Introduction:
This report is going to give an introductory explanation of the marketing plan for the new service that we are going to launch. A marketing plan is a document which outlines the strategy for marketing the service or product which is going to be marketed. A marketing plan not only helps the company to have a much-focused approach towards its market but also it helps in outlining and tackling the core functional needs of the business. The marketing plan acts as a core direction for the business to move forward. It is a document which can be constantly changed and improved to make it adaptive of current trends, customer preferences, and environmental changes. The marketing plan for our service is going to include the details of the current situation of the business. It would first describe our service, its location, its characteristics, and its target market. It would further expand on providing long term and short-term goals for our business and its performance metrics (Kotler & Keller, 2015). The report would also include an in-depth analysis of the market for our service through the use of environmental analysis. We will further analyze the strengths, opportunities, and needs of the business by conducting need analysis and SWOT analysis for the service.
Location:
The location of the business is going to be New York, USA. We are choosing this location, as it is one of the main hubs in which the law firms and companies have their head offices. Sign Language interpreters are often required for legal purposes, and thus this would be a good location to start the business. It would be a good place to gain professional contracts from companies who need sign language interpreters to fulfill the legal requirements.
Product/Service:
The service of the company is going to be sign language service. The company name is going to be “OneSign.” The company is going to be providing the service of sign language interpretation to the companies, government departments, and individuals. The service would include training the employees of the client company to be efficient in sign language. Sign language is used to serve the Deaf communities (Prinz & Strong, 1997) and for the hard of hearing and situations including the communities of foreign languages needing immediate communication. This type of service is much needed among individuals (Everyday Health.Com, 2018). It also aids in improving co-speech gestures (Casey, Emmorey, & Larrabee, 2012).
Our Mission Statement is going to be.
“Empowering First-Respondents, Government Officials and Companies to serve people better.”
Main Goals
Goals define the direction for a business. Without goals, one would wander for years and would not know if enough has been done. The company OneSign needs to assign goals for its short term, and long-term plans to keep on track.
Short-Term
The short-term goals for the company are based on establishing its foothold in the New York business arena and making some long-term clients. We are targeting that in the first year of its operations OneSign would provide its services to five major governmental departments to break even. We would be targeting the Police and Fire-Rescue Department at our priorities. It could start small by training their first respondents. We could give them mock sessions to provide authentic briefing into the benefits they would reap from the session. The departments of rescue and many others would be targeted to win contracts as well. It is targeted to achieve 5% of the market share in the first year of the operations at least. It is also targeted that the company OneSign also increases its website visitors and engagement to have at least 10,000 visitors per quarter.
Long-Term:
The Long-term goals of the company are targeted at a market share growth rate of 5% to increase the market share to 10%. It is also targeted to maintain 10,000 website visitor engagements in the first two years and then increase by 20% each year for the next three years. The sales growth rate is also expected to grow at 5% each year be gaining more contracts from the government departments and companies as well.
Performance Measures:
There are various metrics which are being decided to have performance standards and then compare the performance against these standards to evaluate the current performance of the company. The measurement metric includes.
Market Share:
The market share of a company shows how much the market is being captured by the company in relative to its industry and competitors. It is computed by looking at the total revenue of the industry and then comparing it with the revenue of the company to compute the value of a share of revenue held by the company. The market share is the most prioritized performance metrics for OneSign as it would show the actual performance of the company regarding its revenue and its competitors.
Revenue Growth Rate:
It is another performance metric which would yield information on the performance of the company regarding its operational efficiency. The revenue growth rate is targeted to be 5% each from 3rd year of operation. We have not set a high non-achievable target for ourselves (Gao, 2010).
Contracts with Government Departments:
We have targeted winning about five contracts at least with Government Departments in our first year. It is a very humble number of contracts; we can always do better. However, as Government departments do not just give contracts to everyone, it follows a lengthy procedure, the screening process. Therefore, it is given a big priority. Once we have entered the good books of the Government departments, then there is no stopping us having repeated contracts with the same and new departments.
Website Engagement:
We are targeting 10,000 visitors to our website in the first quarter of the year and then maintaining this figure throughout the year. It would include both existing and new visitors. We would direct our potential customers and visitors towards our website by channeling social media platforms.
Customer Value:
We are going to develop a feedback form for our customers who would be attending our training sessions to rate our customer service (Williams & Naumann, 2009).
Environmental Analysis:
Environmental analysis is important to conduct to realize if the company is entering the right industry and if the industry or economy in which it is entering has the potential to offer opportunities to the company or not.
Competitive:
There is an industry which is often overlooked by us, and that is about interpreters, more specifically sign language interpreters. The language services industry, which includes the translation, interpreting, localization, and all related technologies, is worth $33 billion worldwide as per the estimates of the market size. People consider this job as a niche profession. However, these workers can be found in every conceivable sector of the industry. Most of the interpreters are needed in hospitals, schools, courtrooms, and government offices. The US Bureau of Statistics showed that the jobs in the profession of translator and interpreter are going to face expansion by 42% in the years 2010 to 2020. There are about 40 schools in the United States who are offering programs of bachelors in American Sign Language, and then there are 78 other schools who are offering associate degrees in interpreting of American Sign Language (Jacobs, 2012). Companies giving service of training include ASL NYC, National Association of the Deaf, ASLIS | American Sign Language Interpreting Services, and Udemy.
Economic:
The economic condition of the United States is well enough to consider it good for business. More specifically, our target market; the government officials and the companies are legally required to have ASL interpreters have enough budgets to be able to buy our service. The economic condition offers opportunities for business and specifically the small enterprises to grow and build their fortunes.
Political:
The political condition of the US would be considered business friendly as well. Even though with all the Trump-scenario, the businesses and government departments are working profitably and thus it shows that the stable political environment for business is positive in the US.
Legal:
The legal act of the US for disabled persons obliges the departments of governments and state departments, and companies have interpreters of ASL. It shows that we can target these departments to offer our services to them (Alison, 2016). Furthermore, the legal procedure of setting up a business in New York is not as tough as well. However, the legal requirements are to be fulfilled.
Technological:
Technological advancement in the whole world has taken the industries by storm. In this industry as well, there has been the introduction of many gadgets, and applications which can help learn or use ASL as their interpreter. However, still, the first responders and many other scenarios call for humans to have the basic knowledge regarding sign language. However, we would need to incorporate the technological trends in our service as well. We can make our application for learning ASL.
Socio-Cultural Forces:
The socio-cultural forces define the consumer needs, and how they prefer it to be satisfied. The Deaf community in the United States is not as deprived of basic needs as it is in there less developed parts of the world. However, it still shows that the deaf community in the US is not all equipped with ASL.
SWOT Analysis
| Strengths: | Weakness: |
| The strengths of the company would be its strong panel of ASL interpreters who would have strong credentials
The ASL certified company Mock Free Sessions for evaluation of service to potential customers Transferring ASL skills to the clients, empowering them rather than making them dependent on us (Nixon & Helms, 2010) |
Having no pre-existing connections in the government departments
Having no experience at a company providing ASL services Tough competition from existing contractors of Government departments |
| Opportunities | Threats |
| Government Department
Police Department Fire Department Commercial Companies Courtrooms Law Firms |
Tough competition from existing contractors of Government departments
ASL degrees offered by schools
|
Needs Analysis
Hearing loss is more common than one would think. Americans more than 28 million have witnessed the loss of hearing to some extent as per the Centers for Prevention and Disease Control. It is however not necessary that all people with the loss of hearing use sign language. People can also rely on lip reading and other means of communication. Usually, parents of deaf children encourage their children to learn lip reading instead as it would not require them to have an interpreter or communicate only with the deaf community.
Americans usually do not consider any other language as a necessity, unlike the Europeans. However, there should be aware regarding learning another language or sign language to help them communicate with not only deaf people but also with foreigners as well.
Furthermore, as per the Disabilities Act of 1990, a qualified interpreter for hearing-impaired or deaf people is usually required by law. It is often done by calling on an interpreter. However, it would mean so much more if basic sign language is known by the owner of the company or by the ones who are needed to communicate with clients or vendors. There can be a situation in which first respondents like the fire or police employees are needed to arrive on the scene and communicate with the people on site. In such situations an interpreter is needed, however, it is better that these employees also have some basic knowledge of sign language as well. It is the need which we are going to fulfill through our service. We would not provide interpreters; we would provide training for teaching sign language to government officials and first respondents who would need it.
Read Marketing Plan OneSign-Plan B here
References:
Alison. (2016, August 16). When Is Sign Language Interpreting Required By Law? Retrieved from https://www.accreditedlanguage.com/2016/
08/17/when-is-sign-language-interpreting-required-by-law/
Casey, S., Emmorey, K., & Larrabee, H. (2012). The effects of learning American Sign Language on co-speech gesture. HHS Author Manuscripts, 15(4), 677-686.
Everyday Health.Com. (2018). 5 Reasons To Learn Sign Language. Retrieved from https://www.everydayhealth.com/healthy-living/5-reasons-learn-sign-language/
Gao, Y. (2010). Measuring marketing performance: a review and a framework. The Marketing Review, 10(1), 25-40.
Jacobs, D. L. (2012, November 13). Lydia Callis and the Biggest Industry You’ve Never Heard Of. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs
/2012/11/13/lydia-callis-and-the-biggest-industry-youve-never-heard-of/#2d257b772827
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2015). Marketing Management. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
Nixon, J., & Helms, M. M. (2010). Exploring SWOT analysis – where are we now?: A review of academic research from the last decade. Journal of Strategy and Management, 3(3), 215-251.
Prinz, P. M., & Strong, M. (1997). A Study of the Relationship Between American Sign Language and English Literacy. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 2(1), 37-46.
Williams, P., & Naumann, E. (2009). Customer satisfaction and business performance: a firm‐level analysis. Journal of Services Marketing, 25(1), 20-32.
+447462439809