Question

Think of an idea for a product or service that you think you might be able to sell in your area. Create a general marketing plan, based upon the readings from this unit, and complete some basic market research. Include information about who your customer is, how you attract their attention, and how to determine the pricing of your product or service. Your journal entry should be at least 500 words in length.

Answer 1

A concept that I've always thought that was cool was the platform where you able to invite people from your area to pick up games. There is a company out there already called Opensports however I have tried to use them and it seems that it doesn't have that many user. Which could be for two reason first reason being that people don't want to play with strangers or the second reason is that it has poor marketing. I personally feel that it has to be the marketing as I myself had to Google an app to see if there was any out there. If I was to start a business like this I will make sure to focus on marketing. My first step will be social media as I feel a company like this needs a strong presence on social media. The reason being is that if I sign up and I tell my friends to sign up they tell their friends to sign up and the company grows like that. The more people that know about your company the better it is. So I'll put ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter just so people can be aware that I exist. My next step I feel would need to be a publicity stunt so I will organize a five-on-five soccer tournament, free to enter and as many teams that are willing to play. I will put a cash prize of $1,000 just to get players interested in signing up. The whole tournament might cost me a few thousand dollars however look at the benefits. Let's say you get 10 teams of 5 players that's 50 people. Now those 50 people most likely are going to post on their Instagram that they're taking part in a tournament. Let's say all 50 people have have a hundred followers which isn't a crazy amount to have and those 100 followers see the picture of the tourment. If you times 50 by 100 you got a total of 5000 which means that 5,000 people have just learned about your company and it only cost you a few thousand to achieve that. Let's say 10% of those 5,000 joins that 500 new account for your company which doesn't seem like a lot but when you're starting off every member counts. If you find this to be successful you can even hold tournaments in all different city around the country for the same results. After building the company to a successful size I will then try to go for advertising with sports companies or athletes. I think this idea shouldn't be a hard one to sell especially to a company like Nike for example who is always preaching about getting up and getting active. They shouldn't have a problem with teaming up with a company that allows people to find other people that are willing to play. Just to recap now how to market the company you need to be on social media you need to have something that brings people to the company and once you are a decent size and comfortable with it try to get one of the major players in the market to team up with you to get your brand out there. I live a train ride away from New York and I know that it takes it's something simple for you to become viral. So word of mouth is very important for a company like this since we're not selling a product and we want people to sign up and go play you would have to focus on getting your name out there.

I would just like to apologize if my reading got a little confusing in the middle when I was explaining strategies.