Case Study: Marketing Strategy and Plan for John Beckett's Business

This assignment analyzes the case study of John Beckett, who cultivates organic vegetables but faces challenges in growing his business. The paper identifies key issues such as the lack of a defined target market, insufficient marketing efforts, and a failure to leverage restaurant partnerships and digital marketing. The recommendations include selecting a specific target market, utilizing digital marketing strategies (especially social media), and creating marketing campaigns to appeal to customer rationale. The analysis emphasizes the importance of a well-defined marketing plan, considering target market demographics, digital marketing, and strategies to influence consumer behavior to enhance sales and achieve business success.

Running head: MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
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Author’s Note:

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Introduction
As stated by Keegan (2017), the process of marketing occupies a central position within
the business processes of the different business corporations and greatly contributes towards the
success attained by the corporations as well. Kotler et al. (2018) are of the viewpoint that in
order to formulate an effective marketing plan, the corporations are firstly required to select a
target market or for that matter a customer base on which it would focus upon. More importantly,
the corporations are also required to ensure the fact that the products or the services offered
adequately integrates the different needs or the requirements of this particular target market or
the customer base (Chernev, 2018). Furthermore, on the basis of the needs or the preferences of
the customer base that they have selected, the corporations needs to take the help of adequate
media platforms for the promotion or the advertisement of the products or the services offered by
them (Haider et al., 2017). This is important since the decision of the consumers to purchase a
particular product or service is influenced by their familiarity with the concerned product or
services or the brand which offers the same. Thus, it can be said that an effective marketing plan
or strategy is an essential tool that the corporations require for gaining success. The purpose of
this paper is to undertake an analysis of the case study of John Beckett and make
recommendations which will enable him to overcome the issues that he is presently facing
related to his organic food business.
Issues faced by John Beckett
The case study of John Beckett clearly indicates that Beckett specializes in the cultivation
of organic vegetables which are not only superior in taste but also better in quality as well from
the perspective of the health of the consumers of the same. Furthermore, Beckett grows a wide

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range of vegetables like carrot, lettuce, sprouts, potatoes, tomatoes and others without the usage
of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, artificial growth enhancers and others. This in turn accounts
for the superior taste as well as the quality of the organic vegetables cultivated by him and had
also helped him to earn a few loyal customers who are basically his friends. However, the case
study under discussion here also indicates the fact despite the substantial growth attained by the
organic food industry in the recent times Beckett had not been able to significantly enhance his
business in the last 18 months in which he had been commercially cultivating vegetables. In this
regard, it needs to be said that there are various factors which have contributed to this lack of
development or for that matter the growth of the business venture of Beckett. Firstly, even after
operating for 18 months, Beckett had not been able to formulate a target market or for that matter
a customer base on which the organic vegetables cultivated by him would target upon. Secondly,
it had been seen that Beckett for the purpose of marketing or promoting the organic vegetables
cultivated by him had relied on some pamphlets and substantial means of marketing or
promoting the vegetables had been undertaken by him till now. Thirdly, although Beckett has
occasionally supplied to some of the neighborhood restaurants with organic vegetables cultivated
by him when they have facing supplier issues yet no real effort had been undertaken by him for
marketing his vegetables to these restaurants or even to establish a business relationship with
them. Fourthly, Beckett uses the method of contacting his customers by phone for promoting the
organic vegetables cultivated by him rather than the usage of some media platforms or others.
These in short are some of the most important issues because of which despite offering high
quality of organic vegetables Beckett had not been able to attain success in the 18 months of his
operating the organic vegetable business.

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Recommendations for John Beckett
Deepak and Jeyakumar (2019) are of the viewpoint that the first and perhaps the most
important thing which the business corporations need to do for the purpose of ensuring the
success of the products or the services offered by them is the selection of a suitable target market
or a customer base which they will target. Adding to this, Naudé and Sutton-Brady (2019) have
noted that this is important since the marketing strategies or for that matter the marketing plans
which are being formulated by the corporations needs to take into account the factors which are
most likely to influence the attitude as well as the buying behavior of their target market and take
the same into consideration within the marketing campaigns or the advertisements created by
them. However, in the particular context of the case study under discussion here it is seen that
Beckett had not been able to do this and this in turn substantially narrowed down the prospects of
his venture. Thus, the first thing that Beckett needs to do is to select a specific target market and
focus or target the same keeping into account their demographic factors and others.
As discussed by Zimmerman and Blythe (2019), the utilization of digital marketing
strategies offers certain distinctive advantages to the business corporations over the traditional
marketing strategies like cost effectiveness, timelines, the opportunity to reach out to a large
number of customers and others. Adding to this, Chonko and Hunt (2018) have noted that the
corporations taking the help of this particular marketing strategy have the option to use the
various social media platforms, send e-newsletters, send promotional emails and others for the
purpose of effectively marketing the services or the products offered by them. However, in the
case study under discussion here it is seen that Beckett rarely uses any form of marketing apart
from ‘word of mouth’ promotion and the few occasional pamphlets that he distributes among his
loyal customers or the restaurants to which he delivers his vegetables when their suppliers are

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facing issues. Thus, it is obvious that in the absence of any promotion the customers would have
no information regarding the organic vegetables offered by Beckett regardless of the excellence
of their quality or taste and therefore they would not buy the same. Therefore, it is recommended
for Beckett to use digital marketing strategies especially social media marketing for adequately
promoting the organic vegetables offered by him to the individual customers and also to the
restaurant owners. Moreover, he would be able to handle this on his own by creating a social
media page of this venture highlighting the key attributes or the qualities of the organic
vegetables offered by him and therefore would not have to pay any additional fee to any
marketing consultant or marketing professional.
Adams, Freitas and Fontana (2019) are of the viewpoint that the corporations in order to
adequately influence the attitude as well as the buying behavior of their consumers need to use
the rational choice theory. Adding to this, Foroudi et al. (2017) have noted that as per this
particular theory of marketing the corporations are required to create the kind of marketing
campaigns or advertisements which in turn would enable them to appeal to the rationale of their
customers and thereby influence their buying behavior. This becomes especially important from
the perspective of Beckett and would also offer him the opportunity to enhance the sale of the
organic vegetables offered by him as well. For instance, in order to appeal to the rationale of his
customers, Beckett can highlight the negative effects of consumption of inorganic food and also
the benefits that they would derive through the consumption of the organic food offered by him.
In addition to this, he can also stress on the manner in which the vegetables cultivated by him are
completely organic and does not take the help of any chemical fertilizers, pesticides, artificial
growth enhancers and others. Lastly, Beckett also needs to formulate a separate marketing
campaign or advertisement for the restaurants which in turn would enable him to get a contract

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with him for the regular supply of organic vegetables. In this particular campaign as well he
needs to dwell on the value proposition of the organic vegetables offered by him and also the
safe as well as hygienic process which is being used by him for the cultivation of the same.
These in short are some of the most important recommendations which will enable Beckett to
overcome the issues that he is presently facing related to his venture.
Conclusion
To conclude, the business corporations for the purpose of formulating an effective
marketing plan are required to take into account various aspects. For instance, they firstly need to
select a target market or a customer base on which they intent to focus on. Next, a marketing
plan or strategy needs to be formulated which in take into account the demographic aspects and
other important attributes of the segment that they have selected for targeting. In addition to
these, they also need to use adequate digital marketing strategies and formulate the kind of
campaigns or advertisements which will enable them to appeal to the rationale of their target
market and thereby influence their buying behavior as well. These aspects of marketing plan and
strategy become apparent from the above analysis of the same in the particular context of the
issues faced by John Beckett.

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References
Adams, P., Freitas, I. M. B., & Fontana, R. (2019). Strategic orientation, innovation performance
and the moderating influence of marketing management. Journal of Business
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Chernev, A. (2018). Strategic marketing management. Cerebellum Press.
Chonko, L. B., & Hunt, S. D. (2018). Reflections on ethical issues in marketing management: An
empirical examination. Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, 28(1), 86-95.
Deepak, R. K. A., & Jeyakumar, S. (2019). Marketing management. Educreation Publishing.
Foroudi, P., Gupta, S., Nazarian, A., & Duda, M. (2017). Digital technology and marketing
management capability: achieving growth in SMEs. Qualitative Market Research: An
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Haider, A. A., Zafar, A., Khalid, A., Majid, A., Abdullah, M. A., & Sarwar, M. B. (2017).
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Naudé, P., & Sutton-Brady, C. (2019). Relationships and networks as examined in Industrial
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