both in domestic as well as in the international markets. The Buckingham
palace maintains its café and provides a shopping experience as an additional benefit to its
visitors. The palace focuses on the target customers of all the age group ranging from nursery
kids to old people. The 7 P of the marketing mix is also analyzed for the palace where it is seen
that the market condition of the palace is well operating and effective to the market.
Discussion
Before establishing a strategy plan it is important to analyze the internal and external
environment of the Palace. The internal surrounding is implemented to utilize the strengths to
take the opportunities, be aware of the threats and overcome the weakness (Armstrong et al.,
2014). The external environment is analyzed to understand the forces that will affect the business
external decisions.

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Internal Analysis
SWOT analysis
Strengths
 Its past history and tradition will become the pull for the strength
 The destination and strong presence in the social media is its weakness to grab more people
from all over the country.
 It already has a strong brand establishment
Weaknesses
 Low awareness among the younger generation is its weakness which affects its visitor’s
average.
 The stiff schedule of the opening and visiting days to the palace can restrict many of its
visitors to visit the palace.
Opportunities
 A wide opportunity of the tourists from both international and national visitors
 Opportunity to improve its social media presence
 The location of the Buckingham Palace, is the easiest availability to the visitors which can
turn out to be an opportunity
Threats
 The threat of competitors such as the St. James Park and historical London ship’s
 Its high maintenance cost that makes the palace more beautiful

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External analysis
Porters five Forces
Threat of substitution is low as the brand itself is valuable and worthwhile source of
information. In other words, it is unique and irreplaceable.
Threat of new entrants is depending upon the entrants and exit from the market. There are less
chances of any to enter the market as the Palace is a well established brand due to its history.
The industry rivalry is high as the historic strength is also available to other destinations which
can attract the customers. However, other rivals of its can also enjoy the same advantage to gain
competitive advantage.
Bargaining power of buyers are of a moderate risk because the prices to entry to the palace is
acceptable but still the price can go high as the maintenance cost gets affected and it attracts
international tourists. The product is highly differentiated from other destinations.
Bargaining of suppliers is of low risk as most of the employees are hired by the Buckingham
Palace itself and supports the overall services that are offered to the visitors.
Objectives
The Buckingham palace is the London residence and administrative headquarters of the
monarch of United Kingdom. It was built in 1703 for the Duke of Buckingham, then it was
acquired by King George III in 1761, and later it became the British monarch after the accession
of Queen Victoria in 1837. The establishment and focus on the branding of the Palace will help
to increase revenue and in term spread the historic importance to the people (Joffe 2017).

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 To establish Buckingham Palace as one of the effective brand in the international tourist
market. It will enable to stand as one of the strongest competitors among all using the most
effective strategies.
 The objective is to create awareness in the market and to each of the visitors of the
essentiality and regarding the history of the palace.
 To increase the brand awareness of the Buckingham Palace. It is the main objective of the
business. It is focused to make efforts to achieve its awareness in the international tourism
markets and as well in the domestic market.
Segmentation
There are mainly 4 kinds to market segment which needs to be considered while framing
a market plan. The four types of segmentation are: 20 words
Demographic Segmentation: demographic segment is one the important and most widely used
segmentation method used to get the right target market for the product. Segmentation is done on
the basis of the age, gender, family size, income, religion, occupation, race and nationality (Craft
and Hassan 2015).
Behavioral Segmentation: this type of segmentation is done on the basis of the behavior, usage
and decision making perception. Behavioral market segmentation is also done at the time of
festivals as at that time the purchase decision and other patterns are entirely different from the
other normal days (Szolnoki and Hoffmann 2014).
Geographic Segmentation: Geographic segmentation divides the population according to the
location of the consumers. It is believed that people have different needs as per the geographical

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location of them and requirement can vary based on the geographical location (Hill, Jones and
Schilling 2014).
Psychographic Segmentation: This type of segmentation uses lifestyle of people, the activities
and the interest that defines the market trends. It is similar to behavioral segmentation. It covers
the aspects of the consumer buying behavior. The consumer thinking, opinion and the social
standing are also considered in the segmentation of a product (Mishra 2016).
The Buckingham Palace invites all the profile of segmentation as its customers because it
widens up the value and interest for each of the age group and while attracting the
visitors/customers the Buckingham palace implements the geographical segmentation in terms it
invites all the international and national tourist.
Brand positioning for Buckingham Palace
The strategy to place the product that is the Buckingham Palace in the right place by
positioning accurately in the consumers mind and in the market as well is considered as brand
positioning. The Buckingham palace is to be put forward to fulfill the need of the consumers
targeting the population from nursery students to families till the old age people of the society.
There are several programs including school activities, family pavilion events with the
beautiful scenario of the garden and the lawn consisting of a garden café which offers a selection
of refreshments, sandwiches and pastries, tea and coffee.
The palace also provides with a shopping experience to its visitors by offering a wide
variety of gifts crafted by royal palaces and art works inspired by the royal collection. The royal
palace is focused to provide its visitors with the guide to the entire tour of the palace. Overall the

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positioning of the palace is to be done in a way that it can attract more customers domestically as
well as internationally.
Marketing mix
Product- the product is the main attribute that fulfils the need of the consumers and its
expectations. The product here is the destination of the Buckingham Palace itself which covers
total 77,000 square meters area. It is built with following a neoclassical architecture (Schwarzer
2016).
Price- Price is the factor which always should be presented as it is giving a good value of
money. The palace offers its visiting tickets in three different category, that is for adults it cost
£23.00, for the visitors above 60 age group and for the students it is £21.00, and for the children
under 17 age it costs £13.00.
Promotion- Promotion is the practices that increase all the key communication for an
organization (Armstrong et al., 2015). The Buckingham palace maintains a website which
clearly gives all the information a customer/visitor needs. In addition to it, the Buckingham
Palace communicates with people with the help of social media and also has a strong presence in
the market. It maintains a Facebook page, and an Instagram page.
Place- The availability of the product has to be easiest for the target customers. The palace is in
Westminster, London SW1A 1AA, UK. It is located specifically in between the St. James Park
and the private gardens of the palace.
People- People includes all the working staff that runs the front line of the product. The
Buckingham palace is maintained by over 600 staffs including the curatorial, conservation,
learning, publishing, communications, digital and visitor services. The greatest art collections are

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inspired by the people of the royal collection. The people are managed for kitchen services and
employ the household women for cooking. Equal opportunity for all the employees is considered
(The Royal Family 2018)
Processes- the process of delivering of the service of the product to the customer is considered
under this factor. The palace offers the visitors with a garden café including tea, coffee and
pastries and with a shopping experience of art works and crafts inspired by the royal creation.
The employees handle with care a range of all those events that take place in the palace.
Physical evidence- This indicates the physical elements of the product for which the consumer is
paying. The events including those for the tourist visitors, the education events that attract the
schools and students to visit the palace and the museum which is available throughout the year
are an effective program that helps to grab customers. The tour guides that enhance the
experience of the complete tour of the palace also add to creating brand awareness. The royal
household supporting the garden café promotes the food facility of the palace.
Conclusion
From the above discourse it can be concluded that the Buckingham palace situated in
London attracts a wide range of visitors from domestic and international market. It takes upon
various events to seek attention and popularize its brand awareness among the market. The
destination and the history of the architecture is its biggest strength and the stiff timings of
opening days are a weakness. The opportunity arises with the social media presence and the
wider market open to welcome the visitors. The Buckingham palace focuses on the age group of
almost all the groups concentrating on the students and their event programs to attract them. It
maintains 600 staffs under it, to serve its visitors with the service. The Buckingham palace will

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effectively operate once the strategies are properly positioned and implemented in the palace.
The execution of the 7P will help to efficiently increase the operations of the market. thus, it can
be observed from the above that the plan of Buckingham palace will be successful with high rate
of return in its revenue collection with only one main threat of the maintenance of the palace
affecting the overall decisions. The scenario and the gardens, balconies and the entire
architecture are a part of its strength and essential point of attraction.

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Reference
Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S. and Kotler, P., 2014. Principles of marketing. Pearson
Australia.
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction.
Pearson Education.
Craft, S.H. and Hassan, S.S., 2015. Global consumer market segmentation strategy decisions and
managerial assessment of performance. In Revolution in Marketing: Market Driving
Changes (pp. 26-30). Springer, Cham.
Hill, C.W., Jones, G.R. and Schilling, M.A., 2014. Strategic management: theory: an integrated
approach. Cengage Learning.
Joffe, S.L., 2017. “The Little Hot-Bed of Fresco Painting”: Queen Victoria’s Garden Pavilion at
Buckingham Palace. In Victoria's Lost Pavilion (pp. 13-29). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Mishra, A., 2016. Psychographic segmentation.
Schwarzer, M., 2016. The Sources of Architectural Nationalism. In Nationalism and
Architecture (pp. 41-60). Routledge.
Szolnoki, G. and Hoffmann, D., 2014. Consumer segmentation based on usage of sales channels
in the German wine market. International Journal of Wine Business Research, 26(1), pp.27-44.
The Royal Family. 2018. Royal Residences: Buckingham Palace. [online] Available at:
https://www.royal.uk/royal-residences-buckingham-palace [Accessed 31 Mar. 2018].

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Appendices
Fig 1 Porter’s Five Forces
Source: (E. Dobbs 2014)

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Fig 2 Marketing Mix (7P’s)
Source: (Khan, 2014).

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Fig 3 SWOT Analysis
Source: (McDONALD 2016).