Case Study: Strategic Marketing Management
This paper gives the brief understanding about the case study Trap-Ease America: the big cheese of Mouse traps. In addition to this, the study evaluates the available opportunity for innovative product i.e. Trap-Ease. Moreover, it also identifies target market and accordingly decides the practice through which target group is positioned (Coontz, 2016). At the same time, current marketing mix and competitors of the product is also analysed in the report. Thus, this report offers the strategic marketing plan for Trap-Ease America.
Short Summary
This case study reflects the issues which face in the Trap-ease product. Trap-ease America is America based company that is located in near Costa Mesa at California. This product is offered various innovative solutions to the found problem in related to tracking the mice. Furthermore in this product, there is an issue arising in the form of less profit earned by company or demand, sales is also declining.
Basically, this case study stated that group of investors invest in the innovative formed product i.e. trap ease product in January. In that case, they hired Martha for the role of president in company. But the main problem which occurs instead of product innovative design, that company didn’t generate profits. Likewise, they display their product in trade show where they get the first price because of product innovation but after that also it could not attract the maximum customers. So, to address such problem, the below mention answers provide solution to the Martha for bringing the improvements in their operations through strategic marketing plan that’s assist Martha to sustain their business and keep investors happy.
Trap-Ease really believes that this product is a once lifetime opportunity because investors develop the innovative design for a mouse trap. It has also launched into the market which would hive high opportunity to Martha for increase profits of company.
Martha to take full advantage of product, she needs to evaluate the opportunity through understand needs and wants of their potential customers. This can be done by the Martha through widen their current market segment so that company become capable to target new groups with their existing market i.e. Housewives. This practice not only supports in increasing the customer base but it also develops the strong customer value.
In addition to this, Martha needs to consider the market research for analysing the different segments actual needs. Other than that, they might even want to consider including SWOT analysis in order to outline company’s internal (strength, weaknesses) and external (opportunities, threats) functions. Based on this analysis, it could create appropriate action plan for exploring full advantage of opportunity. At the same time, Trap-ease should also use differentiate strategy while promoting their product in front of customers through highlighting the unique & innovative features of product by comparing its key competitors (Gundersen, 2014). This strategy allows the company to differentiate its product from key competitors on the basis of unique feature and quality. Thus, such practice helps in exploring the opportunities and converts the company limitation into its strength. So the combinations of these opportunities give rise to mission statement of company. Mission statement of company is to serve quality products to customers as per their changing needs and wants. For this, company provides innovative trap-ease design product which is easy to carry and handle by the new target market.
Target market is considered as a base for developing the strategic marketing plan as if the company is able to choose the right target market accordingly to their product then it become easy for Martha to attract the customer towards their product. Likewise, target market is that market where customer needs and wants match to the company offering product. So this makes easy for the company to influences their customer purchasing power decision.
In context to this case study, Martha has identifies as a good president as she targets moms at the house for their Trap-Ease product. For this, they promote their product as a mess free and safe for Children’s at home. It is the best way to advertise this product among the moms as they before buys any product always thinks about their children at home (Walker, 2016). So in this way, Martha targets the market efficiently but it fails to cover the wide market with this target market strategy. This is because targeting only housewives gives narrow scope to company in regards to explore high opportunities. Thus, this is significant reason that’s why company fails to attract maximum customers and boost their sales.
In order to really increase their sales, trap-ease needs to segment other market by using the clustered targeting strategy based on similar needs. However, Martha through use the geographic segmentation strategy in which they could segments the USA market. Similarly, under the USA market, she should to target the shop owners, offices, markets or any commercial spaces etc. the reason of targeting these groups because these areas gives high chances to cover larger market of USA. It is fact that USA market includes more corporate houses and women’s of this country is also more engaging in corporate activities rather than sit ideal at home. So for the Trap-Ease product, offices, shop owners or commercial spaces is the right decision to increase their customer base.
Positioning is the crucial aspect for the company in regards to convince the customer about their product. Similarly, Martha through their existing positioning strategy unable to attracts the wider audiences in market. Now, Martha should positioned trap-ease in the mind of target groups through use of advertisement, awards and word of mouth etc. Besides that, she should also try to extent their marketing strategy into more creative form. For example, they could negotiate or make partnership with the pest control companies. When pest control reduces mice problem then they require the mouse trapping instruments. So in that case, if Trap-Ease makes partnership with the pest controllers then it gain wide recognition in market. Furthermore, it also creates goodwill in market as customer perceives that professional also rely on the product which reinforces the idea of Trap-Ease among the customers.
Other than that, company could also position Trap-Ease through outlines its innovative features. Likewise, Martha should position the product by defining its benefits that product is easy to handle and carry to anywhere without need of other people support. Thus, such characteristic might affects customer minds and allows them to perceive the product as simple and reliable over longer period of time (Solomon, 2014). Therefore, through this way, company could position the Trap-Ease among the new target market which is shop owners, offices, markets or any commercial spaces etc.
This positioning strategy not only helps in attracting the customer but it also makes the customer loyal towards brand. Other than that, it also built strong customer relationship with company. From this, it can be depicted that innovative feature based positioning strategy would proves to be effective strategy for Trap-Ease to sustain long time and make their investors happy.
The current marketing mix that Martha follows for their product i.e. Trap-Ease is mention below:-
Product: It uses the product concept approach for which it uses innovative mousetrap.
Price: The retail price for the product is $2.49 for per 2 units which is actually affordable price for the people to purchase and consume the product.
Place: For selling a product i.e., Trap Ease, company decide to target the product at specific places where large numbers of customers can be targeted. The places for selling a product are large retailers, Kmart, Safeway, Hechinger and CB drugs. These places are good places to start a product sale because these places are effective mix of customers.
Promotion: For promoting the product, it uses different marketing or promotional tools such as trade shows, home and shelter style magazines and publicity through print media, social media.
Simply, trap ease is a product which is rated under above average selling product which provides help to customer in generating solution. On the other side, there are some problems related with current marketing mix such as in price of Trap Ease. In this, the price of the product is found to be high and consistent because it offers a differentiating product with high quality (Lantos, 2015). This can affect the sale of business and for this company should offer a wide range of product prices on different models.
Similarly, there is a problem in place marketing mix because product is distributed at few places so company should also place the product in supermarkets, medical stores, hardware stores where different customers can be easily targeted. On the other hand, company could decide to offer more variety of product rather than selling only one product of mouse trap (Garcia, 2014).
Trap-Ease America’s competition is related to company which develops or creates mouse traps. Under this, they face a market in which there is a large volume of less quality of mouse traps which are sold to customers. In other words, there is big competition between traditional mouse trap and new innovative mouse traps. While studying, it is also found that in market, traditional mousetrap is existing from last 100 years and there are large numbers of competitors who are selling and distributing this product in the market. The sale of this product is like poisons which is dangerous for pets and animals because this poisons might or suppose to kill them.
In like manner, there are some companies which use poisons like Riddex Company uses plug in devices. The use of trap-ease is first solution which comes to mind when they faces any rodent problem in the house (Meek & Pittet, 2012). However, the current competition of current trap-ease is other products which are sold and helps in getting rid from rodents. Those other products are poisons, rodent service and traditional mouse traps which are competitors of Trap-Ease America’s current competition. At last, Trap-Ease has to fight against all this competition and their solution in order to develop and establish a big place in the competitive market.
For changing the Trap-Ease’s marketing strategy, Martha need to hire a best professionals marketing team in order to develop better effective marketing strategy. Currently, Martha uses product-oriented marketing strategy rather than using customer-oriented marketing strategy for marketing a product (Armstrong et al., 2014). In respect to it, there is one important thing is that to come up with new innovative product is marketing because until and unless you communicate with the product features to customers then no sufficient demand will be created. Moreover, Martha cares about selling expected units of trap-ease in the market for which there is need to adopt new strategy such as product strategy, distribution & promotional strategy and target strategy.
In addition, the other change also include is hiring of sales person who will visit different outlets where products are sold in order to inform customers about product and its benefits by demonstrating the product that how does it work. The hiring of sales person will help in targeting the customers by doing the house to house visit. However, there is high need to hire other people who look after different areas in order to set up marketing logic (Wirtz & Lovelock, 2016). Moreover, there is need to put the operating control and strategic control for monitoring the marketing team’s progress as well as to make sure that marketing strategy are used consistently with company’s goals and strategy.
Based on the above discussion, it can be summarized that analysis of the business environment can be effective for Trap-Ease to develop better strategies and cover the untapped market successfully. From the strategic analysis, it is identified that offering unique & innovative features of product can be effective for the firm to develop competitive advantage in the market. Company will target moms at the house through clustered targeting strategy and position it advertisement, awards and word of mouth as a mess free and safe for Children’s at home. Company needs to adopt effective marketing mix including innovative mousetrap, affordable pricing, retail distribution and promotion through trade shows, home and shelter style magazines and print media and social media. Apart from this, it can also be concluded that there is highly competitive market in this industry as Trap-Ease needs to focus on recruitment of marketing professionals, customer-oriented marketing strategy and innovation to maintain sustainable competitive advantage.
References
Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S., & Kotler, P. (2014). Principles of marketing. USA: Pearson Australia.
Coontz, S. (2016) The way we never were: American families and the nostalgia trap. Hachette UK.
Garcia, R. (2014) Creating and Marketing New Products and Services. USA: CRC Press.
Gundersen, G. H. (2014). Exploring the Evolution of the Mousetrap. The Design Society.
Lantos, G. P. (2015) Consumer behavior in action: Real-life applications for marketing managers. UK: Routledge.
Meek, P. D., & Pittet, A. (2012) User-based design specifications for the ultimate camera trap for wildlife research. Wildlife Research, 39(8), 649-660.
Solomon, M. R. (2014) Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Walker, T. A. (2016) Testing camera trap density estimates from the spatial capture model and calibrated capture rate indices against kangaroo rat (Dipodomys spp.) live trapping data. San José State University.
Wirtz, J., & Lovelock, C. (2016). Positioning Services in Competitive Markets. In SERVICES MARKETING: People Technology Strategy (pp. 90-119).
