As a reminder, you have recently been hired as a social media marketing manager for Lee’s Artificial Flowers – The Gift That Keeps on Giving.In 2021, Lee Jones put the final touches on a product she had worked on for years in her garage. Lee graduated with a degree in chemistry from a well-known school in Indiana.
However, she has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. Initially called Lee’s Artificial Flowers, the product broke new ground by creating patented artificial flowers that look real and smell like a flower.
In other words, roses smell like roses, and tulips smell like tulips. However, Lee’s flowers will never expire. The scent typically lasts 3 months and can be replaced with new scented cartridges. Prices are typically 50% higher compared to regular flowers. As a lover of flowers and the environment, Lee has always felt flowers should remain on the earth.She launched a website and opened a small store in a strip mall at the beginning of 2022.
With modest sales, Lee hired several employees to assist with manufacturing, sales, and administrative duties. In the summer of 2022, she decided to exhibit at an international trade show. She was surprised and pleased at the interest in her product from other countries. Moreover, a popular morning show interviewed Lee about her new product. This interview led to many other talks with popular television, magazines, blogs, and podcasts. Because this product was starting to break on a national scale, she could secure a business loan for $500,000. Lee’s biggest concern was her lack of marketing knowledge, mainly in social media marketing.
She has a Facebook and Instagram page but has been unable to keep up with responding to followers due to the high demand for her product.Lee has just hired you as a social marketing manager to assist her in taking the business to the next level. In your initial consultation with Lee, she suggested that many sales were purchased as gifts. The majority of sales are within the United States. Women made about 55% of the purchases, and the average age is from 25 to 45 years old. The average income is in the range of $60,000 to $70,000. In addition, many of her customers are environmentally conscious. Another popular segment of customers is from small and medium-sized businesses and some Fortune 500 companies.
The raw materials required for artificial flowers are paper, cotton, parchment, latex, rubber, sateen (for large, bold-colored flowers and arrangements), and dried materials, including flowers and plant parts and berries, feathers, and fruits. For more upscale silk flowers, silk, rayon, and cotton are the fibers of choice. The cartridges that provide the scents are produced in Lee’s manufacturing facility.Generic GoalsSell several hundred thousand units in the United States.Create a social media team.Go global.
Create awareness of new product line to new, prospective clients.Increase traffic to the website.Incorporate social media marketing.Hire more employees.Most of their sales come from their website.
Research has shown that this product could succeed in foreign markets. Your task is to increase sales in the United States and one country outside the U.S. by developing a social media marketing strategy.
*Disclaimer: The organization and characters depicted in this exercise are fictional. Any resemblance to real organizations or individuals is purely coincidental. This exercise may include actual companies and brand names solely for instructional purposes; this exercise is not associated with any such existing company or brand name. All trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.There are 2 parts to this assignment. Please make sure that you include everything that needs to be included in the assignment.
Thank you in advance. If you have any questions or concerns please let me know.In this part of the assignment, you will complete a 2–3 pages essay addressing the following questions. Use table 4.2 in chapter 4 as a guide.In addition to the United States, describe an additional country that presents a good opportunity for this business model using social media.Develop a social media team with job titles and functions.Develop a market-oriented mission statement.Complete a situational analysis using SWOT. Consider forces like legal, demographics, political, technological, economic, competitive, and sociocultural factors for business and consumer markets based on social media usage for your selected country.Identify at least three social media goals using the SMART acronym for the business and consumer markets.
Table 4.2 A Social Media Marketing Plan Outline I Conduct a situation analysis and identify key opportunitiesInternal Environment What activities exist in the overall marketing plan that can be leveraged for social media marketing?What is the corporate culture? Is it supportive of the transparent and decentralized norms of social media?
What resources exist that can be directed to social media activities?Is the organization already prepared internally for social media activities (in terms of policies and procedures)?
External EnvironmentWho are our customers? Are they users of social media?Who are our competitors? What social media activities are they using and how are social media incorporated in their marketing and promotional plans?What are the key trends in the environment (social, cultural, legal and regulatory, political, economic, and technological) that may affect our decisions regarding social media marketing?
SWOT Analysis Based on the analysis, what are the key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT)?II State objectives and allocate resources What does the organization expect to accomplish through social media marketing (promotional objectives, service objectives, retail objectives, research objectives)?Using a budgeting method, what resources are available to support a campaign?III Gather insight into target audience Which segments should we select to target with social media activities?
What are the relevant demographic, psychographic, and behavioral characteristics of the segments useful in planning a social media marketing strategy? What are the media habits, and especially the social media habits of the segments?
IV Select social media zones and vehicles Which mix of the four zones of social media will be best to accomplish our objectives within the resources available?Which channels and vehicles should be used in each zone?
What mix of paid, earned, owned, and shared media will be used across the zones and channels?Social community zone strategies What approach to social networking and relationship building should we use?
How will we represent the brand in social networks (as a corporate entity, as a collection of corporate leadership, as a brand character)?
What content will we share in this space?Social publishing zone strategies What content do we have to share with audiences? Can we develop a sufficient amount of fresh, valuable content to attract audiences to consume content online?What form should our blog take?Which media-sharing sites should we use to publish content? How should we build links between our social media sites, owned media sites, and affiliates to optimize our sites for search engines?Social entertainment zone strategies
What role should social entertainment play in our social media plan?Are there opportunities to develop a customized social game or to promote the brand as a product placement in other social games? Is there an opportunity to utilize social entertainment sites such as online video as an entertainment venue?Social commerce zone strategies
How can we develop opportunities for customer reviews and ratings that add value to our prospective customers?Should we develop retail spaces within social media sites? If we socially enhance our own e-retailing spaces, what applications should be used?How can we utilize social commerce applications like group deals to increase conversions?V Create an experience strategy encompassing selected zones
How can we develop social media activities that support and/or extend our existing promotional strategies?
What message do we want to share using social media?How can we encourage engagement with the brand in social spaces?How can we encourage those who engage with the brand socially to act as opinion leaders and share the experience with others?In what ways can we align the zones used as well as other promotional tools to support each other? Can we incorporate social reminders in advertising messages, in store displays, and other venues?
VI Establish an activation planHow do we make the plan happen?Who is responsible for each aspect of implementing the plan?What is the timing of the elements in the plan?How will the budget be allocated to accomplish the objectives?How do we ensure that the plan is consistent with the organization’s overall marketing plan and promotional plan?
VII Manage and measureHow do we measure the actual performance of the plan?How do we listen and respond to social media mentions?In this part of the assignment, you will complete a 2- to 3-page essay addressing the following:Apply at least four types of market segmentation for Lee’s Flowers. Include at least three types of descriptors from each type of segmentation (e.g., if a company chooses demographic segmentation, they might include age, income, and family status). Next, select a target audience by creating a user persona.
Discuss how you will implement your social media marketing plan/strategy for business and consumer markets to accomplish your stated goals. Suggest at least three social media tools (e.g., video) and three social media channels (e.g., Facebook) to create a user experience.
Describe at least three differences in social media marketing between B2C and B2B markets.
Discuss at least three differences in social media marketing between the United States and the country selected outside the United States.
Discuss how you will evaluate the results of your social media marketing strategy.
