Brickworks Limited
Executive Summary
This marketing plan illustrated a proposal of Brickworks Limited to introduce its new roofing product as singly-ply solar tiles. The main target population was taken to be business professionals who are conscious of green solutions and desirous to produce electricity via solar panels or tiles attached to the roof of their building. Furthermore, it discussed the marketing strategies adopted by the company to reach prospective clients and enlarge its customer base in numerous regions over the globe. The marketing plan discussed the financial budgets to be needed for marketing activities along with the monitoring activities to control the costs.
Contents
Review of Marketing Channels and Logistics 6
Threats and Opportunities Analysis 6
Value Proposition of New Product 10
Projected Marketing Budget for 2021 Six Months 15
Projected Profit and Loss statement 15
Control or Monitoring Activities 17
Introduction
Brickworks Limited is a company founded in 1934 in Australia and it deals in designing, developing, and marketing of building materials. There are numerous brands of companies that are proved to be highly successful for the company’s reputation. The major products of the company include clay bricks & pavers; masonry & stone; roofing; specialized building system, cement, and precast (Brickworks, 2020). This report is going to discuss the marketing proposal for its new product in its roofing section following the features of single-ply solar tiles for flat and building roofs. Furthermore, the marketing plan entails the value proposition of the company, the current marketing situation, objectives & issues, marketing strategies, budgets, and controls.
Current Marketing Situation
Market Description
The market for the products of Brickworks Limited includes both residential and non-residential segments in the Australian Nation. Also, it has acquired Glen Grey, North America that has its well-positioned market in the United States with leading positions in Midwest states, and Northeast states. Further, the major market segments for its products and services are New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, and Queensland. The market conditions as of now for this company can be seen as a decline in the total dwelling commencements by 15%. This decline of activities is particularly in the detached housing, and other residential segments. Furthermore, the commencements in NSW (New South Wales) have been down to 9% across both residential and detached houses. However, the company has been successful in attracting a great client base in the above metro-cities. The present target market for the products of brickworks in the business professionals who are desirous of office building construction as this is the rapidly growing segment of all the commercial customers needed the brickwork’s services (Brickworks, 2019).
Product Review
In the product line of brickworks limited, the building products Australia consists of Austral bricks that have declined its sales revenue by 4% and account for $428 million. Further, Austral Masonry experienced an increase of 8% in its sales and accounts for $119 m. The Bristle Roofing accounts for 131 m and experienced a decline of 10% in sales revenue. Moreover, Austral Precast experienced an increase in sales revenue by 6% accounted for $ 77m (Brickworks, 2020).
Review of Competition
The main competitors of Brickworks Limited are Basalite Concrete Products LLC, and Boral Bricks Inc. that are possessing greater strengths and higher positions in the market. However, the Brickworks Company has its dominance in the market over the past 80 years due to which it has been supposed as the biggest competitor in the construction or building sector. Moreover, it has hugely attained a sustained competitive advantage at the national level and enlarged customer trustworthiness so far. The current pricing strategy followed by both these competitors is a competitive based pricing strategy as there are numerous companies dealing in the same business and data is easily accessible about all of them (Li, Du & Wei, 2019).The marketing channel strategies adopted by Boral Limited is to sell via its online website. Additionally, the distribution strategy of Basalite Company is using the Omni-channel distribution system in which it has incorporated its offline and online stores to enable the client’s easy access to its products and services (Kim & Chun, 2018). For promotional purposes, the strategies used by these companies are numerous in the form of advertisements on televisions, social media, and radio. Social media advertising is the trendiest method of promoting the business and it is cost-effective as well (Bala & Verma, 2018). Additionally, they use personal selling methods also to enhance their existence in retail stress. As far as product quality is concerned, both companies offer superior quality products with excellent services.
Review of Marketing Channels and Logistics
Distribution strategy and logistics are a vital part of the marketing mix that cannot be ignored by the company. It usually drives the company towards success in the market along with customer knowledge and market know-how. It is true that the distribution strategy must be effective and accurate for the company’s success (Athanasopoulou, Giovanis & Avlonitis, 2015). The current distribution strategy used by Brickworks Limited is its online website via which clients can purchase its products. Furthermore, it has thirty manufacturing sites and above forty design centers and studios across Australia that it uses as its distribution and logistics channels. There are recent developments in the distribution channels like the use of multiple channels at a time by companies is one of the major trends including the e-commerce platforms, distributor channel, salesforce channel, and more. Further, there is m-marketing that includes SMS, text messaging, mobile services, and more. Moreover, forward integration into the distribution channel mainly the incorporation of downstream clientinterfaceattracts the responsiveness of manufacturers and makes it prevalent in the contemporary business setting (Brickworks, 2019).
Threats and Opportunities Analysis
The threat and opportunities that have been found using the situational analysis are described in this section. The major threat for Brickworks Limited is the changing tastes and requirements of clients due to the continuous advancements in technology. However, this threat can become an opportunity for the company if its new products of the roofing will bring all benefits desired by customers in terms of technological developments (Murphy & Dweck, 2016).Furthermore, there is a stiff level of competition is there in the market and that is another threat to Brickworks Limited. After the acquisition of Glen Grey, it has expanded its market in which it has to adhere to rules and regulations of North America and other nations also to operate smoothly (Glen grey, 2019). Moreover, there may be an abnormality in the new product supply of solar single-ply tiles that may lead to low and high fluctuations in the number of sales over time.
Talking about opportunities, there are ample prospects and choices attached to the solar singly-ply tiles for roofing as it offers the company chance to enter the evolving markets with free trade agreements of government in Australia (Dür, Baccini & Elsig, 2014).Additionally, it has extreme chances to be profitable in its business with the new product introduction in the market and new taxation policies to trade the products freely. Besides that, the single-ply solar tiles to be offered by the company might create sustainable cash flows and hence it would create an opportunity for the company to invest substantially in Research &development activities.
Objectives and Issues
The marketing objectives that Brickworks Limited is likely to attain with its new product are as follows:
- To augment the awareness and associations of its present as well as a novel product by this year’s end.
- To improve the client relationship and purchases by 20% by suggesting additional products and services at the pledge.
- To enhance the sales of its products by 5% in the upcoming six months.
- To enlarge its business internationally as well as nationally by the end of next year.
- To launch advanced technological products possessing features of single-ply solar tiles for the roofing options for the consumers.
- To establish its brand loyalty by building trust and sustained relationships with memberships.
- To acquire 300 novel members or clients via the social media platforms for its new product by this year’s end.
- To maintain constant and positive growth in each month.
Marketing Strategy
Growth Strategies
By the product/market expansion grid that is also known as the Ansoff Matrix, a company can promptly abridge the likely development approaches and associate them with the hazards linked with each of them. Brickworks must use the Ansoff matrix approach for the achievement of its business. It is a tool that assists the company to consider the technique to grow the business in the present performance. There are four main strategies namely market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification (De Waal, 2016).
- Marker penetration: In this strategy, the company markets its prevailing products to the existing customers. It can be accomplished by creating a novel marketing strategy, attaining market share by personal selling or by advertising, and more. There must be extensive promotion investments in the green building material market.
- Market development: In this strategy, the company markets its predominant products and services in the new market. It can be achieved by new packaging and new services dimensions
- Product development: In this strategy, the company markets a new product to the existing customers. In this, the company replaces its previous services and innovate the older ones and offer them to prevailing ones. Brickworks must position its new roofing solutions namely solar tiles for roofing. It will leverage the core competency in the market.
- Diversification: In this strategy, the company markets its new product and services to the new customers in the new market. It can be achieved by moving to locations where a company has a bit of experience (Verhoeven & Johnson, 2017).
Market Segmentation
It refers to the procedure of distributing the market of likely customers into diverse groups and divisions as per certain similar features. The market can be segmented on the basis of income, age group, lifestyle, and more (Molina et al., 2015). The Brickworks Company is likely segmenting its market for solar tiles for roofing on the basis of lifestyle or behavior of people like their consciousness for green and cost-effective, technological products, and electricity production. The current market segments of the company must be enhanced to more using the approach of partnerships with certain businesses dealing in similar products and services. Furthermore, the efforts that it can do is to team up with certain establishments for regaining the new information of the market segments and analyze the behaviors of consumers to target them. For its new product in the roofing section, it must have to expand its market segment in different regions other than Australia and must segment not only residential areas for roofing products nut also to commercial areas like office building construction (Brickworks, 2019).
Market Targeting
Market targeting refers to the process of obtaining and selecting the worthy market segment to serve. It emphasizes on assessing the present segment’s appeal and selects one or more segments to serve (Zhang, Chen & Zaccour, 2020). The target market for the new roofing product of single-ply solar tiles will be the corporate sector business professionals who are conscious of electricity production via solar panels on their building’s roofs. Moreover, it must target the individuals by analyzing the attractiveness of chief segments like some consumers may prefer cost-effective and are likely to get attracted to this product (Haider et al., 2017). However, there can be some who are traditional people and are not technologically advanced. These are not likely to get attracted to solar tiles. Therefore, the business professional segment can be one of the profitable and worthy ones in terms of accepting this new technologically advanced product of brickworks.
Market Positioning
Market positioning refers to the ability of the company to impact the visions of clients for its products compared with its rivals.The market positioning strategy requires brickworks to create its image in the minds of target customers by developing a favored vision of its business in respect of competition. In order to do so, brickworks must emphasize on offering distinguishing benefits and features to clients via its products. This will be a better positioning strategy for the company and it creates their unique selling proposition (Coffie, 2020).
Value Proposition of New Product
The value proposition refers to the value promised by a company to deliver to its clients. These are generally the benefits that are provided to customers via the products and services of a company (Payne, Frow & Eggert, 2017). The Brickworks Limited via its offering of single-ply solar tiles roofing in its roofing section aims to deliver numerous benefits to clients. The single-ply roofing offers flexibility and is highly resistant to ultra-violet radiation that is superior to its other products (Korol & Shushunova, 2016). Other value propositions of this product of Brickworks include easy installing; outstanding performance under dramatic climatic changes; excellent reflective characteristics; lightweight product; economically viable; unreactive to chemical materials; and outstanding against acid rain conditions. Furthermore, since it possesses solar features meaning that it helps in the cost-cutting of energy bills. The other values that Brickworks promises to its customers are in the form of ethical practices for society, cost-effective solutions, reliable and flexible customer service, and more (Habibi, Obonyo & Memari, 2020).
Marketing Mix Strategies
Marketing mix refers to the components that relate to capture and reinforce the unique selling points of a brand in relation to its rivalries (Khan, 2014). The four Ps of the marketing mix are illustrated as follows:
Product
Brickworks Company has an array of stylish and innovative products that last for the long term. Austral Bricks; Bowral Bricks; Crafted Bricks & Pavers; Glen-Grey; Nubrik; Pronto Panel, and more are all the brands of the company. The products of the brickworks limited are:
- Clay Bricks and Pavers
- Masonry and Stone
- Roofing
- Specialized Building Systems
- Precast
- Cement
The new product that the company is going to introduce is single-ply solar tiles under its roofing product line. There is no doubt to say that the company has great success with its roofing products in the residential sectors. The main features of this product will be cost-effective, electricity production, superior quality, warranty of approximately 25 years. The solar panels are to be made from top Suntech monocrystalline cells with low iron;stormresilient tempered glass having the power of 295W. Additionally, this product is made to offer benefits like easy installing; outstanding performance under intense climatic changes; excellent reflective characteristics; lightweight product; and more (Brickworks, 2019).
Price
The pricing strategy that brickworks must adopt to get success in its new product must be a competitive pricing strategy that is being used widely by other competitors like Boral brickslimited. The price of the roofing solar product will be easily affordable by the target customers and others. The price along with the quality of the product is the chief attraction of the brickworks limited for its clients (Liozu,2017).
Place
The distribution used by the company is a direct channel meaning that there are no midway stages while distributing its products to the customers. Furthermore, there are both online and offline channels available for the trading of its products and services. A portal is there for the users that use technical directions to place the orders and ask for queries (Brickworks, 2019).
Promotion
It comprises numerous communication platforms that are utilized by the company for the purpose of marketing. There will be the use of joint marketing initiatives for promotional activities. The likely activities in this respect are as follows. (Key & Czaplewski, 2017).
| Planned promotion | Promotional strategy | Expected business improvement | Target date |
| Public Relations | This will be useful in increasing social media following, increasing search engine optimization. | It will improve the success of the business by creating awareness of services and success stories among people. | Within three months |
| Social media | This medium is chosen as nowadays it is in trend and business can collect much information from a single platform. | This will improve the business by customizing the services and increasing customer satisfaction. | Within one month |
| Website | This is chosen as a means of showing the presence of the business. The strategy behind it to build brand awareness and loyalty. | This will improve the business as it increases customer attention by visiting the site | Immediately |
| Flyers and pamphlets | These are a way of promoting the business locally within the location of the business. It will be helpful in showing appealing offers to clients. | This will improve the business as 10000 distributions of the flyers will lead to appeal at least 1% of customers. | Three months |
Action Programs
Action programs involve the entire clarification of a marketing plan, entailing its aims and goalmouths, marketing mix actions, scopes, finances, time concerns, and more. Appropriate action programs for marketing strategies are mentioned below:
- Usage of reliable branding: This strategy requires a business to indicate its brand with numerous marketing resources. It will be done after the introduction of the new products in the roofing division. The marketing managers in the organization are likely to do this with a suitable budget apportioned for this (Petruca, 2016)
- Refining for potential clients search engine consequences: This approach requires the company to use a search engine optimization technique to attain its network to the topmostin the search engine. It will be done while endorsing its business over the internetvia social media platforms. The SEO executives in the organization are likely to do this with a proper budget apportioned for this (Mandal & Joshi, 2017).
Budgets
Projected Marketing Budget for 2021 Six Months
| Item | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul |
| Social media | 50 | 100 | . | 200 | 100 | 100 | 150 |
| Website | 50 | . | 100 | 100 | 20 | 100 | 150 |
| Events | 100 | 50 | 150 | . | 200 | 100 | 50 |
| Flyers and Pamphlets | 250 | 200 | 250 | . | 250 | 100 | 50 |
| Public relations | 200 | 250 | 200 | 450 | 250 | 100 | 200 |
| Total | 650 | 600 | 700 | 750 | 820 | 500 | 600 |
| Others | |||||||
| Research | 200 | 250 | 100 | 150 | 200 | 150 | 300 |
| Administration | 100 | 50 | 150 | 100 | 100 | 150 | 100 |
| Travel | 50 | 50 | 70 | 80 | 50 | 70 | 50 |
| Total | 350 | 350 | 320 | 330 | 350 | 370 | 450 |
| Overall total | 1000 | 950 | 1020 | 1080 | 1170 | 870 | 1050 |
Projected Profit and Loss statement
| Expected Revenue | $ 50000 |
| Cost of goods sold | 15000 |
| Gross profit | 35000 |
| Expenses | |
| Marketing Expenses | 7000 |
| Distribution Expenses | 5000 |
| Others | 18000 |
| Total | $ 30000 |
| Expected Income | $5000 |
Financial strategies
The financial strategies are tabulated as follows:
Control or Monitoring Activities
| Marketing activity | Date of review | Monitoring Methods | Review outcomes |
| Public Relations | June 2020 | Social media performance | The sales have improved too much extent. The exact figure was 200 customers increase. These were new customers attained from PR activities |
| Social media | July 2020 | Social media analytics | Social media activities resulted in attracting youth and sales were increased by 4% through these platforms. |
| Website | July 2020 | Weblogs and click-density analysis | Visits on the website increased by 10%. |
| Branding | July 2020 | Social listening | Branding activities led to increasing customers by 2% only. In this approach, efforts by the company are needed to reach more clients as the roofing products were not meeting the goals. Therefore, new solar product is added to this product line. |
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Conclusion
From the above marketing plan, it can be concluded that brickworks limited is going to introduce its new product of single-ply solar tiles for roofing solutions. Furthermore, it can be inferred that the marketing activities to be done for its promotion are social media, flyers, the website itself, and public relations. Moreover, the company promises to deliver numerous values from its new product to the customers like long-term durability; easy to install; resilient to UV rays, climate-change, and acid-rain conditions.
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