Comprehensive Marketing Plan For Sweet – A Competitor To Airbnb
External Business Environment
Sweet being a new company in the industry of sharing economy, the early time period of business should not expect much profit. However, as the revenue starts coming, it might keep growing with time and the brand might start making profits very soon. Unlike Airbnb, sweet is going to operate in a licensed market. This would prevent the company from inviting politics and related scenarios against itself. However there are chances of political pressure to rise which is the company and its operations are going to pressure rise on the traditional market. The business model of sweet is going to be less destructive than that of Airbnb; hence it would be facing lesser heat. Sweet seeks to develop a good economic effect and create potential opportunities for people who have free space for sharing with others. The people that are referred here are on both sides demand as well as supply. The society would be playing the role of the buyer as well as the seller. The company would be looking forward to create a positive value for the society and helping millions for the generation of wealth. It also looks forward to help people in paying of their loans and advances in order to avoid eviction. Offering cheaper substitute for renting is going to help the company in seeing exponential growth of its business in a very short period of time. The business of sweet is primarily going to be social, where the customers would be offered with homes for renting, and the transactions for the same would be initiated online.
The largest contributors to the growth of the company are going to be social media and word of mouth. Smart and up to date technology is growth enabler and the secret to the success of every new and emerging business model. The primary operations of Sweet are going to run on a smart system that would be created in order to provide sellers and buyers with seamless and hassle-free interaction. A system technology of smart messaging would also be created in order to verify the profiles of customers which would make the process of check in and checkout easier.
The business model of the company would be emphasizing on making effective utilization of resources in the expenditure for water and energy consumption would be planned in an efficient manner. The business also looks forward at implementing waste management and preventing the greenhouse emissions as well. The reputation of the companies brand would be somewhat established with the help of such environmental impact. For any business or industry and even in terms of the sharing economy as well, it is almost impossible to avoid a clash with the law. Sweet would be planning efficiently regarding legal matters so as not to have as many clashes as Airbnb has been facing with the law. Operating in locations where there are lesser regulations and restrictions related to the sharing economy would be beneficial for the company.
Every business stands on three pillars to maximize its value: cash flow, revenue and shareholder wealth. The necessity of any business is to build a customer base by investing in the customer experience which in return adds to the value of the business. Sweet is a new invented company in the competitive sharing economy market which is aims at catering to needs of every traveler. The company will adopt the Value extraction model that will identify and capture maximum potential from the prospective customers, shareholders and technology. Sweet will be focusing on the creation of value proposition that will extract maximum revenue from the potential customers such as targeting regular travelers and wealthy customers. The technology should be able to extract maximum load. The value proposition should entirely focus on providing better customer service and user friendly, faster technology (Osterwalder, Pigneur, Bernard and Smith, 2014). Customer will intend to pay only for the benefits they are getting and not maximizing on the benefits in value proposition will surely ensure higher engagement of from the target audience. The Customer Lifetime Value will help to extract the value to the full potential from each customer (Chang, W., Chang, and Li, 2012). Upselling and Cross-selling can be viable options for Sweet to seek value extraction. The systems within the company can be upgraded with regards to developing the technological front.
Value Extraction and Strategic Control Point
The Strategic control points refer to the performance criteria that are required during setting the standards which will significantly affect the overall performance of any business. The strategic control points will track whether the desired results occurred as expected (Stacey, 2016). This will help Sweet to analyze its strengths and weaknesses. Premise Control is one of the strategic control point that will help in determining whether the assumptions made concerning the target audience, service to be provided to them, economic condition of the country, competitors, and suppliers is feasible in the current scenario. Adopting Strategic Surveillance Control will help to anticipate any external threats that may hinder the growth of the strategy by monitoring multiple sources which for the potential threats. Sweet will require mechanisms that will access the position of the business at the time of sudden natural or manmade disaster, inflation, and product recalls. In this case, Special alert control will help to reconsider the relevancy of the strategy. The Implementation strategy will determine the final steps before putting the strategies into action. Implementation controls will include the budget, schedule and the milestones that Sweet needs to achieve.
Value chain analysis will help to identify Sweet’s primary activities as well as support activities thereby adding value to the services it aims at providing. The analysis will be done to create product differentiation by penetrating into the competitive market where Airbnb has created its monopoly. The value chain analysis will represent Sweet’s internal activities that will help the company to transform its inputs into outputs.
The internal logistics of Sweet should aim at targeting people who are looking to gain experiences, spend quality time and share their traveling stories. The website should be user friendly and comprise of photos, short travel videos, room amenities and space for user-generated reviews. Customers can view the room availability with their respective prices.
A database should be created to assist the internal logistics team with managing the rental details of the travelers. The data aggregation process will help to search and gather relevant customer data and present it in a report-based format to achieve specific objectives by Sweet. The data aggregation can be either down manually or through data aggregation software.
The infrastructure of Sweet should be stable in terms of operating in the competitive shared economy market where other players like Airbnb has already created its niche. Sweet should reach out to its customers through advertising on relevant channels such as Google ads, social media platforms, television ads, demand generation through Programmatic Advertising. The advertising campaigns should include promotional activities that will spread the word about Sweet as a new brand offering better services.
The Sweet will have to build an online booking platform that will deliver on the customer value proposition of choice of locations and homes, deciding on the price range, convenience of booking process, and support decisions.
To the hosts, Sweet would deliver on the proposition of renting rooms that would have been not occupied by guests, and the maintain all the information of hosts/guests should be considered important. The conversion rates should be high in order to not entertain any risk of cancellations and low bookings.
Value Chain/Map and Competition Overview
The prospective competition for Sweet are Airbnb operating in 191 countries, Tripping.com with 8 million properties, HomeAway with great earning options for property owners, Booking.com with 1 million hotels, and Trivago with user friendly application. Sweet is intending to enter the market of shared economy where companies like these are already bigger brands with a larger customer base and serving in maximum countries without even owing any big chain of hotels. This can be challenging to create a monopoly in the market but investing more in real estate and creating more supply can be a ray of hope.
Sweet is aiming to create long-term investment in the shared economy and hospitality industry. Although it will take Sweet to create it niche in this industry but looking the success of Airbnb and the gaps in its services, the differentiation in the services can be overlooked and accordingly the core capabilities of Sweet can be thought upon (Sundararajan, 2014). Despite of being new in this market, Sweet can cater to the needs of each type of travelers. Airbnb often overcharges its customers who are willing to take the services within a short notice period. Targeting the travelers who are wealthy and willing to pay for services as per their requirements can help Sweet to build a network of loyal customers. The ability to use technology and managing the customer base along with the details of hosts and their properties can be a core competency for Sweet (Peppers and Rogers, 2016). The website should have user friendly interface providing all the details of the host properties for rent with pictures and short videos on the beauty of the property. This can be an added advantage for Sweet as customers get a virtual experience of their upcoming holiday home and feel free to provide feedback on these properties. The services to be provided can be mentioned in the website alongside the property details. This will help customers to decide beforehand and enjoy their stay at their preferable locations. The differentiation in price can be a unique selling point for Sweet as travelers looking for a shorter stays can be provided with discounts and benefits so that they come back for more.
The core competency of Sweet can also be built through partnering with companies such as Grubhub and Amazon to provide immediate services to the travelers. The peer-to-peer market or the concept of sharing economy does have a positive effect on lower-income consumers as they are willing to earn an income out of renting their houses to strangers. Sweet can mainly focus on targeting such customers as this will boost their income and build a better brand image. The business model can either be subscription based or commission based. The monopoly can be maintained by creating an additional revenue line where the pick-up and delivery of product rented out on the platform with additional charges can be provided.
Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning is a three step process that helps any business towards establishing a brand name in the market on a thorough understanding of its competitors, customers and business environment. Market segmentation is one of the best strategies to identify the customer needs, their interests, lifestyles and similar demographic profiles (Lynn, 2011). The segmentation of Sweet can be grouped into three categories.
Supply Chain
Demographic segmentation involves division of market into identifiable groups in terms of data and facts (Wedel and Kamakura, 2012). The demographic variables to be used in segmenting the market of Sweet are age and income of customers. The age range for business and leisure travelers usually span from 20-50. Young travelers are more likely to use the services provided by shared economy than any other age segment. On the other hand, retired people relatively with good health conditions and financial positions are more likely to enjoy the services. Campaigns can target female travelers (Hao and Har, 2014). Income of individuals determines their ability to travel and enjoy their leisure time.
The geographic segmentation will involve selecting the potential geographic locations (Boone and Kurtz, 2013). The country and region is an important factor to consider. Sweet can target North America, Europe, South America and Asian markets. The Asian market comprises of countries like Japan and China where the listing of rented rooms is high and local participants play their fair part. Penetrating into the Asian market will be a viable option as the population is huge and people of middle income group can earn more by renting their homes. The focus should be creating brand differentiation as well as considering the country legal policies of renting homes (Miller, 2017).
The behavioral segmentation will consider the individual purchase behaviors (Martin, 2011). Sweet should identify the buying behaviors of customers by maintaining a customer relationship management which includes customer profiles of frequent travelers. Their past transactions can reveal valuable information. Standard of living of customers will also be considered to understand their traveling patterns.
Positioning Sweet should involve marketing strategy of the brand and the renting services to establish an identity in the minds of its customers. This should be maintained over the life of the brand. As the business model of Sweet will focus on letting strangers in houses of hosts which involves security issues, the services should be reliable to maintain the brand position. Since the input of customers will rise as the business grows, the brand positioning should be strong in the mind of customers. Sweet can position itself in the markets untapped by its competitors which will bolster its growth in hospitality industry. The positioning can target hosts interested in increasing their income and rent their homes. Sweet can position itself as a strong player in the market by keeping prices according the travelers and guests.
One of the most popular tools is used for the purposes of market research is known as conjoint analysis (Prasad and Subbaiah, 2011). It is an advanced technique of exploration that helps in determining the way decisions are made by people and the factors due to which the products and services get real value (Louviere, Flynn and Carson, 2010). In simple words, conjoint analysis refers to the process of determining customers’ willingness to pay. Certain hotels use conjoint analysis for understanding the behaviors and buying decisions of their customers (Rhee and Yang, 2015). Most organizations these days have a “strictly-business” pricing decision (Hague, 2018). However not all the decisions related to business is strictly-business. Such decisions of pricing have a primary objective of profit maximization. In most of the cases the pricing is set on the basis of an objective which is expected to be made by a price setter. Price setter might have different expectations. Some only want to achieve break even, someone to all only that much which could be enough for paying the costs, where is someone to earn a lot of profit (Chirco and Scrimitore, 2013). The prices of the listings would be set in accordance with the market prices and the willingness to pay of the consumers, unlike Airbnb whose home owners set the prices of their listings in accordance with their personal financial objectives. This proves to be a major issue since the company lost out a lot of potential profit which could have been earned but was rather lost. Sweet want to apply strictly business pricing decisions at a late point in the business cycle when a phone brand would be established. At that time, in order to encourage the pricing decisions of strictly business that would help in maximizing the profits, a new algorithm of pricing can be launched which would take into consideration the factor of willingness to pay of the customers for the listings. These listings are based on certain factors such as dates, locations, local happenings and the amount of time by which the booking is done in advance by the customer.
In-house Value Creation
It is quite difficult to ascertain the exact calculation of elasticity of sharing Economy business is such as that of Sweet. However, economic religion can be used for figuring out the relative elasticity. The services of sharing economy have become quite mainstream, and customers have started to trust these services have more feasible alternate for hotels and motels (Zervas, Proserpio and Byers, 2017). Even though businesses such as Sweet and Airbnb are not perfect substitutes for hotels, they are considered to be good substitutes. If Sweet was more expensive than the hotel rooms and if the promises are of similar quality, the business would be cleaned by the hotel. Usually such businesses are seen as a low cost substitute for motels and hotels, which simply implies that the price is a crucial factor for the attraction of the customers (Horton and Zeckhauser, 2016). The customers, who can afford this, would choose the hotels that would give service of higher level. This implies that, the demand curve of sweet could be relatively elastic above a certain point, especially when the point of price becomes similar with that of hotels (Fraiberger and Sundararajan, 2017). The demand curve beneath the point of price would be relatively inelastic since hotels are a cheap option and they often tend to have equality lower than that of affordable hotel rooms. So, it can be concluded that, within overall perspective, sweet would be elastic because of the presence of substitute.
There are various competitive strategies that would be followed by the company Sweet. Primary engagement of the company would be in providing hospitality services to customers online allow them for leasing trending short term lodging that would also include home stay, vacation rentals, hotel rooms and apartment rentals. The company has any lodgings of its own; it would be working on the basis of commission and act as a broker. One of the greatest competitive advantages with the company can avail is through its network effects. This means that larger the number of hosts are listed on Sweet, greater would be the number of customers. On the other hand the supplies of the company would be built by the competitors to the business, customers’ reviews and word of mouth. This would make sweet different as well as unique from its market competitors.
In order to estimate the costs of the products and services of sweet, a group method of cost estimate would be chosen. For the production of the services and the products would be stated by the representatives of all the departments. Usually every department states their estimates in order to prevent themselves in the event of overruns of costs. Both the direct as well as the indirect costs would be taken into consideration. The direct costs adjusting of the labor costs, material costs, tooling costs, utilities costs, and operating costs (DRURY, 2013). Indirect cost would be including aspects such as, the indirect fixed costs and the indirect variable costs.
The break-even point of every business is that stage where its revenues match its costs. (Tsorakidis, Papadoulos, Zerres and Zerres, 2011.) Once the number is determined, all the costs of the business should be taken into consideration. These costs would include both, the fixed as well as the variable costs that consist of costs such as rent to labor materials. After this, it should be analyzed if the prices are too low or the costs are too high for reaching the break-even point within a reasonable time, and is the business sustainable enough for producing the break-even sales on a consistent basis. Following is a table demonstrating the break-even of Sweet.
Marketing
Table 1: Break-Even analysis
Particulars |
Amount |
|||
Fixed Costs |
||||
Advertising |
10000 |
|||
Accounting, Legal |
0 |
|||
Depreciation |
1200 |
|||
Manufacturing |
2000 |
|||
Payroll |
6000 |
For the period |
2017 – 2018 |
|
Rent |
12000 |
Selling Price (P) |
US $ 240 |
|
TFC |
31200 |
Break-even units (X) |
234 Units |
|
Variable Costs |
Break-even sales (S) |
US $ 56,160 |
||
VC based on per unit amount |
||||
COGS |
25 |
|||
Direct Labor |
50 |
|||
Overhead |
11 |
|||
Total |
86 |
|||
VC based on percentage |
||||
Commissions |
7.50% |
|||
Other |
1.00% |
|||
Total |
8.50% |
|||
TVC |
$106 |
|||
Contribution margin per unit = P – V |
$134 |
|||
Contribution margin ratio = 1 – V/P = |
55.67% |
|||
BEP |
||||
Break-even units (X) = TFC / (P-V) |
234 units |
|||
Break-even sales (S) = X * P = TFC / CMR |
$56,160 |
Dynamic pricing principal would be used by the companies. Such a pricing strategy helps the business in maximizing its profit buy consistently adjusting its prices buy responding to the various demand fluctuations (Gallego and Hu, 2014). It is based upon a type of decision making which is fact driven and analytical. It involves altering the prices of the services a certain period of time, across consumer or across the services (Faruqui and Palmer, 2011). There are a several number of factors which create the base of the dynamic pricing strategy of sweet. These are length of stay of the customers, seasonality, special events, customers’ characteristics, day of the week, market segments and channels of distribution.
Customer touch points are referred are the places of interaction of the brand of a company with its customers rather than channels that are the planned interaction points (Clatworthy, 2011). Any and every interaction including encounters of no physical interaction which has the capability of changing the ways which customers feel about a particular product, service or business. An encounter that might not involve any physical interaction can be the discovery of an online review of the service or the product of that brand. The essential points of touch of Sweet would be: easy and clean website navigation, Smartphone application with good UI, and short wait times for guests to check-in and check-out, rebates to regular customers, events for customer interaction, customer feedback and satisfaction questionnaire, etc.
The primary channels for the sales and distribution of the company would be its website and Smartphone and mobile applications. Sweet can plan for partnering with a leading cloud platform for hotels for attracting and booking customers from around the world. With such partnership, the hospitality standards can be met seamlessly and rooms can be listed quickly. The usage of new and up-to-date technology would make it easier for hotels to connect information regarding bookings to their management systems in the real time. The various payments for transactions would include card payment, payment through Apple Pay through the mobile application. Local payments systems would also be included. The primary mode for communication of Sweet would be content marketing that is marketing technique of creation and distribution of valuable and significant content for attracting, acquiring and engaging a good target audience that is clearly defined.
The company can target the customers who look for short-term vacation rentals in low budget and seek the local culture, while targeting the customers who seek to rent an extras room of their house. The variety given to the customers should be increased as greater choice would give freedom to them to choose freely. The prices for the services of the company should be kept the same, that is, to be decided in accordance with the market forces of demand and supply. This will help in matching the market competition.
Media Planning
In order to initiate a successful internal it is imperative to initiate a successful media planning that will help to improve customer experience in the company. The customer service that is provided by Airbnb is highly creative as it deals with highly trained team of global specialists. As a result, Sweet requires to initiate a digital innovation approach by inspiring business-to-business marketers. As it is a lucrative market, media planning requires to innovative thus making an easy online reservation system. It requires to deal with a responsive as well as ecommerce platform that will incorporate up-to-date UX thinking in order to get hold of customers to the search point (Ashley and Tuten, 2015). The data as well as permissions at this point of time will be decisive to employ technology further with the procedure. As it is a completely new company, it is imperative for Sweet to employ one of the popular tools such as iBeaconz that has been used among travel industry stakeholders. This will help to improve way finding at the nearby airports. Airbnb for example, has been using location specific apps that is used by travelers through their Smartphone. This will make it easier to track employees in the state area that improving the overall experience of premium passengers. On the other hand, the digital display is also imperative that leads to widespread preference among travelers to get hold of more information through their mobile devices. The digital display should be such that the travelers will not be able question the versatility. Airbnb is known to provide high quality digital experience to the travelers thus enabling them with the help of synchronized electronic devices. The digital display should be such that the travelers will be able to receive complete entertainment with the help of digital display thus making it possible to gather all the information at a single place (Davis, Nonnemaker, Duke and Farrelly, 2013). The company should look forward to employ LAX that will provide a digital multi-sensory experience. This in turn will allow the travelers to interact with the infrastructure by making use of tablets as well as smartphones. This will increase the overall rate of digital travelers thus allowing them to view the future clearly thus making it easier to interact with the upcoming surroundings.
Value Proposition to Guests/Travelers
Sweet requires to carry out a proper operation regarding collecting dust that is decisive to reduce the overall cost as well as maximize system competencies. There are multiple sizes of a pulse of compressed air, that helps to clear bag or filter. On the other hand, timing is another imperative aspect that helps to determine how an airline requires to operate effectively. Incorporating a proper timing procedure will help to determine the place as well as the timing of the airline. The revenue that is associated with each schedule is mostly based on diverse outlook of the similar information. The cost that is related to operating the schedule will rely on legs of flight. An effective schedule that match both supply as well as demand that will act as the major driver of airline profitability (Utt, 2011). The scheduled carriers will start to provide extra products to the leisure market division that will also help to fill up the empty seat. The storefront of the airline industry requires to primarily dealing with central reservation system. The timing requires to deal with forecasting aspects that will initiate a proper schedule planning. The company requires to initiate a network-planning model that will be used to interpret the profitability of airline timing aspects.
Internal advertising deals with human resources that take place in accordance with institutional policies. It helps in attracting the best candidates globally as well as promoting the best practice while recruiting and selecting employees. In order to become more successful, the company Sweet requires to initiate a proper sales budget that requires to be in collaboration with the senior managers. The company requires to initiate comparable sales as well as marketing policies that will be made at a lower level for every sales region that will be operated by the airline. This will also help to make a decision regarding the sales budget that will be allocated between the areas and the way in which they invest the available funds. The budget-setting procedure by the company is likely to involve an intricate as well as controversial internal debate (Jobs and Gilfoil, 2014). The budget setting requires to be done in such a way that it will not lead any disreputable difficulty. The internal advertising requires to involve a promotional budget that will deal with the percentage revenue concept. With strong increasing market, Sweet airlines will be able to raise its market revenue as compared to Airbnb. It also requires to initiate the use of predictive modeling for traffic flow that will help to track travelers all through the airport. These digital innovations might not be viewed directly by travelers, however they could definitely help to put in to a less demanding, more personalized experience for them in the terminal.
Background
A creative brief is defined as a document that reflects on the ins as well as outs of a project team that will be involved with the project. It is mostly regarded as a basis of a successful creative campaign that outlines vision of customers thus making sure that every individual is provided with equal opportunity (Keller and Thackeray, 2011). The major aim of a creative brief is that it will help to outline strategy for a creative project. This will also help to interpret the idea as well as vision of the client.
The audience that Sweet requires to target will involve the group of individuals who will remain loyal to the company. They are also referred to as regular airline customers who will generally opt to travel by the particular airline for business purpose. These travelers are mostly loyal towards the brand and their prime motivation is to accumulate regular flier that will be in future redeemed by them to get access to free flights. The company requires to create an emotional outlook regarding the airlines brand in order to maintain their brand loyalty. The target audience should also include urgent travelers who frequently travel on an urgent basis when it is usually unanticipated (Um et al., 2015). Airbnb mostly includes a range of business travelers that makes multiple aspects to travel to initiate any type of contractual deal. The company should also include budget conscious individuals who are mostly daily customers thus perceiving little difference between airlines. In other words, an individual who view little difference between airline offerings will aim for reasonable ticket price.
Social media tools are regarded as imperative tools that are not disclaimed by most of the individuals any longer. The major aim of the company requires to be to get closer to the customers. Comprehending value of customers in such a unique circumstance will act as a major component for companies. This is because there is a gap that exists between the desire of the customers as well as thought procedure of the company.
The company requires to keep in mind that the advertisement that they will put forward will initiate a proposition to the customer. It should not be limited to product puffery or show-window advertising. The service that will be provided by the company should provide particular benefit to the travelers. The proposition requires to be such that Airbnb will not be able to provide in the future. In other words, it requires to be unique and should include a particular area of advertising. The proposition requires to be so strong that it can move the wide range of customers (Porter, 2013). The importance of the proposition is that it forms a basis that initiates creating a great campaign. This will also help to reflect on a peace treaty thus helping marketers to cram in every benefit that fits them. However, the longer will be the single-minded proposition, the weaker will be results that might affect the overall profitability of the company in the future.
According to the AIDA requirements, the company requires to abide by the selected travel during their online booking system. It requires to agree to the applicable travel circumstances. It requires to abide by the travel condition AIDA 2013/2014 as well as AIDA 2014/2015 (Azadegan, Papamichail and Sampaio, 2013). The other conditions should include IDA framework conditions, Insurance Conditions Health Insurance Hanse Merkur, Insurance Conditions Travel Insurance Hanse Merkur, Conditions for excursions, Traveling with passport as well as Rules on board, Rights for travelers according to Regulation (EG) No 392/2009.
The first mandatory inclusion of the airline company will be airline ticket that forms a document that has been issued by an airline. It requires to be legally obligated to provide fooding to the customers without asking them to pay anything. The company policy should be such that it becomes able to attract more customers as compared to its competitor Airbnb.
The success aspects that will lead to multiple probable advantages for the business unit of Sweet requires to be either large or small. The success measure will appear as a cooperative reinforcement that will help to analyze the comparative strength of the company. The competitive aspects include the ability to become successful as well as prosper in the marketplace. The success measure that has been used by Airbnb helps to estimate the success maturely and in a consolidated way. This requires to be constructed thus being followed by stimulation of the operations that requires to be examined over a couple of years. As successful airline deals with attractiveness regarding the ticket prices, as well as dealing with, promotional effectiveness that brings about profit. The total fleet also requires to be managed that will help to indicate the way in which average individual airplane is used.
The attendant requires to be responsive enough thus answering multiple doubts that will be witnessed by the travelers. The schedule requires to be maintained without any delay in work. The employees working for Airbnb deals with unspoken rules as they are well trained about their job. Sweet requires to keep an automated external defibrillator that will involve getting easy access to the doctor when it is required.
A budget is crucial for the creation of an expenditure plan of the finance of a company. It helps in ensuring that adequate finance is available for the needed and important things to the business (Philips, Shalaby and Marden, 2016). Following a spending plan or a budget would help a business to stay of debt and can also help in getting rid of existing debts. An analysis of budget for Sweet is given below.
Table 2: Budget
Item |
Budget |
Actual |
Variance |
Sales Revenue |
500000 |
550000 |
50000 |
Cost of Sales |
300000 |
320000 |
20000 |
Gross Profits |
200000 |
230000 |
30000 |
Variable Expenses |
|||
Selling expenses |
100000 |
120000 |
20000 |
Inspection |
10000 |
8000 |
-2000 |
Total Variable expenses |
110000 |
128000 |
18000 |
Fixed Expenses |
|||
Rent |
60000 |
70000 |
10000 |
Depreciation |
20000 |
19000 |
-1000 |
Total Fixed expenses |
80000 |
89000 |
9000 |
Income from operations |
10000 |
13000 |
3000 |
Interest Income |
2000 |
3000 |
1000 |
Interest Expense |
1000 |
1500 |
500 |
Net Income Before Taxes |
7000 |
8500 |
1500 |
Taxes |
2000 |
1500 |
-500 |
Net Income After Taxes |
5000 |
7000 |
2000 |
Non-Income Statement Items |
|||
Loan Repayments |
14000 |
13000 |
-1000 |
Owner withdrawals |
20000 |
25000 |
5000 |
Fixed assets expenditure |
100000 |
90000 |
-10000 |
The aim of marketing strategy of Sweet will be to reach encourage maximum people round the globe to become hosts and/or travelers. The initial qualified leads and prospective list of hosts can be generated from Craigslist where people list their properties for rent (Schor and Fitzmaurice, 2015). This will help creating inbound links foe the user in Craigslist and drive the maximum traffic towards Sweet’s official website. Collaborating with Google and investing towards Google search ads will help in featuring images of houses, apartments and testimony of travelers who have visited in those houses. Collaborating with the hosts and creating relevant content about the houses and area will help to create brand awareness. Social media marketing is the most powerful ways to market a brand. Facebook and Instagram page should include photos, videos of the listings and inspiring videos on specific days will attract travelers to visit the place. Blogs can be created featuring travel stories of guests and their experiences can be noted under columns named as Wanderlust. Referrals can be sent through emails to all the new members of Sweet. The referral credits can be added to their Sweet application wallet. User engagement can be increased by listing out the accommodation options in the website. Travel magazines can be issued to members featuring about the neighborhoods of various countries and their accommodation options. It can act as a guide where local attractions can be listed. This increases the inquisitiveness of travelers to explore such places.
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