Marketing Opportunities and Strategies: BBQfun Report - FY2012-2013

This report, prepared for the board of directors of BBQfun, a simulated Australian business, evaluates three key marketing opportunities: manufacturing and selling own brand products, selling products through e-commerce, and selling products at bargain prices. The report analyzes these opportunities in terms of their viability and potential contribution to the business, drawing on financial data from the 2012-2013 financial year. It identifies e-commerce as the top-ranked opportunity, highlighting its potential for sales growth and market expansion. The report also outlines necessary changes in marketing strategies and operational areas to drive significant improvements, including customer engagement, market research, cost reduction, and workforce development. The analysis includes a SWOT analysis and references relevant marketing literature to support the findings. The report's conclusion summarizes the findings and recommendations for the board, offering a strategic roadmap for future growth.

Running head: REPORT ON MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHANGES
REPORT ON MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHANGES
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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REPORT ON MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHANGES
Executive summary
The report is to be presented to the board of directors of BBQfun which is a simulated business
of Australia. The evaluation of the three marketing opportunities has been identified and
discussed in terms of their viability and contribution to the business structure. The report
explained personal evaluations and opinions on the marketing opportunities and assessed the
topmost opportunity on operations. It has manipulated the sourced data and information of the
financial year 2012-2013, and extracted the sales and revenue figures. The report has extracted
the most identified highly important marketing opportunity in operations and described in brief
the sales growth, volumes, company structures and values. The change required in marketing
strategies and operational areas were identified for significant improvements.

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REPORT ON MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHANGES
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Identified Marketing Opportunities.................................................................................................3
Manufacture and sell own brand..................................................................................................3
Sell Products through e-commerce..............................................................................................3
Sell Products at bargain prices.....................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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REPORT ON MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHANGES
Introduction
The BBQfun has a simulated business scenario in Australia. The aim of the report is to
present the identified marketing opportunities with identifying the top ranked opportunity out of
those. The report argues the factors that needs to change in strategies and operations of this
company.
Identified Marketing Opportunities
Manufacture and sell own brand
Producing products and services and selling the own brand is a fantastic idea of business
and owning the profits earned through the process. This is the first marketing opportunity to
produce and retailing the self-branded products such as barbecues. This opportunity would be
carried on in India by BBQfun by acquiring land at lease as the company having no personal
production house. Another reason it would self-manufacture is due to low reduction costs in
making charges and producing products in Australia would be the costliest.
Sell Products through e-commerce
Selling products online is the most effective marketing opportunity identified as it is one
of the active trends of market. The e-commerce has become an essential part of getting through
the products by customers and also creates an ease for the marketers to sell across and creates
awareness about their products and services. This is the most responsive media for the products
although expensive to maintain. It reduces the cost of physical outlets and shops for the company
and it can offer directly the products and services to its customers from online stores. Stocks are
stored with no extra charges of inventory in existing store (Gupta et al. 2016). The company also
generates profits by charging delivery costs from customers.

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REPORT ON MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHANGES
Sell Products at bargain prices
Selling products at bargain prices is the third marketing opportunity identified by the
team where in the company wants to reducing the cost of products in order to increase the market
share (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick 2019). This will in return create the maximum appeal among
the mass customers and creates awareness of the brand and the products.
As per my evaluation of these marketing opportunities, manufacturing and selling the
own brand can have the hefty investments of the green field projects of production house, the all
new set up of equipment for producing company products and cost of raw materials, storage cost
and space of inventory for holding the raw materials and unsold manufactured products. The
green field projects for the manufacturing space charges very high to the company. In the process
of evaluating this opportunity, it would be better to outsource the production and that would
charge the company lesser than its own production house. For the second opportunity, selling
products online or using the e-commerce media is another most expensive medium of selling out
products (Armstrong et al.2018). The responses are good only if there is a constant pressure
heaved upon customers and repetitive online advertisements will keep the impact of the product
features fresh in customers’ mind. This is although an effective identified opportunity but takes
away lots of capital to invest. The market is full of similar kind of products exaggerating online
which confuses customers most of the time and this can be the reason few companies lack in
getting the maximum responses through e-commerce platforms. While evaluating the third
marketing opportunity, selling company products on bargain prices means creating appeal for the
customers in the market. Low price products are generally preferred by the people of moderate
class. On the contrary, this can be an issue for the elites to have biasness for the quality of the
products if prices are too low. The price factor is an important aspect to match the class of people

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REPORT ON MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHANGES
and therefore the company in return can go for medium process suiting both the classes of
society. The company since the year 2010, has seen disappointment in terms of the technological
advancements, competitiveness in the retail environment, consumer buying behaviors and
holding on to the customer bases (Gillespie and Riddle 2015). After this, the company has seen
its good times in terms of sales of $11million in the year 2012. The company has worked a lot on
its marketing plans, design and structures and most importantly on products and services.
BBQfun is successfully running two of its stores in Brisbane and Gold Coast respectively.
The change in operations and strategies are very clearly exhibited for .which the company has
experienced success in the financial year 2012 and 2013. These changes include,
 Connecting with the customers via promotions.
 Understanding the customer base through extensive market research.
 Reducing costs wherever required.
 Provide supports to the workforce in learning and training to expedite performances.
 Company reputation in terms of providing quality products and service offerings.
 To strategize for effective revenue generation and profit maximization.
The sales figure that was raised in the financial year 2012/13 for barbecues and related
equipment was $11,000,000 and the gross profit was $6,677,000 which has improved the
organizational conditions in terms of marketing policies and strategies. The company has worked
on improving its profile than before by 20% which has impacted the sales. The customers paid
extra attention when they get post purchase services and asked to lodge effective feedback and
their opinions (Valos et al. 2016). This has improved the satisfaction of clients by 25%. The
company has developed its norms to reduce the direct and indirect costs regarding the operations
and thereby sets the revenue target as $11 million.

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REPORT ON MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHANGES
The top ranked marketing opportunity that has been identified is the selling products via
e-commerce platform. The market growth in the recent financial year has reached about $300
million (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick 2019). It is estimated that, this figure will rise
approximately by 6% in the next forthcoming years. The company has a huge support in terms of
credits and loans. The company has a strong strategic team that constantly works on the
marketing plans and growth in market share. The company having good range and shares and the
sales volume has increase than before because of increase in customer base. The company is
continuously working without leaving a single opportunity getting from the external
environment. It has relatively strong hold on the promotional events such as the elements of
marketing mix. As per the SWOT analysis of BBQfun, it has a strong workforce working for
customer satisfaction, huge product portfolio and constant innovation rates. It has low marketing
budget and brand awareness, no online reach and marginal costs and expenses are high.
Opportunities are, south east Australia region, online sales.
Conclusion
The aim of this report is to compile documentation of the three identified marketing
opportunities, information on sales and revenue figures of FY 2012-13 and to report to board of
directors about the change in operations and marketing strategies.


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REPORT ON MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHANGES
References
Gillespie, K. and Riddle, L., 2015. Global marketing. Routledge.
Miles, M., Gilmore, A., Harrigan, P., Lewis, G. and Sethna, Z., 2015. Exploring entrepreneurial
marketing. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 23(2), pp.94-111.
Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2019. Digital marketing. Pearson UK.
Valos, M.J., Haji Habibi, F., Casidy, R., Driesener, C.B. and Maplestone, V.L., 2016. Exploring
the integration of social media within integrated marketing communication frameworks:
Perspectives of services marketers. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 34(1), pp.19-40.
Blythe, J. and Martin, J., 2019. Essentials of marketing. Pearson UK.
Wedel, M. and Kannan, P.K., 2016. Marketing analytics for data-rich environments. Journal of
Marketing, 80(6), pp.97-121.
Armstrong, G.M., Kotler, P., Harker, M.J. and Brennan, R., 2018. Marketing: an introduction.
Pearson UK.
Pride, W.M. and Ferrell, O.C., 2016. Foundations of marketing. Cengage Learning.
Ottman, J., 2017. The new rules of green marketing: Strategies, tools, and inspiration for
sustainable branding. Routledge.
Chitty, W., D'Alessandro, S. and Gray, D., 2019. Services marketing. Oxford University Press
Australia and New Zealand.