Comprehensive Marketing Strategy for Nature Care Products

The document provides a comprehensive analysis of Nature Care's marketing strategies as outlined in their marketing plan. The company allocates $150,000 for product development, focusing on addressing specific skincare needs and targeting male customers to expand its market reach. A skimming pricing strategy is employed due to the high quality and natural composition of their products, justifying higher costs. The expansion into Japan marks a significant step in geographical growth, supported by increased online presence and retail outlets. Promotional efforts are guided by an integrated marketing communication approach, involving advertising across various media platforms, direct customer engagement through mails and cold calls, personal selling, and public relations activities like press releases and free consultations. Ethical concerns related to maintaining quality standards and minimizing environmental impact are also considered critical in the execution of these strategies.

Running head: MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Marketing Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
Task 1 Q&A.....................................................................................................................................2
References........................................................................................................................................9
Task 2 Report.................................................................................................................................11
Introduction....................................................................................................................................11
Market analysis..............................................................................................................................11
Risks related to marketing opportunities.......................................................................................14
Benefits of the opportunities..........................................................................................................14
Marketing strategies.......................................................................................................................15
Evaluation and control...................................................................................................................17
Ethical concerns.............................................................................................................................18
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................19
Marketing plan...............................................................................................................................19
References......................................................................................................................................21

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Task 1 Q&A
1. Alliance marketing- Alliance marketing strategy as the name suggests, it occurs when
two or more organizations share marketing strategy. Similar strategies and marketing
concepts are applied for promotion of products and services. It can be applied to any
business when it finds another organization that has same goals. The example of
Starbucks and Barnes and Noble would best example of alliance marketing, in the year
1993 Barnes and Noble collaborated with Starbucks to provide in-house coffee shops, the
strategy benefitted both the retailers, example alliance marketing can be of Hewlett-
Packard and Disney, Disney purchased some of the audio equipments of HP during the
creation of Fantasia. They continued their alliance marketing and Disney depended on the
development of HP and its IT team for the development of its own infrastructure (Stark,
2015). Similarly, the concept of alliance marketing can be applied in case of a hotel and
restaurant business and it can be applied in case of tour operator and airlines business.
2. Market Penetration- Market penetration is the strategy of any business especially in case
when the company launches any new product in the market. In this strategy, the
companies strive to penetrate into a particular market segment. This strategy is applied by
pricing the product in a range that it is affordable by most of the customers (Boone &
Kurtz, 2013).
2.1 Market development- Market development is that strategic step in which the
company develops its existing market rather than opting for another market. Market
research is very important for market development. In market research a market
segmentation analysis is done. The company taps the untapped market. The

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company’s goal is to target a different segment of the market (Nagle, Hogan & Zale,
2016).
2.2 Product development- Product development is done in two ways, one in which a
new product is developed, in this case few steps are followed, that starts with
conceptualization, design, development and marketing of any new product. The other
way of product development is to add features to existing products (Armstrong et al.,
2015).
2.3 Diversification- This particular strategy is taken by any company when the growth of the
company is restricted by the size of the market, so the company decides to diversify their
business into another market. The business can diversify into another segment of the market or
may be into another country.
3. Product life cycle
Introduction- It is the first stage of product life cycle where the product is launched or introduced
in the market. The firm of the product, which is introduced, strives to create awareness and a
market for the product is developed.
Growth- It is the second stage of life cycle of the product where product starts to grow in the
market, sales of the product and the customer base starts to grow. The company in this stage tries
to build brand preference and increase the market share. In this stage quality of the products are
maintained and additional feature and services are added to the product.
Maturity- It is the third stage of product life cycle where the product gets matured. In this stage
there is strong growth and the sales reduces. The objective at this phase is defend the market
share and increasing the profit.

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Decline- This is the last stage of product life cycle where the sales of the product declines,
customer base of the product also reduces. After this stage the product is again re-introduced in
another way or the product is completely abandoned, like the audio cassettes (Foxall, 2014).
4. Four P’s of marketing
Product- A product can be tangible or it can be intangible, it has to fulfill the needs of the
customers for being called as product.
Price- This ‘P’ is related to the pricing decisions of the product.
Promotion- After the product has been priced it needs to be promoted to the target audience
Place- The last ‘P’ of product life cycle denotes to the place or the market in which the product
will be placed.
5. Marketing mix is very important for the marketer because it affects the consumer
decision making. The elements of marketing mix, product, price, place and promotion are
the determinants that make the customers take important decision related to buying
action. Every product fulfills different needs of the product, the needs of the customers
helps them deciding which product they are willing to buy. The price of the product is
one of the most important factors that initiate the buying action of the customers, even if
any particular product fulfills the needs of the customers often price becomes major issue
for the customers to reject any particular product. If the product is not accessible to the
public then it is not possible for the people to buy the product. If the company wants to
create awareness about their product to the customers, the existence of the product and
the requirement of the customers it fulfills have to be communicated. Only then, it is

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possible that customers will show interest in that product. Therefore, it is important for
the marketers to apply appropriate strategies related to the elements of the marketing mix.
6. The product component of marketing mix is one of the most important elements because
features of the product and the needs it is going to fulfill determines whether the
customer will buy that particular product or not. If the product fulfills the basic necessity
of the customers then other factors like price might not be much effective. Same can be
said for products or services that are highly differentiated, like the rail transport or air
transport, even if the prices hike since people do not have much option for long distance
traveling they will choose the services irrespective of the price. Now most of the products
are available online so place is also not much effective in consumer buying decision
(Hunt, 2015).
7. Product life cycle-
Product life cycle are the stages that any product comes across right from the time it has been
launched in the market till it reaches a stage when its sales declines and it is at the verge of
abandonment. Every product passes through four stages in its entire life cycle, introduction stage,
growth stage, maturity stage and decline stage. After the decline stage generally the products are
re-introduced with some additional features and the cycle repeats. The planning of the re-launch
needs to be done when the product is in its decline stage or else the product might be abandoned,
which normally does not happen. Few products have reached the fifth stage that is abandonment
like the audio cassettes and VCRs, which has been abandoned completely.
8. The two types of pricing strategies are penetration and skimming pricing strategies

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Penetration Pricing- Penetration is the pricing strategy in which the company applies a pricing on
the product that aims at penetrating into a particular market segment where it can target
maximum number of customers. This is done by pricing the product slightly lower and enters the
market and capture maximum market share. The objective behind this market pricing strategy is
to increase sales volume. The strategy is required to be applied very carefully because if the
prices are kept too low then the company might incur loss. The price cannot be kept too low, so
this strategy often fails to attain the goal for which it has been set, this is one of the
disadvantages of the strategy (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2014). The strategy is often used for
utilities, like cell phone, cable and satellite services. New food products often have this pricing
strategy because their objective to enter the market and capture maximum market share and
increase sales volume.
Skimming pricing- Skimming strategy is that pricing when the product is priced slightly higher,
the objective behind the strategy is to skim the market that the company wants to target. This
strategy is used when the product targets the premium clients. The company intends to create
loyal customer base, hence focuses on the quality, and does not focus much on the cost of
production because the price of the product is set high so that it manages the cost of production
(Bresler & Lubbe, 2014). Skimming strategy is generally applied in luxury and high fashion
garments, like Swiss watches, iPhones and high fashion clothing. Brands like Chanel and Gucci
use skimming pricing strategy.
9. Every firm needs to conduct a market research before implementing marketing strategies.
Market research would help the companies evaluate the strategies used by their
competitors. It is very important that the companies compare their pricing strategies with
that of their competitors because it would help the company to know what price they can

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put on their products that would help in gaining competitive advantage (Choi, 2015). If
the price of the competitor’s price is, lower and it is helping the competitor to gain
competitive advantage as they have a larger customer base. This condition is alarming for
the companies. They will have to review and analyze their own pricing strategy.
10. Promotional Strategies-
Customer appreciation events- In this promotional strategy customer appreciation event is
conducted where free refreshments, gifts and prizes are distributed among visitors, the idea
behind this strategy is to attract as many customer as possible so that the company can create
awareness about its products. This promotional strategy attracts the new customers and shows its
gratitude towards its existing customers so that they continue to be the customer of the brand.
Pizza, cold drinks and burgers are some of the food items that can be used for customer
appreciation events. Displaying the product before the launch of the particular product that is to
be promoted will make product visible when the customers arrives (Boone & Kurtz, 2013).
Causes and Charity
Another promotional strategy that the companies uses are associating themselves with certain
social and charitable causes, for example many companies stand with social causes like
educating the underprivileged children or organizing events for raising funds for orphan children.
For example, Google is taking initiatives in reducing their carbon footprints (Kotler et al., 2016).
11. Distribution strategies
Intensive distribution- Intensive distribution strategy is used when the company is selling a mass
marketing product. The objective of the marketers using this strategy is to cover large portion of
the market. This strategy is used in case of FMCG and consumer durable products. For example

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companies Procter & Gamble and supermarkets like Walmart use intensive distribution strategy
(Baker, 2014).
Selective distribution strategy- Luxury brand companies like, Armani, Zara and Gucci use this
selective distribution strategy. These companies have very few outlets mostly in Metropolitan
cities.
12. Undifferentiated marketing strategy does not emphasize on any particular segment, rather
it focuses on entire target market. In this strategy there a single marketing mix is
employed, a single product, a single price, a single placement and a single measure for
promotion of the product. The objective of this marketing strategy is to reach the
maximum number of customers within a target market. This strategy can be used in
FMCG, consumer durables and products that fulfills the basic necessities of the
customers, like food products, soaps and other toiletries.
13. Concentrated marketing strategy- A company that uses concentration-marketing strategy
takes initiatives to focus on a specific market segment. The strategies and marketing
promotional activities taken by the company focuses on s specific market segment, it is
just the opposite of mass marketing Foxall, G. (2014). For example luxury brands like
Zara and Chanel target only the affluent and premium class clients who can afford the
high fashion Clothing and accessories of the company. The company identifies the
segment well before the development of the product, in the stage of conceptualization.
The production is done accordingly and focus is on quality and preference of the target
market. Concentrated marketing strategy requires a detailed marketing research so that it
call satisfy the needs of the customer segment the company is targeting.

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References
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R. (2015). Marketing: an introduction.
Pearson Education.
Baker, M. J. (2014). Marketing strategy and management. Palgrave Macmillan.
Boone, L. E., & Kurtz, D. L. (2013). Contemporary marketing. Cengage learning.
Bresler, M., & Lubbe, I. (2014). Marketing management.
Choi, Y. (2015). Alliance Marketing Competence and Technology Sensing in Marketing
Alliances: The Performance Implications for Alliance Participant Firms. In Revolution in
Marketing: Market Driving Changes (pp. 174-174). Springer, Cham.
Foxall, G. (2014). Strategic Marketing Management (RLE Marketing) (Vol. 3). Routledge.
Hill, C. W., Jones, G. R., & Schilling, M. A. (2014). Strategic management: theory: an
integrated approach. Cengage Learning.
Hunt, S. D. (2015). The theoretical foundations of strategic marketing and marketing strategy:
foundational premises, RA theory, three fundamental strategies, and societal
welfare. AMS review, 5(3-4), 61-77.
Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., Brady, M., Goodman, M., & Hansen, T. (2016). Marketing
management. Pearson Education Ltd..
Nagle, T. T., Hogan, J., & Zale, J. (2016). The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: New
International Edition. Routledge.

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Stark, J. (2015). Product lifecycle management. In Product Lifecycle Management (Volume
1) (pp. 1-29). Springer International Publishing.

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Task 2 Report
Introduction
Nature care products are a range of beauty and health care products. The company is
based in Brisbane. It was established in the year 1996. Since then the company is
manufacturing and retailing eco- friendly and high-quality skin care products. Currently
the company sells a range of skin care products that include, Cleansing creams, Multi
protection Day moisturizing creams and regenerating facial scrub (Naturescare.com.au,
2017). The report is based on the marketing plan of the company. A budget of $150,000
has been allocated for activities to be carried out in the next financial year.
Market analysis
Recent trends have shown the inclination of the customers towards the nature care
products. This provides an excellent opportunity to the company. Health care safety
standards put a pressure on companies to maintain a quality. Currently the customers of
the company are mostly the professional women aged 25 to 55. The products of the
company are slightly higher. The main competitors of Nature Care Products A’Kin and
Jojoba skin care company (Joshi & Pawar, 2015).

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SWOT Analysis
Fig 1 : SWOT analysis (Source: Created by Author)
Strengths
Nature based products
Eco-friendly products
Well established
Online portal
High Quality
Weakness
High price
Most of the customers are professional
Limited exposure in the global market
Opportunities
Japan represents good market
Addition of more skin products
Products related to particular skin needs
Targeting male customers as well
Threats
Competitors
New entrants charging less prices
SWOT

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PESTLE Analysis
Factors Positive Impact Negative Impact
Political- Political focus towards health-care
and support from Australian
Government
Instability in Government l
to policies that are often
unfavorable to the busines
Economic Increase in the average income of
middle class
High price of the product
Social Increase in awareness of health
related issues leading to customer
spending more in health care
products
Some of the customers are
sensitive and hence avoid
priced products. Skin care
products are not much pop
among male customers
Technological- The company has online portal that
encourages sales
Other online portals where
similar products are availa
cheaper rate eg. Amazon a
Legal- Approval from health care
associations makes the products
more preferable to the customers
Stringent laws related to h
care compelling the compa
focus on quality of the ski
products
Environmental - Eco- friendly products are supported
by the Government
Environmental concerns
compelling the companies
reduce their carbon footpr
Fig 2: PESTLE Analysis (Source: Created by Author)

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Marketing opportunities
The company has marketing opportunity in Japan where cosmetics are demanded by
middle-aged women. The company has opportunity in expanding their target market to
male customers. Increasing more product ranges in specific skin needs. Overseas
expansion. Opening new retail stores
Risks related to marketing opportunities
 Overseas expansion would require a detailed market research, lack of skilled human
resource might obstruct the expansion strategy.
 Risks in raising funds and financial obstruction
 Poor quality might risk the health of the customers.
 Lack of skilled employees in the new outlets might cause mismanagement
 Developing new products specific to a particular needs would require efficient R&D team
(Hollensen, 2015).
Benefits of the opportunities
Japan has limited natural resources, which make it dependent on imports and foreign
products. This makes an excellent opportunity for the company to expand their business
in Japan. Natural products have global demand and hence overseas expansion would is
profitable.

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Marketing strategies
Product-
Product development would be the strategy that the company will adopt, The products
related to specific skin needs would be developed. A range of products will also be added
that would target the male customers. Male products will also be added. (Joshi & Pawar,
2015).
Tactics for Product development
With the help of research and development the company would the skin needs of the
target market, women aged between 25 to 55 years and the product will be developed
accordingly. Experts of cosmetology and dermatology for quality in the laboratories will
test the developed products. The skin care needs of men would be researched and
identified for developing a range of products targeting male customers
Price
The company will keep their pricing strategy same. The pricing strategy used by the
nature care products will be skimming pricing strategy.
Tactics
Skimming strategy would be used in Japan as well. In countries like India and Nepal
where there is huge demand for natural products the pricing strategy used be skimming
for products like Regenerating facial scrub and Multi Protection Moisturizing cream
whereas penetration strategy for Cleansing creams (Perreault Jr, Cannon & McCarthy,
2013).

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Place
Nature care has decided that it will be opening new stores. The company is planning
expansion in other countries as well. In Japan, the company will operate its business
targeting the middle-aged women.
Promotion
The promotion of the product will be done using the integrated marketing
communication.
The tools used for integrated marketing communication are
I. Advertising
II. Sales Promotion
III. Direct Marketing
IV. Personal Selling
V. Public Relations (Hollensen, 2015)
Tactics for promotion
Advertising- In electronic media televisions and radios would be selected, targeting the
women customers. Since it is for premium clients the product will be advertised in
premium magazines.
Sales Promotion- For promotion of sales trial packs of new products would be launched.

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For existing products, discounts would be given in products like scrubs and moisturizing
creams.
Direct marketing- Door to door marketing technique and mails would be sent to the
existing customers of the company (Kotler et al., 2016).
Personal selling- The staffs present at the stores will be provided training so that they can
provide information about the products they are selling.
Public relations- Two public events will be conducted in Brisbane where there will be
press releases. Press releases would be done in “The Herald”.
Nature care would be sponsoring a charitable camp for free consultation for skin care
related issues in Brisbane in the sixth month of the financial year (Armstrong et al.,
2015).
Evaluation and control
The objectives of the company are :
 To Increase in the number of customers who visit online stores
 To add 150 more retail outlets
 To increase market share by 15 percent
 To expand in the international market
 To increase annual growth of at least 10 percent in next three years

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Based on the objectives of the company activities will be carried out. Evaluation and
control will be done using the tool “Management by objectives”.
Management by objectives
The tool used for evaluation and control would be management by objectives. In this
standards would be set for each of the activities that would be undertaken for attaining
the objectives. The actual performance is compared with the desired performance to find
the deviations. Deviations from set standards would be measured. Corrective actions
would be taken for deviations from the set standard (Bickhoff, Hollensen & Opresnik,
2014).
Ethical concerns
The ethical concerns to this marketing plan is that the company requires to maintain a
quality standard. Not maintain quality standards would put the health of the customers at
risk. Environmental considerations will not be ignored in the manufacturing process and
the company will reduce its carbon footprints.

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Task 3
Marketing plan
The amount allocated for the marketing plan is $150,000 in which around 45 percent of
the amount would be used for product development. 25 percent of the amount would be
used for promotional wages and salaries and 15 percent of the budget for promotional
activities carried in the next financial year. The total number of staffs required for
carrying marketing activities would be 500. Promotional activities would be carried
throughout the year (Bickhoff, Hollensen, & Opresnik, 2014). The marketing plan will
be developed based on the marketing objectives of the company. In order to attain the
objectives of the company activities will be done in all the four areas of marketing mix.
Product- New ranges of products will be developed. These products will address the
specific skin care needs. Skin care products for male customers will also be developed as
the company is planning to expand its target market.
Price- The pricing strategy that the company will use is skimming strategy. The products
of the company are of standard quality. They are natural products and cost involved in
manufacturing is also high. Therefore, the pricing strategy used will be skimming pricing
strategy.
Place- The online portal will be developed with an objective to increase the number of
visitors who actually buys the products. The number of retail stores of the company will
be increased. The company is planning to expand its business in Japan (Joshi & Pawar,
2015).

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Promotion
Fifteen percent of the marketing budget has been allocated for promotional activities.
Integrated marketing communication is the tool that will be used for promotion of the
products of Nature care. The activities would be
 Advertising
 Sales Promotion
 Direct marketing
 Personal Selling
 Public relation (Kotler et al., 2016)
Advertising- Electronic media, print media and social media will be used for advertising.
Advertisements will be featured on television and radio. In print media high class fashion beauty
magazine will be used.
Sales Promotion- For promoting the sales of the product the company is planning to launch trial
packs that will be available in the retail stores.
Direct marketing- Mails will be sent to the customers and cold calls will be made to the existing
customers whenever new products will be launched.
Personal selling- Door to door sales method will be used for personal selling. In retail stores
customers will be suggested the best products as per their skin care requirement.

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Public relations- Free skincare consultation will be provided in the exclusive store at Sydney in
the month of December. Bi monthly press releases will be done on the local newspaper “The
Hearald” (Bickhoff, Hollensen & Opresnik, 2014).
References
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R. (2015). Marketing: an
introduction. Pearson Education.
Bickhoff, N., Hollensen, S., & Opresnik, M. (2014). Step 3: Marketing Implementation—
Executing the Marketing Plan. In The Quintessence of Marketing (pp. 111-136).
Springer Berlin Heidelberg..
Hollensen, S. (2015). Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson
Education.
Joshi, L. S., & Pawar, H. A. (2015). Herbal cosmetics and cosmeceuticals: An
overview. Natural Products Chemistry & Research
Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., Brady, M., Goodman, M., & Hansen, T. (2016). Marketing
management. Pearson Education Ltd.
Naturescare.com.au. (2017). Nature's Care - Overview. [online] Available at:
http://www.naturescare.com.au/en/about-nc [Accessed 9 Nov. 2017].
Perreault Jr, W., Cannon, J., & McCarthy, E. J. (2013). Basic marketing. McGraw-Hill
Higher Education.

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