EOC: Week 10: What are the benefits vs the features?

Some people might get the product benefits and product features somewhat mixed up are think they both have the same meaning but they really don’t. “Each is a feature-a factual statement about the product or service being promoted. But features aren't what entice customers to buy. That's where benefits come in. A benefit answers the question, ‘what’s in it for me?’”  (http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/34942) For example with cars nowadays, the feature might be better gas mileage or hybrid but the benefit of having this feature would that it would save you some money on gas and also help out the environment and the ‘Green Movement’. As of Koot’s Brüt Vodka, one of the many features it has is that is has been purified and filtered so that it has less impurities in it but the benefit of this feature is that this lowers the chance of hangover so you can have a better time/experience. “Customers typically are not interested in the features of your product or service, at least not directly. When you think about the cell phone industry, for example, telling people that you have a high resolution camera is one thing, but the reason why they would be interested in such a camera phone is because it is able to take good quality pictures. That’s the benefit.” (http://biznik.com/articles/sales-101-features-vs-benefits) Koot’s Brüt Vodka is also made from a premium Scottish Rye (Benefit), but this rye has a very distinctive and enjoyable taste that is adds to this unique brand of Vodka (Feature). “Always, always, always and always know what your consumer wants! Because you can never state the benefit that resonate with them if you don’t even know what they want!” (http://www.megabizflakes.com/essential-marketing-tip-features-vs-benefits) We here at Koot’s Brüt Vodka know that nobody enjoys hangovers and everybody enjoys a nice smooth vodka experience.

EOC Week 9: Three Great Mission Statements

I found a few good mission statements throughout my fellow classmates but its unfortunate that some are behind and didnt post yet. The top three posts have to be from Sportivo Vodka by Michele Brown, Slender Vodka by Christine McCall, and Every Man’s Vodka by Kaide Cron. They all were different but had great content and provided what was need in a good mission statement.

I like Sportivo Vodka because of how she described the "Spunky", that is such cool word and it just livened up the mission statement right from the beginning. I like how she already has goals and a target market infused in her statement and I can see the confidence in this mission statement as well. This has great content and kind of makes me jealous. Next would have to be Every Man’s Vodka by Kaide Cron. She was straight to the point in her mission statement: “Every Man’s Vodka is selling the experience of using this product with your buddies but getting a stronger, longer buzz than a beer without looking like a sissy drinking a mixed drink.” That’s just an awesome choice of words and kind of makes me want to grab a bottle of Every Man’s Vodka. I also loved how she was all about the experience of the vodka and not the look or the flavor or any other fancy doo-hickie; straight to the point and full of great content. Last but not least has to be Slender Vodka by Christine McCall. Her mission statement was real short but sweet I think; it did the job and a well job done.  Not so sure about the name because it seems a little too plain but that’s not my purpose of the post. She did a good job and I do have some good competition in this group of Vodka companies.

Implementation Evaluation Control

“Marketing implementation is the process that turns marketing plans into marketing actions in order to accomplish strategic marketing objectives. Whereas marketing planning addresses the what and why of marketing activities, implementation addresses the who, where, when, and how.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 3 Chapter 2) It takes a lot of planning and strategy to properly launch a marketing plan to an actual business and make progress in implementation. I believe my plan is pretty good, needs a little adjustment but everything can be improved on but for an initial staging of a market plan, it has great potential. We would need to strict market control which is the process of evaluating the results of your marketing strategies and correcting any error; in which I’m pretty sure we will have error but that’s not a bad thing. Sometimes we can’t see our flaws at first and then fix them when they arise such as pricing or maybe we might to change our distribution planning around more to correlate to our promotion methods. There is always room for improvement. 

Price

Pricing is probably the most important issue that needs to be addressed. You don't go over price your product and loose customers or cut yourself short; you need to understand and capture customer value. “Customer value-based pricing uses buyers’ perceptions of value, not the seller’s cost, as the key to pricing.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 6 Chapter 9) If your customer doesn’t see the value in your product then they aren’t going to buy it unless it’s at bargain pricing, that’s why you have to pricing it accordingly or improve it so can raise pricing if needed. Competition also factors in a lot when you have to decide on how you are going to set it properly. “Setting prices based on competitors’ strategies, prices, costs, and market offerings.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 16 Chapter 9) But this also comes back to customer value, if you customer sees the value in your product, they’ll purchase it even if it might be a little above your competitions pricing. Everything in your marketing plan goes into your pricing such as target markets and the product itself in production/distribution/promotion. Since we are a relatively new business we need to get proper market penetration as well and there’s a pricing strategy for that as well. Market-Penetration Strategy is “Setting a low price for a new product in order to attract a large number of buyers and a large market share.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 27 Chapter 9) This is a very important factor and is a good way to push ourselves into the market and a beginning.

Koot’s Brüt Vodka will probably begin with a price at about 18 bucks for a 750ml bottle, which is about 2 dollars cheaper than Smirnoff because they are our biggest competitor. When consumers begin to purchase our products are develop a value for this product, we can bring it up to the 20 dollar mark right along with Smirnoff. 

Promotion

I actually have quite a few ideas for promotion our product and business but before I jump into my ideas, I think it'll be best to lay down some foundation and better understanding on promotion. There are a few different strategies on how to promote yourself such as the Push or Pull Promotion Strategies. "A promotion strategy that calls for using the sales force and trade promotion to push the product through channels. The producer promotes the product to channel members who in turn promote it to final consumers." (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 16 Chapter 12) Then there is Pull Promotion which is a little different but I’ll explain after this quote. “Using a pull strategy, the producer directs its marketing activities (primarily advertising and consumer promotion) toward final consumers to induce them to buy the product.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 16 Chapter 12) Basically, in a Push Promotion the producers would push their product onto the retailers then they would push the product onto the consumer. With a Pull Promotion, Productions would cut out the middle man; promoting directly to the consumer which would cause a demand through the channels in which it is being sold. There are various mediums you could promote a product such as advertisements.

Now that we’ve established a common ground on promotion, I think it’s about time a share my ideas with you.  Ultimately, my goal with the business is to sponsor a music tour or venue; much like the Jagermeister Tour. That’s my goal but first we would have to start out with standard air time and radio commercials then move on up to TV commercials. When we begin to start a following we could then promote our product through night clubs by giving deals such as, if you buy 2 bottles you can bring 2 friends in free of club entrance fee; something in that sort of field of promotion. It’s always good to dream big and work towards a greater goal such as a music tour because that would probably be our best strategy on promoting Koot’s Brüt Vodka.

Distribution

Now that we understand what products I’ll be production and providing, I believe it’s time to discuss distribution. We all would just love to distribute our product everywhere and not care and think that you will get the best chance of profit but that isn’t so true, especially with exclusive/luxurious product or specialty product such as alcohol. We could take various distribution routes such as intensive distribution which simply means stocking your product in as many outlets and stores as possible but I don’t think that’ll suit my business. We have a little bit tighter target market to just throw ourselves out there. Then there is exclusive distribution which is “Giving a limited number of dealers the exclusive right to distribute the company’s products in their territories.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 26 Chapter 10) We are classy kind of beverage but aren’t a 1000 dollar exclusive drink or product such as Rolex. We want a selective distribution that’ll give us freedoms but also maintain order. Selective Distribution: “The use of more than one, but fewer than all, of the intermediaries who are willing to carry the company’s products.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 26 Chapter 10) This is what I believe will be best to advance our business properly and create new and greater opportunities. 

Product

When it comes to the term ‘Product’ with Koot’s Brüt Vodka, we have it off pretty easy since we have a very small menu or line of product. But when it comes to figuring out how to organize our products, we use a technique called Product Mix or Portfolio. A “Product mix (or product portfolio) is the set of all product lines and items that a particular seller offers for sale.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 22 Chapter 7) For example would be a company like Sony which has which a few portfolios such as Sony Electronics and Sony Pictures Entertainment but here at Koot’s we don’t have to worry about furthering ourselves in that direction because our market doesn’t call for that.

The product mix breaks down into three sub-categories which are length, depth, and width. All three of these will help organize ourselves in production and determine what we need to be successful in the production of our product. “Product mix length refers to the total number of items the company carries within its product lines.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 23 Chapter 7) Basically referring to how many product lines your company produces. Fortunately, we provide only one product which is just Vodka. “Product mix depth refers to the number of versions offered of each product in the line.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 23 Chapter 7) We at Koot’s have just one type of Vodka at the moment but are looking into opening up a new line of pre-mixed drinks. “Product mix width refers to the number of different product lines the company carries.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 23 Chapter 7) Last but not least, Product mix “Consistency of the product mix refers to how closely related the various product lines are in end use, production requirements, distribution channels, or some other way.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong & Kotler, Page 23 Chapter 7) All of these are quite simple for our line of work since we provided a simple and straight forward product of Vodka with now flavored line and such that will drown out our prestigious natural flavors. Koot’s Brüt Vodka is simple but a luxurious vodka that isn’t drowned down by the glitz and glam that other brands might push onto the market.