Farer Smartwatch: An Integrated Marketing Plan with SOSTAC Framework

This report presents an integrated marketing plan for Farer, a British watch brand, focusing on their new Analogy military Smartwatch. Utilizing the SOSTAC model, the plan outlines the situation analysis, objectives, strategy (segmentation, targeting, and positioning), tactics (marketing mix), actions (social media marketing, live events, and contests), and control (KPIs) required for a successful product launch and market penetration in the UK. The primary goals include achieving a 40% market share increase in the UK within three years and maximizing sales by 20%. Key marketing objectives involve boosting website traffic by 30% in 2022 and increasing smartwatch purchases by 25% year-over-year. The report also discusses the impact of different marketing thoughts from various management schools on the strategic marketing planning process, emphasizing the importance of adapting to technological advancements and consumer behavior trends in the smartwatch industry.

Integrated Marketing
plan

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Marketing goals and objectives..............................................................................................1
SOSTAC marketing plan.................................................................................................................2
Different marketing thoughts from different schools.............................................................6
Impact on the strategic marketing planning process..............................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
References:.......................................................................................................................................9
Books and Journals.................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is key business operation in which the marketers of the business explore the market to
promote and sell the organisation products and brand (Camilleri, 2018). The Marketing is the key
activity to communicate with the consumers and exchange the values and benefits with the
consumers. The modern marketers have more channels and marketing tools for influencing the
consumers. Integrated marketing plan is the new approach of the businesses to deliver unified
message across all the marketing channels. The present integrated marketing plan is based on the
"farer" - a British watch brand established in 2015. The firm is established by Stuart Finlayson
and other three members to develop range of quartz watches. The report will use SOSTAC
model to develop an integrated marketing plan for the new Analogy military Smartwatch
introduced by the company. The report also includes the discussion on marketing thoughts of
different management schools and their impact on the strategic marketing planning process.
MAIN BODY
Marketing goals and objectives
Goals
 The Farer aims to attain increase of 40 % market share in UK in 3 years.
 To maximize the sales of the firm by 20% in UK market.
Marketing objectives for strategic integrated marketing plan
 Increase the website traffic by 30% in 2022.
 The Farer has objective to increase the purchase of new smartwatch by 25% from last 1
year. It is expected that sales of watch will keep rising due to its increased features.
Market needs
In the Smartwatch industry is presently the highly growing industry in the electronics this
brings the high level of chances to become new entrant of the industry. As in the current market
needs the customers are shifting their choices from Analogue watches to the smart watches that
play many more apart from just showing the time (Akuffo, 2020).
Marketing Strategy
The marketing strategies are the tactics that helps the organisations to foster their business
marketing activities by setting the aim of promotion, high selling, setting benchmarks for the
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competitors and much more. To develop the effective marketing strategy the organisation opt for
the integrated marketing plan for which SOSTAC model is used.
SOSTAC marketing plan
SOSTAC is the marketing model developed by the PR Smith in the year 1990s to help the
organisations in the marketing planning and strategic development. The model consist of six
constituents that maintain the series of market analysis to develop marketing tactics in efficient
manner (Opresnik, 2018) (Irwanto, Murniati and Fauziyah, 2021). Currently in the modern
marketing concept the SOSTAC model covers the digital marketing strategies. The full form of
the SOSTAC Model is as follows:
S- Situation, O-Objectives, S- Strategy, T- Tatics, A-Action and C- Control.
The application of SOSTAC Model in context of new smartwatch product of Farer is discussed
below:
S- Situational Analysis: this is the first stage of this model in which the company has to answer
the question " where the currently company stands?".
Goal performance: the company is recently build watch selling organisation that currently holds
a scope in the distribution, production and selling of the smartwatch in the UK market. Through
this it is seemed that through introduction of new highly featured and technology advanced
smartwatch the Farer is seeking to attain the foothold in UK market and gradually build a
reputation at the leading smartwatch organisation. The objectives derived from this purpose is :
 Distribute the first 20,000 smartwatch in starting 6 months.
 Increase the customer base in the UK market by increasing the online recognition by
atleast 10%.
Customer insight: the UK industry is highly advanced in terms of technological standpoints as
the customers are looking for new models of smartwatch and many brands are not able to
provide human aid free smartwatch. As the current analysis the UK has tech savvy consumers
and is seeking innovation in the new smartwatch by making the organisations like Farer
openness to bring innovation thereby creating opportunities.
SWOT analysis
Strengths:
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 The high level online presence through the e-commerce technology is the big strength for
the Farer. The company only operates through online website and has no physical retail
relationship.
 The products offered by the Farer are high in quality, affordable and stylish to wear
making it competitive in market of UK.
Weaknesses:
 The imitation of the design of the watches affects the brand image and also as the brand
is Swiss brand higher the risk of decreasing sales of the watches in the Farer.
 The brand offer limited designs and colours for its models of watch and also the
Company is currently low in technologically advanced watches (Wijaya and Hermawan,
2018).
Opportunities:
 With the high increase of craze of smartwatch among the customers that could trace any
activity of the people. This provides the opportunity to Farer to introduce new range of
smartwatch that is unique and highly advanced in technology.
 With the increasing new wearable devices like wristbands that track heartbeats, daily
distance this provides the company an opportunity to gain product diversification.
Threats
 Competitors like Rolex, Swatch group, Graham are the market leaders of the watch
industry causing threat to the Farer.
 Also the high manufacturing caused associated with the Swiss brand in terms of quality o
the watch they offer the Farer has huge threat of increased cost and decreasing profits.
O- Objectives
Smart-Sell: the scope of increase of the sales of the smartwatch should be set 10,000 distributed
before the financial year and to have initial expansion of transactions of worth $100,000 by the
year end.
Measurable-Serve: in terms of service the quality will remain the priority for the company and
therefore has a target to gain 100+ positive reviews from the customers satisfied with the
promptness and innovation of the company.
Achievable-Sizzle: the company should attain 2000+ new subscribers and followers from the
UK for its website and social media pages.
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Reliable-Speak: the company must achieve new connect and communicate with the new
consumers on the social media through marketing campaigns and also the response must be
tracked through reposting of the campaign pictures by the individuals within 1 month of the
campaign.
Time bounded-Save: the preference for the company to save its substantial saving of monetary
value that is spent on advertising by choosing online platform.
S- Strategy
Segmentation, Targeting and positioning (STP)
From the segmentation perspective, the Farer watch company has segmented its entire market
into the small segments (Vasilkova, 2019). Under the different segmentation variables as per the
demographic segmentation variable the company segment its market on the basis of the gender in
which the products are made for the male and female that have a middle class income level and
has good lifestyle and social groups. In terms of the geographical Segmentation the main market
of the company is the UK as the currently for the new smartwatch the company is focused on one
market. For the psychographic variables the company has customer segment that has luxurious
lifestyle and are fond of wearing watch that is stylish as well as contains digital features (Hanlon,
2022). In terms of Behaviouristic variables the company lowers it cost services for the customers
that want to buy affordable new smartwatch and has behaviour of interest in tech savvy and
innovative products.
For the new smartwatch product of the Farer the marketers are targeting the customers that
are fonder of the online shopping and have tendency of using smartwatch. For the Targeting
effectively these customer segment the company is actively using the online platforms to conduct
market research and to monitor interesting technology and consumer behaviour and trends. The
main area for the new product as the target will be UK.
In terms of positioning the Farer is bold and straightforward to use the offers and discounts
as the part of discounted strategy to create the brand identity as the E-commerce watch brand that
offers rewards and discounts to users on buying the product (Jokila, 202). The Farer in UK
through its positioning strategy is one of the key differentiating elements in terms of price and
product quality.
T- Tactics
Marketing mix
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Product strategy: the Farer offers their customers with the unique product of new smartwatch
that has attributes such as direction guiding compass, measures the total number of footsteps and
distance, sleeping hours, ideal hours, and also when connected to phone it tracks every other
activities such as messages, calls and it can also be connected to earphones and earpods to listen
music.
Price strategy: the Farer has the reasonable and affordable pricing strategy which means the
company will offer its smartwatches at lower rates than competitors in order to make it
affordable for every income group.
Place strategy: the Farer has its and only place to offer its developed new product is UK. In
current world of digitalization and modernization the company has been effectively operating
through E-Commerce to have its online global presence.
Promotion strategy: for the promotion of the new product the company is utilizing different
promotional tools such as advertising through TV, social media, magazines and other platforms.
The company also use social media campaigns and regular post on social media page and
website to make the people aware of the products (Smith and Zook, 20).
A-Actions
In order to achieve the smart objectives that are set by the company to make its new
product successful in the market and for the business. The different technology oriented digital
actions are taken by the Farer that are discussed below:
Action1- social media marketing
For the Instagram campaign the Farer should focus on developing a eye catching and customer
conceiving campaign that the new smartwatch of the Farer as not only high in features also
affordable and reasonable in cost. The company should develop the campaign that must have
creative approach to reach the consumers such as corporate website, blog etc. Also, For
Instagram marketing, the company should utilise the same approach realised
in the UK and focus on the promotion of user experiences, lifestyle
recommendations, and user-generated content rather than advertising
materials.
Action 2- Live events
In this to attain the positive view of consumers, increase customer base the company needs
to organise the live events for the introductory of the new product, to promote the new product,
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increase the market exposure and try to build the valuable trust through direct communication
regarding the product through free trial (Bustard and Kitchin, 2021).
Action 3- contests and engagement campaigns
The Farer has come up with the new smartwatch for which the company can take action of
conducting contests and engagement campaigns. In which the Farer can organise an online
contest in which a company posted a story of new product and asked the consumers to repost it
through #one word on feature of the brand and tag the company in it. Later, announce first five
individuals that that has first reposted the photos will receive 50 % discount on new product.
Through this company will be able to increase it consumers on social media and also identified
as good mode of communication (Chernev, 2018).
C- Control
For the monitoring of the performance of the developed three marketing strategies the
KPIs are used. For the effective performance of the marketing strategy they must be controlled
closely in between and till the outcome is received. In the case of social media marketing
strategy, Farer requires to track their performance using the key performance indicators i.e. total
number of likes, reposts, number of comments, increased followers and leads generated through
campaign. Moreover, the company should also monitor the consumer’s actions proactive to
understand their product preference. The company should evaluate the through live events the
company is receiving the expected leads, positive reviews by the customers on social media
which express their customer satisfaction. These indicators make the Farer aware of their
performance and suggest ideas for new marketing strategies.
Different marketing thoughts from different schools
According to the University of Oxford, marketing is the critical business activity that is used
and undergone by every small or large, profit or non- profitable organisation. As the school of
Marketing of the Oxford the marketing must focus on the ways to increase the interaction of
firms, consumers and other stakeholders. Also more than advertising and selling the marketers
should also develop the strategies consumers and firms co-operate. This brings the huge impact
on the strategic marketing planning process as the this concept focus on both marketing tools and
concepts as well as focus on developing strategy that are useful in gaining the competitive
advantage (FUENTES, 2021). This theory of University of Oxford gains the impact on business
level outcomes and consumer level outcomes. This process will helps in strategic marketing
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planning process by increasing brand equity, profitability and most importantly the long term
growth. Also through this there impact on the consumer friendship, loyalty, psychology and we'll
being.
According to the London school of Economics, marketing as a concept keep evolving with
changes in technology. As per the university advertising and direct sales used to be epitome of
the marketing but as per the current digital market scenario the digital marketing has captured the
whole marketing concept. In the marketing there is huge importance of the marketing research
and analytics for the decision making related to which marketing strategy to be used to stay
competitive. It is believed by the London school of economics that consumers in the market are
multiplied in sizes and are complex and unpredictable making it difficult for the firm's to prevent
sales from plunging. Therefore, in marketing it is important to become effective decision maker
to gain benefit of knowing how to interpret data (Törönen, 2018). This means as per this school
the for development of effective marketing firm must focus on two subjects the analytical
component and behavioural science aspect to attain enlightenment of what consumers think and
feel in order to persuade them to purchase.
According to the London school of business, the market research is the heart of marketing as
it equips firms to attain marketing success. Marketing is highly complex and board field to study
for which market research is mandatory. In order to develop and equip firm with effective
marketing strategy it is important to conduct external market research to analyse the activities of
competitors, understand consumer demand and trends and most importantly to analyse the
different environmental factors that may impact business marketing operations. In order to gain
deep insight of the new trends, new marketing tools and techniques, technology advancements
the market research is highly useful.
Impact on the strategic marketing planning process.
The strategic marketing planning process is the complete and systematic procedure of
developing and maintaining the strategic goals between the organisational goals and capabilities
and also operates as per the changing market opportunities. For the company to succeed in the
market the strategic marketing planning is the best approach to plan short term and long term
marketing objectives (Naim, A.,2021). Under the respective planning process the first step is to
conduct situational analysis which includes external market research. In this step the thoughts of
university of London school business has positive impact as this make this step more research
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orientated in order to determine market threats and opportunities. The next step is development
of mission and objectives of the Farer is the key task as the company must have effective goals
and travels to achieve. No University creates a good impact on this step as no one has thought of
developing effective marketing mission and objectives. The next step in planning process is
identification of the business composition that is daily operations of the business which is very
essential for the development of strategy. In this university of London school of economic plays
huge part in terms of behavioural aspect to understand the business marketing strategies.
Thus by evaluation of the above thoughts of the marketing of different schools it has very
positive and important impact on the strategic marketing planning process of the Farer as through
this company is able to undergo the effective strategic analysis of the different business units.
Also through this the Farer is choosing the digital marketing to meet its smart marketing
objectives (Iarusov and Nasir, 2018). Thus, the thoughts of marketing schools has been useful
for the Farer to boost it's preparation of strategic marketing plan that could increase the sales of
smartwatch and also help in gaining new leads for the business.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report for an organisation it is very essential to develop the
marketing strategies for the company to promote and advertise its brand. For the organisations to
develop an effective marketing pan the SOSTAC model is highly essential in order to plan in
appropriate framework. The SOSTAC framework assists the company in developing
competitive marketing objectives and tactics and also helps to control the activities using
different KPIs. It is concluded that as the luxurious watch brand the organisations have
developed effective marketing strategy for their new smartwatch brand. The different
management schools of UK have different thoughts for the marketing and management that
creates huge impact on the strategic marketing planning process.
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References:
Books and Journals
Akuffo, M., 2020. Integrated marketing plan for Care Unit (Doctoral dissertation, Ashesi
University).
Bustard, J.R. and Kitchin, P.J., 2021. 5 MARKETING EVENTS: AN ECOSYSTEM
PERSPECTIVE. Events Management: An International Approach, p.117.
Camilleri, M.A., 2018. Integrated marketing communications. In Travel marketing, tourism
economics and the airline product (pp. 85-103). Springer, Cham.
Chernev, A., 2018. Strategic marketing management. Cerebellum Press.
FUENTES, M., 2021. Internet Marketing (Doctoral dissertation, Masarykova univerzita,
Ekonomicko-správní fakulta).
Hanlon, A., 2022. Digital marketing: strategic planning & integration. Sage.
Iarusov, I. and Nasir, S., 2018. Marketing Plan: Case company: Standard.
Irwanto, J., Murniati, W. and Fauziyah, A., 2021. Optimization of Digital Marketing Strategy
with Implementation of SOSTAC Method. IJEBD International Journal Of
Entrepreneurship And Business Development eISSN 2597-4785 pISSN 2597-4750, 4(6),
pp.886-892.
Jokila, J., 2021. Digital marketing plan case: Bitumipojat Oy.
Naim, A., 2021. Applications of Marketing Framework in Business Practices. International
Journal of Innovative Analyses and Emerging Technology, 1(6), pp.171-186.
Opresnik, M.O., 2018, July. Effective Social Media Marketing Planning–How to Develop a
Digital Marketing Plan. In International Conference on Social Computing and Social
Media (pp. 333-341). Springer, Cham.
Smith, P.R. and Zook, Z., 2019. Marketing communications: Integrating online and offline,
customer engagement and digital technologies. Kogan Page Publishers.
Törönen, J., 2018. Marketing plan for Lendo. fi.
Vasilkova, V., 2019. Identifying a digital marketing strategy for a start-up entering the UK
entertainment sector. Case study: Evenses.
Wijaya, P.K. and Hermawan, A., 2018. E-Marketing Applications Based On Virtual Reality
Using Sostac Planning Method On Sales Property. Tech-E, 1(2), pp.16-25.
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