Marketing Essay Example: Plan for Introducing a New Product

The product to be introduced in the market is Customized Wooden Watches since there is growing preference for wooden products such as wooden glasses. It is worth noting that a successful launch of a product depends on an integrated process that encompasses market research and measures that forecast and solve problems upfront. The first step is to carry out a comprehensive market research (Blank, 2013). The aim of the market research is to gather as much information as possible about the market and the customer tastes and preference. The other parameters identified by the research include but not limited to the distribution channels, pricing, market needs, the decision makers, and the motivations to buy. Wooden Watches have complementary products in the market, but the customization will certainly appeal to a particular market niche.

The second parameter will be timing. In this regard, the management or the entrepreneur will look into the coordination of the entire marketing process. Production and the promotional efforts will run concurrently to avoid wastage of resources in warehousing. Setting of the rollout schedule and the timing will also happen at this particular stage. Additionally, the entrepreneur will determine the manufacturing capacity based on the market response or the expected demand as predicted by the market research (Blank, 2013). At the beginning, the product will mainly rely on direct selling as the main distribution channel. As time progresses and the sales prove sufficient, the distribution channel will include retailer and agents. Closely attached to the latter point is the need to train the employees or the sales agents on the best strategies to appeal to the customers interests. The training program will employ both face-to-face strategies and online training s a means to reach more potential sales representatives. The final step is product promotion that will take various forms such as trade shows, advertising, promotional and technical literature, seminars, websites, public relations, and samples, which will be consistent with support services like production, shipment, training, and inventory.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Customized wooden watches are an innovative fashion product that is only offered by a limited number of existing companies. The limited production or supply accords the entrepreneur an advantage in advertising and selling. Secondly, ass the brand name takes off the product is easy to scale up in various towns and cities because it requires manageable amount of capital to start and maintain. Finally, it is a pioneer idea with very few companies dealing in the same now.

Weaknesses

The product has low profit margins that certainly make it difficult to employ or sustain a trained or quailed workforce. At the beginning, having an established or well defined and that will affect the efforts to reach the market (Rothaermel, 2016). The product and the company are quite new in the market, meaning that it will have no proven record of accomplishment. Such makes it hard to secure finances or to a market niche. The initial investment is quite massive.

Opportunity

The product has great potential for growth and sales forecast based on cheap labor, demand, raw materials, and advertising potential. The product will use local raw materials during the production process. The availability of raw materials makes the manufacturing process quite viable. The unique nature of the product will attract customers.

Threat

The industry is quite copetetive with the existence of well-established brands such as Swiss Watches that deal in alternatives products. Wooden sunglasses are also easy to duplicate putting the product under threat of piracy (Xu & Ramirez, 2016). The changes in the economic factors such recession and financial crisis is a serious process the launching and sustenance of the project. The problem of financial crunch may negatively affect the product since it is a startup that is dependent on the initial cash flow.

References

Blank, S. (2013). Why the lean start-up changes everything. Harvard business review, 91(5), 63-72.

Rothaermel, F. T. (2016). Competitive Advantage in Technology Intensive Industries. In Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results (pp. 233-256). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Xu, Z., Frankwick, G. L., & Ramirez, E. (2016). Effects of big data analytics and traditional marketing analytics on new product success: A knowledge fusion perspective. Journal of Business Research, 69(5), 1562-1566.