Week Eight EOC: Creative Content

The creative content going into my marketing plan is a Website. A social network based site people will be able to make accounts and be able to put as much information about their lives as they choose to. Users can upload pictures and videos for others to view as well. The main attribute this site will have compared to others is that this will be a safer more protected site than the competition. You will be able to follow other peoples profiles and comment on pages. The site will automatically let you know when you have been added to distinct groups like 9/11, WWII, Vietnam War, and other groups. This site will be completely free to use and 100% safe. People from the company will constantly fish through the site to make sure everything being posted is appropriate. When accounts are first made users will have to agree to terms that what they are posting is the truth and that plagiarizing is illegal. The users are the focal point in this and staying connected as such is the most important concept that we focus on for the site. This site is closely related to people that are looking for hope and some happiness in their life. It will not be hard for users to come everyday and post anything they feel. Again mainly focused on the elderly because their story is meant to be heard and the best way to remember it is when its written down. Now take that and allow users that are interested in the subject to read it and know their reading something beautiful.

Implementation Evaluation Control

The implementation of how this site will come alive is by me and only me. I will be the coding end and the business end of the operation. If you dont need anyone else to do a job just do it yourself. Soon I will find someone to be my partner but for ownership reasons I will hold majority for I am the creator and founder of this project. Like the book says on printed page 50, "To find the best marketing strategy and mix, the company engages in marketing analysis, planning, implementation, and control." The way that we will be viewed as a credible source of information is after we have received funding from the angel and get our 5,000 users from around the nation. From Kotler & Sons "Implementation addresses the who, where, when, and how." So by doing so it will be tricky to get everyone to jump on this bandwagon, not everyone wants to talk about their lives openly in front of people and I have to be understanding when doing so. 

Price

The price for my product is totally 100% free. Throughout all of this their isn't a doubt in my mind that would think otherwise, this site is to only help people. If people want to donate to the cause then they do on their own. We will never put a price on this, it would be very wrong to do so. To prove how important price is to us and everyone else, read this from the printed page 13 "The major marketing mix tools are classified into four broad groups, called the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. To deliver on its value proposition". Price is important to us, so important we made it free. From printed page 79 "Rather than offering high quality at a high price, or lesser quality at very low prices, marketers in all industries are looking for ways to offer today’s more financially cautious buyers greater value—just the right combination of product quality and good service at a fair price." Even though it is free we strive to make sure the value you will receive is the same value that mercedes benz offers to their customers when they sell their cars. 

Promotion

From the printed page 11 from the book, is the definition of how consumers feel about products and promotions "The idea that consumers will not buy enough of the firm’s products unless it undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort." The way that this site is going to promote itself is by getting an angel investor to invest $50,000 in the company. After doing so me and some others from the team will travel the county to mainly retirement homes and any other organization that can provide us with users. Like I said before, everyone is the target audience. The plan is to find atleast 100 people from each state to make an account, after all that is done we will have 5,000 users that will making posts and telling their friends about this. Each person probably has a Facebook and twitter so it will be very easy after this point to get our website going. On printed page 11 "The selling concept takes an inside-out perspective. It starts with the factory, focuses on the company’s existing products, and calls for heavy selling and promotion to obtain profitable sales." Basically to say the website will be our factory and we will have workers working day in and day out to make sure that everything being posted is safe and enjoyable for everyone else. 

Distribution

From the book of printed page 10 "The production concept holds that consumers will favor products that are available and highly affordable. Therefore, management should focus on improving production and distribution efficiency." With that being said the distribution will be very simple but extremely important for this because its a website, all you need is internet to go on so theirs no need to go to a grocery store and pick this up. Why its so important is because someone can go to any website that they can join for free, this will be the best one offering the best value. Sometimes people have this idea that free is a bad thing so making sure that the value is top priority. In the book on printed page 46 "making more sales without changing its original product. It can spur growth through marketing mix improvements—adjustments to its product design, advertising, pricing, and distribution efforts." I like this concept because I never plan to change the price of this but I do plan to accurately weigh sales and accounts on the same level.  

Product

Like many businesses that produce products for consumers I will not follow what the printed page 7 says in the book "The mistake of paying more attention to the specific products a company offers than to the benefits and experiences produced by these products". The product that ThisIsLife.com is offering is a safe, free social networking site for people to channel their emotions and life stories. Its the satisfaction that people will feel when they are on this site, to be able to go through and read about peoples lives and experiences that have changed the lives of thousands. If people choose they can buy ThisIsLife.com merchandise and 20% of the money will be donated to organizations that help kids get through depression. I can only make it a mission that people choose my product other then others because of the value that they will receive when on this site, "Consumers usually face a broad array of products and services that might satisfy a given need. How do they choose among these many market offerings?"

Target Market Strategy

For its ThisIsLife.com their is a wide variety of who is involved in the target market because everyone has a life story and like the book says on printed page 9 "The company must first decide who it will serve. It does this by dividing the market into segments of customers (market segmentation) and selecting which segments it will go after" . To be exact on who would be in the category of target market it would have to be the elderly. Even though a lot of the elderly isn't computer savvy as the young generation I still have faith they will find a way to be able to do this. I would say the depressed is a target audience but that would be wrong to say, I can only hope that people are sad come to my site to channel their emotions. Now because its hard to truly go after everyone it will be a challenge, and like the book says on printed page 9 "By trying to serve all customers, they may not serve any customers well. Instead, the company wants to select only customers that it can serve well and profitably." I will make it my mission to make sure everyone wants to be on my site.