Mid Semester Marketing Assessment

Proposal Report

Best of Brighton Holiday Letting: Recommendations to increase marketing

share in a highly competitive environment

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 Table of Contents

Table of Contents....................................................................................................................2

1. Introduction........................................................................................................................3

2. Environmental analysis......................................................................................................3

2.1. PESTEL........................................................................................................................3

2.2. Porters Five Forces......................................................................................................5

2.3. SWOT analysis.............................................................................................................6

3. Marketing plan......................................................................................................................6

3.1. Target market..............................................................................................................6

3.2. 4P’s marketing strategy...............................................................................................7

3. Recommendations...............................................................................................................9

4. Conclusion...........................................................................................................................9

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1. Introduction

UK’s network of rental agents is diverse and plentiful. Among them, the Best of
Brighton Holiday Lettings (BBHL) is one of the most famous home letting agents in
Brighton and Sussex area. This agent specializes in providing rental housing
services which can last from 3 days to 6 months (bestofbrington.co.uk, 2020). The
number of rooms is large and the quality is varied, ranging from 3-star rooms in
economy class to platinum class (bestofbrington.co.uk, 2020).

This report builds on the context that competition has been intensifying in the
rental market as well as generally the business environment is highly
competitive. This context helps raising the idea that BBHL needs to have a
marketing strategy that helps it increase its market share as an effective marketing
strategy helps the company gain more market share (Farmanesh, Adibi and Hasiri,
2017). Therefore, this report presents an implementation plan that in order to export
some necessary steps in BBHL’s marketing plan, thus, increasing competitiveness
and helping this agent gain market share in the market.

2. Environmental analysis

2.1. PESTEL

Factors Description

Political factor The fact remains that the Brexit event has led to both
positive and negative impacts on the UK. However, Brexit
indicates numerous disadvantages for the sector of rental
housing services. People living in the European could not be
able to have free movement between the UK and other EU
countries, leading to a tremendous reduction in tourism and
visitors coming to the UK in general and Brighton in
particular (Hantzsche, Kara and Young, 2019). The market is
obviously not as fruitful as the previous time.

Economic factor It is worth noting here that property prices in Brighton are
lower than London real estate prices and the gap is getting
bigger and bigger than thought an uptrend in rents is still
what both areas of experience in the period 2010-2020
(McMahon, 2020). Thus, the overall market price factor
shows that the value of real estate is increasing as well as
the rents of competitors are higher than rents at BBHL.

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 These things provide a favorable environment for the BBHL
increase.

The average room rate in Brighton is £78.75 per night

(booking.com, 2020), equivalent to about £600 per week.
More upscale hotels can go up to £2,500 per week.
Meanwhile, as above-mentioned, BBHL’s rental rates are
cheaper or BBHL’s rents are on par but with better room
options.

Social factor Living standards of people all around the world have
increased remarkably that people have more demand for
tourism to explore the world. Therefore, the UK is a desire
destination for countless number of tourists coming from
various continents in the world, and thus resulting in higher
demand for rental housing services. In addition, people in the
modern world have more preferences to selecting furnished
properties for their holidays, conferences, business
accommodations rather than hotel since they want feelings
to be home (Sampson, 2017). In other words, customers
have desire for comfortable and high standard home over
consuming hotel services.

Technological factor In addition, in the UK, the number of social media users is
about 45 million, which accounts for 66% of the UK
population (Johnson, 2020). This external factor leads to the
result that agents like BBHL need to pay more attention to e-
marketing, specifically social media marketing, which helps
the company reach out to an extremely large network of
potential customers.

Environmental factor In line with the popular trend of sustainable development and
green lifestyle spreading all over the world, people have
cared more about the living environment and the way to
reduce plastic related products as much as possible. It is
undeniable that hotel service has large amount of
consumption of plastic related products whereas people
could reduce these kinds of product when they use
properties by not using single-use products (Mollard,

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 Rambonilaza and Vollet, 2007).

Legal factor In terms of policies and laws, the Brighton and Hove
authorities also provide tenant policy advice in this area to
both tenants and tenants (new.brighton-hove.gov.uk, 2020).
Thus, clients, for example, international students,
businessmen, tourists, etc. They need to comply with these
policies while it is BBHL’s responsibility to understand these
policies and terms to fully inform its customers.

2.2. Porters Five Forces

Threat of new entrants

Threat of new entrants is relatively low since the rental housing service currently is
having various participants with larger market shares and strong positions in the
market. In addition, the market requires huge capital amount to start up business
such as establish online platform, as well as in – depth understanding and
experiences in rental housing service. It is not easy to find proper investors who are
willing to go with the business for a long time (Ahmed and Hammarstedt, 2008). In
addition, nowadays various countries have issued related regulations and laws in
relation to the rental housing services in relation to online platforms, leading to legal
barriers for new entrants.

Bargaining power of buyers

It is undeniable that the market of rental housing service is highly competitive that
includes various sellers in the market, leading to switching cost from BBHL to other
competitors or hotels . In addition, the fact remains that hotels might lower their price
in order to maintain customer relationship. As a result, the bargaining power of
buyers is considerably high.

Bargaining power of suppliers

Suppliers of BBHL could not be able to work with other platforms or other websites.
In other words, BBHL takes full control over suppliers, leading to the low bargaining
power of suppliers.

Threat of substitutes

The threat of substitutes is weak. It is undeniable that BBHL’s sector might offer
better benefits in comparison with hotels; however, booking hotels remains to be an
optimal choice for consumers.

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Competitive rivalry

It is undeniable that the business model of the business is similar to several platforms
operating worldwide such as AirBnB. Particularly, various countries also have their
own platform operating similarly to AirBnB. As a result, it could be said the threat of
competitive rivalry is quite high that it would be a difficult for BBHL to compete with
the giant businesses in the same industry such as AirBnB.

2.3. SWOT analysis

Strenghts

BBHL is currently the market leader in Brighton, and thus it has numerous sources of
properties in Brighton to utilize and offer for tourists and travellers. In addition, the
business has in – depth experiences in Brighton market, and thus delivering proper
satisfaction for consumers.

Weaknesses

BBHL is only working in Brighton market whereas the rental housing service sector is
increasingly competitive that it is necessary to expand the market to nationwide and
worldwide.

Opportunities

More and more people coming from all over the world visit Brighton for travelling.
Hence, BBHL might approach this consumer source to expand its current market.

Threats

It is undeniable that the COVID – 19 pandemic has spread to every corner of the
world, leaving detrimental impacts on all aspects of life. Thus, the number of visitors
to Brighton has decreased significantly.

3. Marketing plan

3.1. Target market

BBHL is a popular home rental service. It offers varied rooms at multiple rates while it
also offers customization of different interiors with multiple room types. BBHL aims to
accommodate a diverse range of market segments (bestofbrington.co.uk, 2020).

First, BBHL can meet both the needs of renting a room as a traveler, renting a room
as a student as well as renting a room as an entrepreneur. Because its home
network is diverse and it is available to rent with open time limits, BBHL can meet
most of the requirements of the above objects in terms of both rooms and rental

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period of time.

Second, another segment targeted by BBHL is tourists. Brighton hosts many cultural
and sporting events, which make it a notable destination (McMahon, 2020). For
example, in Brighton, the Pride festival is one of those festivals that attracts the
attention of many people, thus, rental agents like BBHL can benefit as they target
segments of tourists.

Third, in terms of price, room rate of £600 to £2500 per week. This price may also
vary depending on the number of people in and the length of the rental
(originalcottages.co.uk, 2020). BBHL’s standard price is much lower than hotels like
Hilton, The Twenty-One, Jyrus Inn, etc. while BBHL’s 5-star platinum price is the
same as that of 4-star hotels, compared via booking.com’s website. As such, BBHL’s
prices target both the affordable and high-end segments, depending on the rental
choice of consumers.

3.2. 4P’s marketing strategy

Currently, BBHL is applying a classic 4Ps marketing strategy according to the theory
of McCarthy et al (2008), combined with the use of social media Facebook and
Instagram as marketing tools (Krstić and Đurđević, 2017).

- The products are homes, apartments, and rental rooms in the

Brighton area and the Sussex area. Meanwhile, the service that
BBHL provides is real estate rental service.
Products/
- The houses are upgraded with better quality towards building
Services
product value core.

- The rental service has been improved through the synchronous

upgrade of BBHL’s website, fan page and Instagram account.

- Prices fall at around £600 a week.

Price
- The highest price is around £2,500 a week.

- The number of properties for rent is large. The real estate is

Place
scattered in many places, thus, taking advantage of such
(Distribution)
advantages as near school, near hospital, mountain view, lake view.

Promotions - The discount program depends on the promotional campaign.

- Promote through Facebook official fan page and Instagram. Ads

through social networks mainly focus on real-life images of

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 apartments that BBHL rents.

Insight the apartment for rent

Source: bestofbrington.co.uk, 2020

Source: Designed by author, 2020

However, BBHL’s current marketing strategies are not really effective. This brand did
not achieve social interactions with both Facebook and Instagram. The content
posted on IG is boring while the number of followers and interaction is low. It can be
seen that social media marketing of BBHL now is ineffective.

Social media marketing of BBHL

Source: Instagram.com, 2020

BBHL’s website is a bright spot with full information about the company and services,

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but BBHL itself has no more effective advertising campaign for this website. So, even
the latest promotional campaign today is a sale of 50% of the rental, which is posted
only on the website, is not noticed by customers. Therefore, BBHL needs a more
effective marketing campaign to increase its market share in a fiercely competitive
market.

3. Recommendations

Since the market is more and more intensely competitive, it is necessary to expand
the current market to nationwide in the short term and worldwide in the long term. It
would wide market opportunities for BBHL.

4. Conclusion

In a fiercely competitive environment, BBHL has been using a 4Ps marketing

strategy that is ineffective. Neither did its social media marketing tools show that they
were performing well. Even customer interaction and customer attention - key
marketing triggers - have not met expectations.

Therefore, this proposal report proposes to improve and upgrade the classic 4Ps
marketing strategy combined with modern social media marketing strategy to
increase marketing efficiency. This is based on a study which shows that the
effectiveness of marketing will have an impact on brand profits and market share
(Farmanesh, Adibi and Hasiri, 2017). Meanwhile, the marketing strategy is based on
the theory of McCarthy et al. (2008), the price strategy is determined through the
study of the economic price strategy and their effects in increasing the profitability of
the market as mentioned by De Toni, Milan, Saciloto and Larentis (2017) and a social
media marketing strategy based on the research of Krstić and Đurđev (2017). This
leads to the fact that this implementation plan has a solid theoretical foundation,
applying theories into practice.

However, the downside of this plan is that BBHL does not have annual reports, thus,
related metrics like operations, supply chain or the specific way this firm connects
with tenants is not clear. Therefore, it is impossible to tell if those aspects of BBHL
are running smoothly or not.

In conclusion, in the context of fierce competition, Best of Brighton Home Letting - a

famous agent in the Brighton area, needs a marketing mix strategy and more
effective social marketing tools, combined with auditing and improve the quality of the
accommodation as well as the quality of the staff. Thus, ensuring core values and
enhancing marketing effectiveness will help the company increase market share and

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compete in a fierce environment.

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References

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Bestofbrighton.co.uk (2020) Original Cottages Star Grading | Best of Brighton

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Brighton & Hove City Council. Available at: <https://new.brighton-

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