Executive Summary: Strategic Marketing Plan for The Grove Hotel

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the marketing strategy for The Grove Hotel Bournemouth, a non-profit organization providing holiday packages for individuals with cancer or life-limiting diseases. It begins with an executive summary and introduction, followed by a SWOT analysis to assess the hotel's internal and external environment. The report then details the marketing strategy and tactics employed, including social media marketing, Google AdWords campaigns, and the use of website review platforms like Trip Advisor. It also covers market segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategies, along with a marketing mix analysis (product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence). An internal marketing plan is also presented, focusing on employee awareness and recruitment. Finally, the report includes financial projections, implementation controls, conclusions, and recommendations for enhancing the hotel's marketing efforts. The report highlights the importance of digital marketing in raising awareness and increasing bookings for the hotel, which aims to support patients and their families by providing medical assistance and a comfortable environment.

Strategic Applied
Marketing

Executive Summary
In modern era, marketing is a concept that is not unfamiliar to anyone or any business
organisation. In corporate world, marketing is an element that is providing a strategic edge to
many small and large scale companies to maintain its sustainability at marketplace (Wilson and
Gilligan, 2012). This report is based upon The Grove Hotel Bournemouth which is a not-for-
profit hotel owned by local charity, Macmillan Caring Locally. It is seen that this hotel is
involved in providing holiday packages for guests that have Cancer or any other life limiting
disease with the assurance that in case of any illness, medical assistance will be provided on-
hand. This hotel specially designed and developed for medical patients is not very famous due to
lack of traffic on its website and less number of followers on its social media pages.
There is increasing need for making people aware about the importance of such hotels
made for patients with life limiting disease in UK. For this, a digital media marketing plan has
been developed so as to enhance its presence over digital media. This will assist in rapidly
increasing its online booking. Also, as awareness is increased about this hotel, many famous
celebrities and VIP will indulge in contributing towards this social cause as well as leisure
experience for patients. For this, company has chosen AdWords where company can generate
traffic for its website or videos. Other social media tools adopted by The Grove are Facebook,
Twitter and Youtube and the famous website Trip Advisor where critics and customers give
reviews for various kinds of hotels. The time set for successfully implementing this strategy is
12 months. It is recommended that company keeps a backup plan in case the strategy does not
work as per the expected outcomes.

Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
Situational Analysis (SWOT)......................................................................................................4
Marketing strategy and tactics.....................................................................................................6
Internal Marketing Plan...............................................................................................................8
Financial Projections...................................................................................................................9
Implementation Controls...........................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS..........................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
This report is based upon The Grove Hotel Bournemouth which is a unique hotel owned
by a local charitable organisation. It serves individuals suffering from cancer or other life
threatening disease. The respective hotel has exclusive services of on-site nurse for any
emergencies and daily care. Also, there is a panic button in every room which assures the safety
of customers. This report will help in understanding internal situation of the respective hotel
through swot analysis. Besides this, digital marketing strategy and tactics have been discussed
along with internal marketing plan. Furthermore, financial projections as well as implementation
of controls have been assessed in context of marketing plan.
Situational Analysis (SWOT)
The Grove has planned to adopt and implement a digital marketing strategy adopted by
to significantly enhance its public reach as well as give a boost to its social media channels. For
this, the time duration decided by company is 12 months. Within this period, marketing
department is focussing upon bringing a positive change in the traffic of company’s website. The
digital marketing strategy adopted by The Grove is putting an advertisement campaign on
AdWords to boost the reach of hotel’s website. Also, company is largely emphasizing upon
introducing new interactive programmes upon social media like Facebook and Twitter to reflect
its constant activeness upon it. Along with this, hotel management is also capturing the attention
of people by uploading videos on YouTube where patients are being given treatment by nurses
in case of medical emergencies or sudden chronic illness (SWOT Analysis, 2018).
After the marketing audit is conducted, The Grove Hotel management is making use of
SWOT analysis to ascertain the shortcomings and strong point. Thus, this analysis is conducted
as follows:-
Strengths
 The humanitarian service provided by The Grove Hotel Bournemouth in terms of
medical assistance to cancer patients is unique and exceptionally well. Thus, by
publicising about it through digital marketing strategy to increase awareness amongst
people becomes strength as this has a large scope in market.
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 This hotel has high ratings on Trip Advisor. Thus by focussing upon efficiently utilising
the digital marketing strategy to increase its reach, company can gain high stakes in
marketplace.
Weaknesses
 The marketing strategies are not strong enough due to which there is a very less
awareness about the facilities of the respective hotel in UK market (Vellas, 2016).
 The digital marketing tool of the respective organisation is very poor due to which it is
not able to approach the market and customers are unaware of the products and services
that The Grove Hotel is currently offering in terms of medical assistance to patients.
Opportunities
 The Grove Hotel Bournemouth can become a leader in hotel industry by focussing upon
successfully implementing the digital marketing strategy to increase its reach along with
serving humanitarian purpose.
 The digital marketing strategy of the hotel currently being used by the hotel management
can be revised to assure more traffic on company’s website and social media portals
which will lead to enhanced customer visits in respective hotel.
 The official website can also be promoted through Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
which is a tool that helps in promoting the website at the first page of search engine.
Threats
 If any other enters the marketplace with the same concept as The Grove, it can pose
threat to the position of company and it would also reflect inefficiency of current digital
marketing strategy as it is not able to gain attention of people.
 If the organisation does not regularly update its official website and does not remain
much active on social media platforms, it can become a threat as it would reflect that
customers will no more be attracted towards the hotel and its special services in terms of
medical assistance to cancer patients.
 If company makes use of traditional and outdated digital marketing modes, it will not be
able to increase its followers and customer base and this will restrict growth of The
Grove Hotel.
Marketing strategy and tactics
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The Grove Hotel Bournemouth is a non-profit organisation providing holiday package to
guests who have life limiting disease. As their concept is unique but, it is essential for them to
adopt effective digital marketing strategy in order to fulfil travelling dreams of patients who are
suffering from hazardous diseases. This will help the chosen organisation in creating awareness
among more people as now they are also providing this opportunity to friends and families of the
patients (Vellas, 2016).
In this present context, The Grove Hotel Bournemouth is planning to opt effective digital
marketing strategy in order to aware their target people about, the travelling experience they are
providing to cancer patients or people with life limiting diseases and their friends or families. In
this regard, the chosen organisation is planning to use social media marketing tools and various
website review platform in order to improve their reach.
In social media marketing tools, the chosen organisation is using strong content driven
marketing strategy via facebook and twitter. This will help them in generating awareness among
people by sharing travelling experience of the patients, who already gained this opportunity. On
the other hand, they are also advertising their website through Google Adwords in order to
promote their website. As they are non-profit organisation, this will help them in achieving
loyalty from their potential customers (Sargeant and MACQUILLIN, 2016).
The Grove Hotel Bournemouth is also using website review platforms like Trip Advisor
with a motive to show authenticity to their potential customers. It is essential for the chosen
organisation to manage its website review platform effectively as it helps them in generating
transparency about their unique initiative.
Market segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy
Segmentation: It is a strategy of dividing target customers in accordance with their
needs and expectation from a particular product or services (Proctor, 2014). In this context, The
Grove Hotel Bournemouth is a non-profit organisation providing holiday package to cancer
patients and their families. In this context, most of the patients are above 70 years and they are
not using social media tools. Now, the chosen organisation is also giving this holiday package to
family members and friends of patients, who have this life limiting disease. In this situation,
social media marketing tools will aware family members of patients, which eventually helps the
chosen organisation in overcoming this challenge.
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Targeting: It is a strategy of targeting the right market in order to increase productivity
of a business organisation (Liu and Ko, 2011). As per the above mentioned scenario, it is
essential for the chosen organisation to collect appropriate data in order to identify availability of
patients with life limiting disease. This will help them in formulating their digital marketing
strategy in order to aware peoples about their initiative. In this context, social media marketing
tools like facebook and twitter will help in creating awareness among families of respective
patients.
Positioning: As per the scenario, current market positioning of The Grove Hotel
Bournemouth is not much effective as many people are not aware about their holiday package
opportunity. For this, the chosen organisation is using various social media marketing tools and
various other marketing platforms like Trip Advisor, in order to increase their customer reach at
a global level. It will also help the chosen organisation in improving their market presence,
which eventually leads in raising more funds.
Marketing mix
This tool will help The Grove Hotel Bournemouth in controlling factors like product, price,
place, promotion in order to achieve its marketing objective. The marketing mix of this entity is
discussed below:
Product: It includes products and services offered by a business entity. In this context,
the chosen organisation is providing lifetime travelling experience to cancer patients or patients
who have life limiting diseases and their families or friends. They are also providing 24-hour
nurse services to their customers keep them safe and healthy.
Price: The chosen organisation is providing free of cost holiday package to the cancer
patients and their families or friends (How to use the 7Ps Marketing Mix, 2018). They are using
various digital media marketing tools in order to aware people about their unique concept. As
they are non-profit organisation, it is essential to opt effective digital marketing strategy in order
to attract public to raise funds.
Promotions: The Grove Hotel Bournemouth is promoting their unique concept by using
various social media tools like facebook and twitter. They are also using Google AdWords to
promote their website and Trip Advisor in order to generate transparency among their target
peoples.
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People: The staff members of the chosen organisation are well trained in order to keep
patients safe and healthy. The nurses are available for 24-hour, which will helps them in
reducing health related problems.
Process: In this context, it is essential for patient who is travelling to book appointment
with nurse in order to check if patient is eligible to travel or not. The friends or family members
of patients can also contact manager in order to check travelling criteria for a patient.
Physical evidence: The hotel building and website of Grove Hotel Bournemouth is the
major physical evidence. Besides this, the chosen organisation is also generating transparency by
promoting its website on Google AdWords.
As per the above mentioned report, the chosen organisation is using various digital
marketing tools like facebook, twitter, Google AdWords in order to aware its potential customers
(Kitchen and Burgmann, 2015).
Internal Marketing Plan
In this regard, Internal marketing plan will help The Grove Hotel Bournemouth to aware
its employees about their specific aims and objectives. As the chosen organisation is using
digital marketing strategies with a motive to aware people about their unique concept. In this
case, it is essential to aware their employees at first in order to build strong and healthy
relationship. It is also essential for the chosen organisation to recruit new employees, who have
adequate skills and competence in order to handle digital marketing tool.
The Grove Hotel Bournemouth is using in-house radio programmes to transfer
information to their staff members as quickly as possible. They also reward or compensate their
employees based on their performance in order to build a healthy competitive business
environment within an organisation.
As the chosen organisation is bringing huge change in their activities by digital
marketing tools. Then, it is essential for them to organise training and development sessions to
make them aware about benefits of these digital marketing strategies.
To communicate the aims and objectives associated with digital marketing plan, The
Grove Hotel management can make use of various media channels like print media, in-house
radio or social media platforms. All of these will help the top management to optimally deliver
information related to digital marketing strategy to workforce. Also, it will assist in gaining
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support and facilitation from them to successfully execute the digital marketing strategy aimed at
increasing the traffic for company's website and social media channels.
So, internal marketing plan will help the chosen organisation in providing best in quality
experience to their potential customers. As they are providing 24-hour nurses facility to keep
their travelling patient safe.
Financial Projections
Financial projection is basically a overall forecast in relation to expenses and revenues in
future context (Line and Runyan, 2014). In this regard, The Grove will also develop financial
projections. For this, hotel management will consider developing such projections that can be
easily perceived and understood by various stakeholders associated with organisation. For this,
management can consider to present information in the form of well built charts and tables so as
to enhance its comprehensibility. Also, the consideration of The Grove Hotel management will
be in relation to the clear and specific presentation by way of foot notes and pictorial form
instead of just paragraphs. The data provided by hotel management will be in form of income
statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement.
Income Statement: This reflects hotel's revenues, expenses and profit for a specific
period of time. This helps in gaining an insight into hotel's forecasted sales, cost of sales, and
expense.
Cash Flow Statement: This provides a projection of the total cash inflow and outflow in
regards to The Grove Hotel. The difference between both gives the net cash inflow/outflow
inside/outside the business.
Balance Sheet: This provides an insight into the net worth of The Grove Hotel at any
point of time. It is the summarised information about the business in terms of assets, liabilities
and equity.
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It is important to review the financial projection once it's created so as to be totally sure
about the validity and reliability of data provided in it. This is necessary as the data provided by
way of financial projection is accessed by various stakeholders of The Grove Hotel.
Implementation Controls
The Grove Hotel Bournemouth is using digital marketing strategy in order to improve its
market image. In this context, the chosen organisation is using social media marketing tools like
Facebook and Twitter and also using Google AdWords to promote its websites among its
potential customers. As the chosen organisation is providing holiday package to cancer patients
and their families or friends, so they are undertaking various steps in order to have good reviews
on Trip Advisor. Also, the company has made an internal marketing plan to communicate about
its digital marketing strategy as well as plan to staff of The Grove.
It is essential that marketing manager of hotel keeps a check upon the implementation
controls. This reflects that hotel will keep a close check upon the efficiency controls. This means
to carry out a detailed analysis of various aspects related to marketing mix, advertisement,
promotion and public relations of the hotel. In this regard, it is imperative for The Grove to
ascertain the efficiency of its digital marketing strategy in accordance with the latest
technologies and advancements existing in market. Here, company will ascertain the deviations
between the desired results and the actual results obtained as a result of employing digital
marketing plan to increase awareness about hotel and its unique and humanitarian services. This
type of analysis assists hotel management in determining areas in which they can bring
improvements and manage their marketing efforts so as to implement the digital marketing
strategy in a more cost effective and strategic manner.
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CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
From the above assignment, it can be concluded that marketing strategies play a major
role in improving the sales and enhancing the growth of a company. In addition to this, there are
various internal and external factors which reflect the strength, weakness, opportunities and
threats of a company. This helps in gaining a better understanding about the enterprise and
assists in managing marketing planning of a hotel. Besides this, it can also be analysed that the
current marketing position of the company is a key factor that decides the sustainability of
company. However, it is essential that company appropriately segments, targets and position the
customers so that digital marketing strategy can help enterprise in substantially increasing its
reach. Also, it has been evaluated that a well structured digital marketing plan is important so as
to execute the desired action in a formal and systematic manner. A well devised plan assists the
hotel in gaining the desired results in terms of gaining recognition and popularity of hotel.
Carefully developed and designed marketing plan ensures that there are least deviations between
desired and actual performance and results.
To enhance its public reach and position, it is recommended that hotel management
should make use of effective digital marketing strategies like social media tools, AdWords and
Trip Advisor reviews. Along with this, internal marketing plan has been made emphasizing upon
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