Marketing Plan for Burt’s Bees

The following marketing plan forms the basis for the introduction of Burt’s Bees brand. The analysis allows us to outline the best strategies to follow for the achievement of the company’s strategic goals in the Scandinavian market and of its potential would be enable Burt’s Bees to be fully informed of their target market and be able to introduce and sell their cosmetics into the Nordic countries. It enable the company to gain an full analysis of the market and its potential, a clear identification of the target groups, development of the brand with an appropriate a range of marketing tools to launch and promote the brand, strategies that identify and the identification of strategic approaches and activities for a sustainable business venture. Success will be reflected by a sizeable capture of market shares within this market, while strategically carrying the company up to the top spot as the market leader in the cosmetics market. Implementation and control to ensure the success launch of Burt’s Bees product are to be considered.

Current Marketing Situation

Burt’s Bee is a company offering earth-friendly, natural health and beauty care products for 25 years. The brand includes products for total skin health and products are available in the United States, in countries worldwide and through its website. Burt’s Bees products are made by natural goods, e.g. natural milk and honey. 50% of Burt’s Bees products are 100% natural and the rest come in close. The main business mission of Burt’s Bees is orientated around environmental conservation and social responsibility, which is to make people’s lives better everyday naturally and to ensure the position in Scandinavian and Nordic countries of cosmetics market.

In the cosmetics market, Burt’s Bees has many main competitors such as Body Shop, Aveda, Weleda. For example, Body Shop sells products based on ideological values like activating self-esteem, also, they sell products with natural ingredients as well with different level of price cost. The company’s core business model is based on social responsible principles to promote its use of natural ingredients in cosmetics. Moreover, competitors like Body Shop and Aveda, they have a good position in the international cosmetics market, which give Burt’s Bees a big barrier of entering the Scandinavian and Nordic market, because the competitors have their own loyal customers and different types of cosmetics products.

The customers in Scandinavian and Nordic countries like Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland have a significant improvement in private consumption growth over the past two decades. Comparing the two periods, 1986-1996 versus 1997-2007, the rate of private consumption growth performance are more than doubled in most of them. Furthermore, due to the increase of aging populations that the Nordic countries are experiencing, the number of people would be willing to purchase beeswax or honey-sourced cosmetics.

In addition, the major buyers of skin care products are women and their spending on cosmetics varies according to the products. Anti-aging creams and removal of wrinkle-products are in high demand among an aging population in the Scandinavian and Nordic countries. Burt’s Bees should focus on selling anti-aging creams and removal of wrinkle-products or other medical products for skins in the Nordic countires.

Business Environment

Burt’s Bees begins the operations of environmental friendly products and products that could help the customers live well. This section discusses how the business environment is likely to affect Burt’s Bees’ marketing and performance and this is also followed by a SWOT analysis of our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

PEST:
Political
-Huge welfares states
-Least corrupted countriesEconomic
-Positive GDP
-More disposable income
Technological
-Perform better advertisement and promotions
Social
-Sustainability
-Natural cosmetics goods
-Natural ingredients

Political view: The Nordic countries have huge welfares states, that motivate the employees to increase the consume rate, also, most of the Nordic countries are the least corrupted countries compare to the others, people have more capability to consume.

Economic view: Most of the Nordic countries have positive growth in GDP, which means the people have more disposable income – the amount of money that households have available for spending and saving after income taxes have been accounted for.

Technological trends: With new production and communication technologies, Burt’s Bees are suitable to perform better advertisements and promotions for the products. For instance, Burt’s Bees can advertise their products through the social networks, like Facebook and Youtube etc.

Social – Ecological trends: With a focus on sustainability, Burt’s Bees’ natural cosmetics goods are a very good advantage to stay in the market due to the fact that people are paying more attention on environmental friendly goods.

SWOT Analysis

The SWOT analysis analyses the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, therefore Burt’s Bees can counter a few critical weaknesses that could threaten our ability to build profitability and the market
position.

Strengths:
-Effective product
-Customers loyalty
-Experienced management team
-OrganicWeaknesses:
-Low brand awareness
-Low budgets
Opportunities:
-Huge growth markets
-High awareness on cosmetic goods with natural ingredientsThreats: -Intense competition
-Market fragmentation

Strengths

-Effective product: Burt’s Bees’ natural cosmetics goods are very effective on skin care, also, according to a recent (2012) consumer interview survey showed (Hayes, 2012), 68% of the respondents have not tried beeswax or honey-sourced cosmetics before, but 74% of them stated they would be willing to use this kind of cosmetics, this is because people prefer for natural ingredient cosmetics than for the large cosmetic brands. Therefore, Burt’s Bees products will be more effective than the other competitors. -Customers loyalty: Burt’s Bees has already have their own loyal customers, from the USA to the countries from other places, the international market has create many loyal customers, therefore, Burt’s Bees still got them to purchase the cosmetic goods. -Experienced management team: Due to the fact that Burt’s Bees management team has experience in the USA already, they can move some management team members into the Nordic countries to manage the company and the employees. -Organic: One of the biggest strength of Burt’s Bees, people are paying more attentions on organic products nowadays, also, most of the Burt’s Bees’ products are organic, and therefore people are willing to buy its products than the others.

Weaknesses

-Low brand awareness: Burt’s Bees has just entered the Scandinavian and Nordic countries for a short time, there still are some people are aware not on its products because it is new to them. -Low budgets: Entering a new market needs much money, therefore it may not have much budgets to do promotions or create new products for a several years.

Opportunities

-Huge growth markets: Because organic and natural goods are the trends nowadays, it has a big potential on this market, there will be more people to buy products with natural and organic ingredients. -High awareness on cosmetic goods with natural ingredients: As the above has mentioned, the trends of organic and natural goods will raise the awareness on it.

Threats:

-Intense competition: There are many competitors like The Body Shop are selling similar products. For example, The Body Shop is a huge multinational with a leading brand, its business model is based on social responsible principles to promote its use of natural ingredients in cosmetics. The company has also two-for-one sales offers for consumers (Hayes, 2012). -Market fragmentation: The market fragmentation may be small, because most of the consumers will buy natural cosmetics are female. Male are still not the main customers to purchase cosmetic products.

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

According to the consumer survey (2012), 49% stated that consumers prefer to use natural ingredient cosmetics, 55% will take notes of the ingredients of cosmetics when they purchase in a shop, however, 75% cannot distinguish between suitable and unsuitable health ingredients of cosmetics. Moreover, the major buyers of skin care products are women, 44% of the respondents prefer to use moisturizers for skin care in consideration of the climate factors in Scandinavian and Nordic countries, also, there are growing concerns about skin cancer and exposure to harmful rays that has led to the growing use of sun care products. Furthermore, due to the aging population in the Nordic countries, anti-aging creams and removal of wrinkle-products are in high demand (Hayes, 2012).

Burt’s Bees has already an advantage because we are already selling natural ingredients cosmetics, however, it should state out clearly which health ingredients are suitable and unsuitable for people, like clarifying which ingredients are actually natural, and which are not, therefore customers will set one’s mind at ease to consume Burt’s Bees cosmetics products.

Burt’s Bees main customers are female customers from the age of 18 or above, also, customers in the Nordic countries prefer to use moisturizers, anti-aging creams and removal of wrinkle-products. Therefore Burt’s Bees should focus on producing these kinds of products, so the sales will be increased very quickly.

In addition, different consumers have different amount of income, Discriminatory pricing would be very useful. Burt’s Bees can charge different prices for different groups of consumers with different amount of income. For example, discounts can be given to students and people with loyalty cards.

There are some future business targets Burt’s Bees should be made. Burt’s Bees should increase the quality of the current products, to make sure providing the best quality of cosmetics products to customers, therefore they will come and purchase it again in the future.

Because Burt’s Bees has just entered the Nordic countries market, the product life cycle of most of the products should be at introduction section, therefore the company should do more promotions and advertisements about Burt’s Bees to let people in the Nordic countries to pay attention on the brand, also, it can attracts people to purchase the products and the sales will be increased.

Burt’s Bees should keep their position of providing organic and natural cosmetic products to the public, which can an image of the company, that once people recognize the name of Burt’s Bees, they will know the company’s cosmetic products are made by natural ingredients.

Objectives and Issues

Penetration Price: As entering the Nordic market, Burt’s Bees may have to penetrate the price of the products, it is a practice of offering a low price for products to attract customers away from competitors. Consequently, Burt’s Bees can enjoy high sales and better income.

New products development: Burt’s Bees should research and develop a new kind of product that is completely different, but organic and natural cosmetic. For example, Burt’s Bees can develop face washes products for both male and female, also, if possible, shampoo and shower gel are potential as well. In addition, Burt’s Bees can develop a completely different product to enter new markets. That could help the company increase sales and income if the new products are effective.

Product modifying: Burt’s Bees should modify its products, for example, lip balm can be made with different kind of new flavours, and it can attract more customers to buy the products due to their curiosity of new goods. The packaging of the products are suggested to be modified as well, consumers will be attracted by it.

Core Strategy

Burt’s Bees should base on their customers segments to offer products to them correctly. Based on the recent interview and questionnaire survey (Hayes, 2012), 68% of the respondents have not tried beeswax or honey-sourced cosmetics before, also, respondents from the Nordic countries prefer to use moisturizers, anti-aging creams, removal of wrinkle-products and sun care products for skin care in consideration of the climate factors in Scandinavia and the aging population in the Nordic countries. Burt’s Bees should focus on these preferences of the respondents to provide the exact products, that would be very effective to build up a position in the cosmetics market and sales will be increased.

Burt’s Bees should also to keep competing with other competitors like The Body Shop. Competitive advantage is a clear performance differential based on factors that are important to target consumers. The major success is the dependent on the company creating a competitive advantage by being better in the competition. For instance, Burt’s Bees can offer superior quality products or better quality of services. Consumers will compare the companies, if Burt’s Bees can stand out from the competitors, customers will purchase the products and use the services provided.

Marketing Mix Decisions

Price
-Cost based on quality of products
-Discounts
-PromotionsProducts
-Different qualities
-Organic / Natural ingredients
-Anti-age, moisturizers
Place
-Main streets
-Shopping centre
-InternetPromotion
-Advertisement
-Press conference
-Promotions

-Price: The price should be based on the quality of the products Burt’s Bees made. For example, products with lower quality should set the cheaper price; on the other hand, products with better quality should set a higher price. In addition, discounts and promotion should be given as well, for instance, student discounts, specific credit cards discounts, vouchers, loyalty cards and buy one get one free promotion etc.

-Products: Products should be made with natural and organic ingredients, as well as different quality. Burt’s Bees should focus on making moisturizers, sun care products, anti-aging creams and removal of wrinkle-products skin care due to the high demand of these. Moreover, the design of the brand name and package are suggested to be modified.

-Place: Burt’s Bees should set a shop with a high number of people on the streets, shopping centres. Furthermore, customers can also purchase products from the internet.

-Promotion: There are many types of advertisement, for example, Television advertisement, radio, women magazines, newspaper and the internet. In addition, Burt’s Bees should do promotions two to three times a month to attract more and more consumers.

Implementation and Controls

To ensure existing product modifying and new products development are launched on time, Burt’s Bees should adhere to weekly schedules and assign management responsibilities for supervising manufacturer’s representatives, coordinating sales promotion activities, advertising, promotions and website.

Burt’s Bees should review interim progress weekly during the operation, comparing actual results with forecasts, schedules and budgets and adjusting activities if needed, e.g. press conference or promotions on the streets.