Most Effective Promotional Tools to Attract Customers - Research Proposal Example

? Most Effective Promotional Tools to Attract s The Most Effective Promotional Tools toAttract Customers – A Case of Virgin Holidays Background The basic aim of marketing is to increase revenue of the organization because in this competitive environment, every organization tries to take competitive advantage by applying various marketing tools (Perreault 2000). The organizations communicating effectively and understanding the needs of the customers by applying promotional tools have been able to retain their customers. Promotion can be defined as the short-term incentive for the organization that help and encourage increasing the sales of the organization. The systematic way of communicating marketing function to the target audience in order to influence their behavior towards a product and taking competitive advantage is known as promotion (Koekemoer 2004). The promotional tools are very important in industries where competition is tough and these tools helps the organizations to maintain their market share by increasing the sales volume (Perreault 2000). In leisure industry, it is very important to determine appropriate promotional tool that can help the organization to increase the customer satisfaction and increase its revenue therefore, this paper will evaluate the promotional tools that are most effective for Virgin holidays. Company Profile “Virgin holidays” is part of virgin group and this leisure company is one of the largest tour operator companies of UK, established since 1985 (Virgin 2012). Apart from USA and Caribbean, it offers holidays to different parts of the world including Middle East, South Africa, Canada, Australia, Mauritius, and Far East. On average, the company runs 16 marketing campaigns per year in which different promotions are performed in summer, fall, and winter seasons (Virgin 2012). There are also monthly marketing campaigns in which the company, for increasing the overall revenue targets different segments (Virgin 2012). The promotional tools that Virgin Holidays is using to attract customers are Sales promotion, Advertising and Publicity. Research Objective The purpose of this research is to determine the promotional tool that is most effective to attract customers of Virgin Holiday. Research questions Q1. What types of promotional tools are most effective for attracting customers of Virgin Holidays? Q2. What is the importance of determining appropriate promotional tool for leisure industry? Significance of the Proposed Research Work The proposed research work is significantly important for the organizations of UK because this research will enable organizations to understand effectiveness of promotional tools in increasing their overall profitability. In this way, organizations will be able to implement appropriate promotional tools in their marketing strategy, which not only help to improve their profits, but increasing consumer loyalty for the product. In addition to the context of UK organizations, there is lack of research work for the effective of promotional tools in leisure industry. Therefore, this research will serve as important studies towards understanding the effectiveness of promotional tools. Scope of the Proposed Study The scope of this research will be limited to exploring the promotional tools used by Virgin Holidays for marketing, and their effectiveness for the company. No other factors will be explored or tested apart from these in the studies and it is important to mention here that the analysis and discussion in light of the proposed research aim will be limited to the skills and ability of the researcher. Structure of the Report This research report is divided into five chapters, which are as follows: Chapter – 01: Introduction The starting chapter of this report will discuss the background related to the topic and problems that are responsible for conducting this research. Apart from this, the chapter presents the aim, objectives and questions that will be addressed in this research. Chapter – 02: Literature Review The second chapter of the report will aim to review the literature available for topic of the research and presents the theoretical background on the subject of promotional tools and their effectiveness for the organizations. Different past studies and models will be provided in this chapter for making basis for the discussion and analysis. Chapter – 03: Research Methodology In the third chapter, the research methodology adapted by the research for conducting research work will be presented. Different research methods and approaches will be provided in this research and identification of the research methodology adapted for this study will also be presented in this chapter. Moreover, data sources, collection and its analysis by making use of analytical tools will be presented in detail. The ethical considerations and limitations of this study will provided at the end of this chapter. Chapter – 04: Findings and Discussion The chapter four of this research will present the findings of this study and will present a discussion of the findings in relation to the research questions and literature presented earlier. Based on the discussion, the validity of research hypothesis will be tested by the researcher in the last chapter of research. Chapter – 05: Conclusion and Recommendations This chapter is the last chapter of this research in which the researcher accepts or rejects the hypothesis based on the findings in the earlier chapter. This chapter will also present recommendations for those who want to carry out research on the similar topic in future. Literature Review Theoretical Framework Promotion Different researchers and scholars have given different definitions and meanings of promotion according to their understanding of the topic, but it is interesting to know that each definition of promotion is different from other. Promotion can be defined as an essential part of marketing and a fundamental or integral social economic system. It is important to understand that exchanges between organizations are equal to half of the world’s economic activities and most of these organizations are commercial entities that provide their products or services to the customers or other companies (Koekemoer 2004). Therefore, promotion has a critical part in the marketing mix and is directly responsible for success of the marketing strategy of organizations. The basic role of promotion is to provide product information to consumers in such a way that they can get attracted towards the product, and this is the reason that organizations achieve their marketing objectives with help of promotion (Koekemoer 2004). The promotional mix assists organizations to reach communications programs more effectively, because it has a major contribution in “IMC”. The sale of products or services is facilitated by promotion and promotional tools positions product or service in such a way that they become different from other. It is necessary for promotion to grab the attention of people before they can make any opinion for the product or service offered to them (Koekemoer 2004). When marketers organize different promotional mix, they decide which tool to use for promotion and in which manner these tools should be combined for meeting marketing goals of the organizations. Differences of Promotional Tools Different organizations use different promotional tools for marketing their product or service depending on their nature. According to William Perreault (2000), the most important promotional tools for marketing are: Sales Promotion: This promotional tool is used for different actions of marketing for providing additional importance to the clients, and distributors of the product. The advantage of sales promotion is that it creates immediate interest of the consumer to buy any product or service because of the promotional offer (Perreault 2000). Sales promotion can be categorized as consumer oriented and trade oriented. The consumer oriented sales promotions are performed for the end users of the product and different incentives are offered to them such as discounts, coupons, shirts, samples etc. for using product or service. The trade oriented sales promotion is for wholesalers, retailers and distributors for giving them incentives such as price deals, and allowances etc. (Perreault 2000). Advertising: It is paid form of the organizations non-personal communication by an identified sponsor for their product or service (Perreault 2000). The organizations have to pay for a space or time for advertising their message in different mediums that are “T.V., Radio, and Newspaper”. The advantage of advertising is that information can be conveyed to large number of people at the same time, and organizations gets an opportunity to cater different target audience at the same time (Perreault 2000). Direct Marketing: In this promotional tool, large number of expected customer can be met at the same time by communicating them directly (Perreault 2000). There are many activities, which can be performed through direct marketing such as mail, internet, direct selling, telephone marketing, website, print media etc. Unlike other promotional tools, uniqueness of direct marketing is the immediate response of the customers, which help organizations to quantify the effectiveness of promotional tool (Perreault 2000). Publicity or Public Relation: In this promotional tool, organizations do not pay directly for communicating with the customers (Perreault 2000). The information, which is carried with help of newspapers, articles, press conference, social networking etc., can be either negative or positive according to nature of the message. When organizations willingness give their information for their making positive image, then this is known as public relation (Perreault 2000). Personal Selling: This selling is very helpful for marketing and it engage face-to-face dealings linking purchaser and the vendor. The vendor gets a chance to persuade customer for buying the product or service, and customer relationship can be build in this promotional tool very effectively (Perreault 2000). Theory of Reasoned Action Source: (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980) Azjen and Fishbein (1980) first proposed this theory, and effort was made to understand the relationship between attitude and behavior. Apart from behavior and attitude, belief and intension was also explained in this theory. This theory states that behavior can be explained by behavioral intention and this intention can be predicted from the attitude and subjective norms of people linked with their behavior. According to them, the belief of a person for performing a particular behavior is responsible for determining the attitude while the subjective norms is determine by certain people to whom that person gets motivated and they are the one agreeing or disagreeing with normative beliefs of the person (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980). The theory of reasoned action can be linked with promotional tools because these tools are useful for organizations to make certain behavior of the person towards any product. The attitude of people can be changed with help of effective promotional tools whereas the subjective norms can also be influenced positively if referents can be made motivated towards the product. Conceptual Framework A research was conducted in Iran by Balaghar, Majidazar and Niromand (2012) in which effectiveness of sales promotional tools on sales volume was measured by them. For this purpose, a questionnaire was send to more than 119 sales representatives of Iran Tractor Company for their opinion towards sales promotional tool (Balaghar, Majidazar and Niromand 2012). Similarly, for this research, a questionnaire will be send to people who have previously experienced services of Virgin Holidays. Another research was held in Malaysia by Ndubisi (2005) in which effectiveness of sales promotional tool for low involvement products was measured. For this purpose, the researcher made a structured questionnaire in which different questions related to promotional tools was asked from 312 consumers. Various questions related to discounting, bonuses, coupons, free sample, product trial etc. was asked from them to evaluate the effectiveness of these promotional tools (Ndubisi 2005). The researcher of this research also aims to ask different questions from the consumers related to promotional tools used by Virgin Holidays. Research Methodology Adopted Research Methodology The researcher will be based on a positivistic paradigm which implements quantitative research approach to conduct this research. In quantitative approach, the researcher aims to collect data based on figures and then testing these figures to reach a conclusive result. The outcome in the quantitative approach is achieved by the collection of data or other primary sources (Monsen and Horn, 2007). Since the research aim is to find out the effectiveness of promotional tools in Virgin Holidays, therefore quantitative approach will be best suited for this topic because effectiveness of promotional tools can be determine after collecting facts and figures from the customers of Virgin Holiday. The research will be based on a deductive approach and the research work will start from more general reasoning and ends with more specific reasoning. The outcome of the study will be ranking of the promotional tools used by Virgin Holidays which have positive impact on their decisions to book their holidays through the website of Virgin Holidays. Data Collection When the researcher is carrying out his research, data is collected from various sources and these sources can be either primary or secondary depending on the nature of the research. For selecting primary or secondary data, the researcher considers research aims and objectives so that most appropriate and useful information for the research can be achieved (Monsen and Horn 2007). The proposed research will make use of secondary sources for finding the basis for conducting the research work because it is necessary to discuss existing theories and their relevance to the proposed study and then establishing the conceptual framework for conducting the research work. The primary data is also significant to collect because facts and figures which are specific to the study in hand cannot be collected by previous studies and theories therefore, it is important for researcher to consider the use of both primary and secondary sources to conduct the research (Monsen and Horn 2007). Primary Data: When researcher collects data by his own experience, then this type of research is known as primary research (Monsen and Horn 2007). For this research work, survey questionnaire will be used as data collection in which different questions will be asked from respondents regarding promotional tools of Virgin Holidays. Elaborated Questionnaire: Since main topic of the research is effectiveness of promotional tools, therefore the questionnaire will contain various questions related to promotional tools and their effectiveness in Virgin Holidays. The first part of questionnaire will contain demographics of the respondents who have experienced services and promotional activities of Virgin Holidays. Questions related to three promotional tools that are advertising, sales promotion and public relation will be asked from the respondents in order to evaluate their effectiveness on buying decision of the customers. The respondents will also be asked regarding the promotional tool that attracts them the most. Sampling For sampling respondents who will be requested to take part in the survey, the researcher selects a group of population for conducting research involving them. The respondents in the proposed sample will be individuals who are customers of the Virgin Holidays. Their responses will be tested out to provide conclusive results regarding the research hypothesis for the study as mentioned in the previous section of this report (Monsen and Horn 2007). The sample size of this research will be 100 respondents who have previously experienced promotions and services of Virgin Holidays. Secondary Research: The research will also use journals, articles, books, annual reports of leisure companies, and websites for collecting secondary data. These sources will give support to the objective of this study regarding the effective of promotional tools in Virgin Group. Data Analysis: Promotional tools used by Virgin Holidays will be evaluated on the basis of analyzing the data to be collected from the primary research and the outcome of the proposed research will yield in ranking of all promotional tools in comparison to each other. The analysis will involve performing descriptive statistics including frequencies to summarize the findings supported by graphical depiction of results. All the promotional tools used by Virgin Holidays will be compared with each other in order to evaluate their effectiveness on the consumers. For this purpose, the responses of individuals to the questions to be included in the questionnaire regarding the impact of promotional tools on their ability to attract customers and also influence respondents buying decisions will be specifically addressed. The outcome of the research will be indication of which promotional tool used Virgin Holidays is more effective than the other one. Limitations The major limitation of this research is the number of respondents selected to conduct this research. There are millions of people who have used the services of Virgin Holidays therefore, it is difficult for researcher to make the result valid and it may be suggested that the sample size may not be sufficient. Another limitation of this research is the unavailability of useful data for evaluating the performance of promotional tools in leisure industry of UK. There is also limitation pertaining to the quantitative research often lacking descriptive element of report. Moreover, there are certain limitations related to the completion of survey questionnaire by respondents including biasness, incomplete or improper completion of forms, and delays in submissions. Ethical Considerations The researcher will ensure that no personal information of the customers will be published in order to prevent any problem for them. During the data collection, the researcher will make sure that all customers are conveniently complete the questionnaire in their own time and no one is forced to participate. The researcher will be not responsible for any consequences based on decisions placed upon the results of the proposed research. List of References Ajzen, I. and Fishbein, M., 1980. Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Balaghar, Ali, M Majidazar, and M Niromand, 2012. "Evaluation of Effectiveness of Sales Promotional Tools on Sales Volume (Case Study: Iran Tractor Manufacturing Complex (ITMC)." Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research 11, no. 4: 470-480. Koekemoer, L., 2004. Marketing Communications. Lansdowne: Juta and Company Ltd. Monsen, E. and Horn, L., 2007. Research: Successful Approaches. New York: American Dietetic Association. Ndubisi, Nelson. "Effectiveness of sales promotion tools in Malaysia, 2005: The case of low involvement products." Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Studies, 10, no. 2: 41-47. Perreault, W., 2000. Basic Marketing. London: McGraw-Hill. Virgin. "Why Virgin Holidays." www.virginholidays.co.uk. 2012. Read More