Marketing Strategy: Promotion

Aquarium Maintenance Service

Michael Ulman

Southern New Hampshire University

September 13, 2015

 Easy Aquarium Set Up and Maintenance

Marketing Strategy: Promotion

Promotions refer to the entire set of activities, which communicate the product, brand or service

to the user. The idea is to make people aware, attract and induce to buy the product, in preference

over others. The nature of Easy Aquarium will limit the avenues available due to the expense

associated with such avenues as television and radio advertising. That being said, the use of

social media will be of benefit.

The promotion mix for Easy Aquarium will comprise all 5 avenues: advertising, sales promotion,

personal selling, public relations, and direct and digital marketing. The mix will be different

from many other businesses, as Easy Aquarium, at start up, will essentially be a one man

operation. Marketing, sales, service, and management will all be handled by a single person,

such that methods will have to be simplified, and outside sources leveraged to gain maximum

efficiency, through methods such as referrals.

Advertising will primarily consist of signage in supporting local aquarium shops, Craigslist, and

local neighborhood publications targeted at the more upscale neighborhoods in the Savannah

market, where people are more likely to utilize a service such as ours. This sort of advertising is

inexpensive, and is targeted directly at the portion of the Savannah area population most likely to

use the service, i.e., professionals of various types and business owners. In addition, the local

newspaper offers small businesses free spots in the Saturday paper, written in an interview style.
Easy Aquarium will attempt to take advantage of this avenue as well. Sales promotions will also

be incorporated into the advertising.

Sales promotions will offer a free initial service visit, discounted livestock, free water analysis,

etc., in an attempt to build interest and goodwill. These promotions will be included in the

various media outlined above. Services will also be offered in barter to local radio stations to

attain on air advertising. Movie theatres routinely have success with this type of bartering,

offering free tickets in return for promotional time on air.

Personal selling will be an important avenue used to grow the business. Personal selling is the

“presentations by the firm’s sales force for the purpose of making sales and building customer

relationships.” Sales efforts will be customer driven, in keeping with Easy Aquarium’s mission

statement, which calls for the best service in the industry. The sales efforts will include listening

to the customer’s needs and desires, and developing a plan to fulfill those within the customer’s

budget. Even if a sale is not closed, every effort will be made to answer the customer’s

questions, and to follow up after the sales call in order to maintain communications, and let the

customer know that the company is still interested in them. During follow up calls, any questions

from the customer will be answered, and advice freely given, without denigrating any other

service that may be involved at the time. In this way, even if this particular customer doesn’t

utilize our services, they are likely to recommend Easy Aquarium to other potential customers.

Public relations is in some ways allied with personal selling, as just outlined above. By

maintaining a professional and helpful attitude at all times, it is expected that word of mouth will

lead to more business down the line. In addition to everyday professionalism, small aquariums

and maintenance service will be provided for several organizations in the area. These groups
could be nursing homes, preschools, mental health facilities, Hospice, etc. Studies have shown

that viewing a properly maintained, attractive aquarium can help alleviate a variety of conditions.

Aquariums can also be used in a school setting as an educational tool. These tanks and services

will be provided free of charge, with the proviso that a small business card sized sign can be

affixed to the display. This will, obviously, be limited by funding, but should provide an efficient

return.

Digital marketing will take the form of Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Linked In. All of these

provide a platform for visual advertising, which, I believe, should be the most effective. The

primary interest most people have in an aquarium is its appearance, and examples of successful

tanks can be used as striking visual advertising, as the following examples show.

African Cichlid Aquarium.

Freshwater South American Aquarium

Salt Water Aquarium

The above examples, taken from the internet, illustrate how striking a well-planned, healthy

aquarium can be. The internet is a perfect medium for the utilization of imagery in marketing,

and an aquarium can be the most striking photo on the page in view. By utilizing the various

outlets available for dissemination of such photos of tanks designed and maintained by Easy

Aquarium, more people will be exposed to the service. In addition, by using the best photos, and

posting on a regular basis, they can be kept in the public eye for prolonged periods of time.

Tweets and Facebook posts about proper aquarium planning, maintenance, etc., will provide

evidence of the expertise of the company, lending greater credence to the advertising claims. A

blog, although they do appear to going out of vogue, will also be kept current, with links to all

other services. Occasional sales promotions will also be posted on the blog, and linked to the

other services to drive traffic toward the blog.

Through the extensive use of social media, coupled with more old fashioned methods such as

signage and bartering, the advantages of Easy Aquarium will be kept in the eye of the target

market.
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