MARKETING STRATEGY I
Product/Service
Positioning is how a service is perceived by customers in relation to the competition. . Important positioning variables for Dolphin Business Services are quality, on time bookkeeping and secretarial services. The service will be done accurately and within the month it pertains to. Other service providers tend to run months behind.
Developing perceived value, quality, use and applicability will assist in determining a marketing position for the service provider. Since marketing is the effort to effectively manage all communications and exchanges with some or all potential customers, public relations play a central role in all marke 616x234g ting choices. Image building is a very important factor to consider, even before a new business is launched. A good company image should include, state of the art technology, top quality customer service and creative services being offered. A new business venture may have to consider temporarily undercutting their competitors. By doing this Dolphin Business Services will have a better chance of quickly building a market share with a consumer base that views the service as a good value.
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Dolphin Business Services will provide
bookkeeping services to small businesses. Accounts payable, accounts receivable, bank reconciliation, financial
statements (monthly or quarterly as
required by the customer), payroll (including reports, submission of employee
benefits to Revenue
Secretarial services such as general word processing, enhanced word processing, general business transcription, desktop publishing, data entry, spreadsheets, custom forms, mail merge, basic copy editing, academic documents, resume writing and editing, cover letters, manuscripts, newsletters and documents, e-mail services and fax services will also be offered by Dolphin Business Services.
By contracting out their bookkeeping and secretarial needs to Dolphin Business Services, a customer will save on expenses such as payroll costs, company benefits payable and vacation pay. The customer will have more freed office space and save on equipment purchases such as computers, accounting software, word processing software, etc. Customers will benefit by the more flexible hours and days the provider will be available to attend to their needs. Being a bonded service provider will relieve the customer of concerns regarding trust and honesty issues. The service contract customers sign with Dolphin Business Services will guarantee full confidentiality.
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As noted in the yellow pages of the phone book, there are no businesses offering secretarial services in the target market area. The majority of competitors to Dolphin Business Services are Accounting and Bookkeeping service providers who do not offer secretarial services. Dolphin Business Services will cover the entire needs of a business by offering both of these services. In many cases, this will mean 2 positions can be contracted out, resulting in double savings for the customer. Another benefit to using Dolphin Business Services is the flexible hours and days, something the competition does not offer. In the market survey conducted by the potential service provider, it was found that the competition in the target market area are limited to hours of either 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. or 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and are only available to their customers Monday to Friday.
Dolphin Business Services is fully ready to provide its services. The business has a fully equipped home-based office complete with a computer, printer, fax machine and an e-mail address. The business also has a vehicle which will be required for marketing and servicing, a cell phone as well as a lap top computer which can be used for immediately providing quotes and setting up accounts at the customer's place of business. Dolphin Business Services will be obtaining a dedicated phone line in the near future, at which time business cards will be printed.
The pricing structure will be on an hourly basis, taking into consideration traveling time. Pricing will vary with volume of service required. Pricing
strategy will have to be high enough to increase revenues from each sale and low enough to increase the number of sales.
With corporate downsizing and more contracting out of services, the market is more ready to bear the prices being charged for these services. Range of, flexibility and scheduling of services offered are often the deciding factors, meaning that the market will consider these issues more so than the actual pricing structure.
The pricing structure of Dolphin Business Services will be as follows:
Bookkeeping Services - $35.00 per hour,
Secretarial Services - $20.00 per hour
In a report published by Stats Canada, the industry standard for pricing of these services is as follows:
Bookkeeping Services - $35.00 to $45.00 per hour
Secretarial Services - $25.00 to $35.00 per hour
Guarantees
Dolphin Business Services will offer a money back guarantee that all customers using its services will be represented responsibly, efficiently and professionally and will be assured of full confidentiality. Through the market survey conducted and through research conducted by speaking to some competitors, it was noted that this is the industry standard as far as guarantees are concerned.
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Sales and Credit Terms
Terms of "net 30 days" will be offered to contract customers using the bookkeeping services offered on a regular basis. Most of the secretarial services being offered will be on a cash basis, unless the service is on a contract basis where it will be required repeatedly. These customers will also be offered terms of "net 30 days".
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