TASK C

TASK C: Assess the range of promotional techniques and materials the organisation uses, including research methods used to identify target markets.

Teachers tips
- to assess something you must talk about its advantages an disadvantages (its good and bad points)

DOWNLOAD Task C Writing Frame

Promotional Techniques

Promotion is one of the 4ps. It is about how you let your actual and potential customers know about the products and services you provide.

There are many different ways you can go about this and these are called the techniques.

1. advertising
2. direct marketing
3. pubic relations
4. personal selling
5. displays
6. sponsorship
7. demonstrations
8. sales promotions

This is what you assess using the table under the following headings:

1. Target Market
2. Objectives
3. Quality of presentation
4. Use of colour and images
5. originality of design

Promotional Materials

You should assess these using the AIDA technique:

1. advertisements
2. brochures and leaflets
3. merchandising materials
4. videos
5. press releases
6. internet sites

Research Methods

Marketing is about ‘getting the right product, to the right people, in the right place, at the right price, using the right promotion.

How does an organisation know it has got it right? How does it know who the right people are? How does it know what product they want and the price they want to pay? How do they know if they have promoted it in the right way?

Organisations know because they use market research, another marketing tool. You research something to find out information. Market research is used to find out about the market – who they are, what they want, what they like etc.

There are different ways that organisations can conduct market research. The way they use it can depend on what information they want, how quickly they want it, how much money they want to spend and how they plan to use it.

What do Thorpe Park do?

This is to help answer: How does Thorpe Park find out who their Target Market is?

Postal Surveys

These are questionnaires that are sent to people by post. Many organisations have a list of their customers with their addresses. This can be used as a mailing list to send their customers information or surveys.

They can find out what their existing customers think about what they are doing or planning to do. They can also use this to find out more about their customers.

Thorpe Park use an ‘exit survey’. This is basically a postal survey because it is given to people as they exit or leave the park and they are asked to fill it in at their leisure and post it back.

Advantages

• it is cheap as no interviewers have to be trained
• it is quick – questionnaires can bet sent out and returned in a week or so
• people can take their time and give thoughtful answers
• honest answers may be more likely to be given because there is no interviewer

Disadvantages

• only around 20% will be returned
• some questionnaire can take several weeks to be returned
• they are impersonal and people can not be bothered to fill them in
• people might leave sections blank as they have no help to complete them

Personal Surveys

Just think, if Thorpe Park asked their entrance gate workers to ask everyone who came into the Park what they though about the new ride, would they have got a better response rate?

If the entrance workers asked one or two questions that only needed simple answers like yes/no or a point score between 1 - 5 they probably would. It would take less than one minute for each person and answers could be quickly noted on a sheet of paper; few people would refuse to give an answer.

At Thorpe Park, the management are provided with a PSION PDA. This is a handheld computer. Software has been installed so that they can use it to conduct personal surveys as they walk through the park. The surveys relate to different parts of the park. In these materials, you can find the surveys relating to 'RIDES, 'FB' (meaning Food and Beverages) and 'CLEANING'. These are put onto the PDA and the managers can quickly make note of the answers. They are then stored on the PDA and downloaded onto the computers in the Marketing Department later in the day. The results can then be analysed using computer software.

Advantages

• good response rate once people have been stopped in the street
• help can be given if people do not understand the question
• people have time to think about their answers
• people may feel that their views are valued when they are interviewed personally

Disadvantages

• they are more expensive because trained staff are used
• does not cover as wider area as postal surveys
• the interviewer may suggest answers so it will not be accurate
• some people avoid interviewers as they are feel uncomfortable
• it can take along time to gather a small amount of information

Observation

This is when you watch what is happening in order to form an opinion. For instance, if you want to know how long people are queuing for a ride at Thorpe Park you could observe one person as they join the queue, noting the time and then see what time they get on the ride. This is useful if you want to put up a sign saying ‘30 minutes from here’. This is something that Thorpe Park do.

You can use observation to see at what point people are getting fed up with queuing for a ride. You can tell this from their body language, the things they talk about with their friends, how animated they look. This can be important because you might want to organise some entertainment or something for them to look at while in the queue.

Using observation is important because not everyone answers questions truthfully. When you have been queuing for a ride for an hour you can get fed up. If the ride is really good you can forget how fed up you felt when you were queuing so any questionnaire or interview might not get accurate results.

Advantages

• you can actually observe what people do, not what they tell the researchers they do
• observations can be done over time, allowing to observe changes

Disadvantages

• need permission from customer (not always got)
• can only occur in the Park

Thorpe Park encourages staff to feedback on anything they observe that could help improve the organisation. This is an informal system of research. They simply tell their supervisor or manager if they observe anything. There is no formal way that this is then fed into the marketing team.

Observation can also mean using ‘focus groups’. This is where a group of people are invited to attend a meeting. The people are carefully chosen to reflect the type of people that use the organisations facilities and buy their products and services. If 52% of people that visit Thorpe Park are male, then their focus group would be 52% male. If 70% of people are under 60, then 70% of the focus group would be under 60.

Advantages

• can provide a lot of information

Disadvantages

• expensive (people often paid to take part)
• time consuming
• small number of people so may not be accurate

Internet

Thorpe Park has a section on its website were customer can review the rides they went on.

Advantages

• it is much easier to write a review as you don’t have to find a stamp and a post box you can just return the email or submit the form,
• and because it is sent electronically it is much easier to analyse the results as you can set up a spreadsheet or database in advance so that as soon as the
• information is received the information goes straight to the relevant file in the computer. This can save money on analysis as you don’t have to pay a member of staff to input the results and you are not paying any postage costs.

Disadvantages

• not all people have access to the internet