The Pool Doctor

The Pool Doctor

The Marketing plan of poll doctor is a little mixed one. Beside the marketing plan of the pool doctor, it is also concerned for the choice of chemicals he has to make as well.

Before we begin with the marketing plan of the pool doctor, for reason of ease, I would like to segment the looking ahead section into two parts. The choice of chemical suppliers and the services and products to be offered with the companies marketing plan.

As choice of chemicals in an internal procurement decision as well as it influences a major part of marketing strategy.

As mentioned in the book, lets start with the first point of the marketing plan, defining the marketing challenge.

In this section we need to focus on the marketing strategy in terms of current strategy is it well implemented or a new or modified strategy should be used to improve profitability.

The marketing challenge.

The marketing challenge facing Jeff is an interesting one. Let us look at the current marketing plan of the poll doctor. In the previous years Jeff had advertised using direct-mail advertising campaigns which had proved futile. Then Jeff tried to put adds in the two news papers, Winnipeg free press and the Jewish post. As we look at the "selected 1990 media cost" comparing the circulation of the two new paper except the Jewish post, the metro and Winnipeg free press, Jeff has taken a wise decision to advertise in free press because of it's more circulation. Now as poll doctor wanted to expand it's operation to St.Boniface and St. vital areas of Winnipeg Jeff should probably try advertising in the Lance, which covers both the areas. As the data provided in the advertising in incomplete, I can not predict in details amount of MAL rates would apply, but a equal amount of adds in Winnipeg Free press should be printed as business is more concentrated in these areas.

In addition to direct-mail advertising program Jeff has almost stopped, instead it should be with Aristocrat mailing program and not on it's own. But there is a need to change the look of the flyer and make it more professional. A sample flyer is included at the end of the plan.

As we see the distribution of survey thirty percent of had heard about poll doctor from a friend, thirty percent from fliers, seventeen from Aristocrat and thirteen from Jewish post and rest by others means. We see that the Winnipeg free press doesn't have significant percent of responses, so we should try advertise in the metro, Jeff also observed that the industry also uses other medias as yellow pages, which Jeff already got a listing, direct-mail which we could not found to be rewarding, bill- board which Jeff doesn't use, print media to a certain extent and radio which we haven't used. Direct marketing which Jeff hasn't tried using can be used to have a direct interaction with the customers and get there response to pool doctor. In a nuttshel jeff has to increase his sales from current amount to $100,000 and generate a profit of $22,000.

The market opportunities.

What are the competitors doing?

The competitors are doing almost the same thing as the pool doctor. Several new people are trying to enter the pool business each summer. In this several established and new firms are also entering into the business. As mentioned in the book one of the former employees of pool doctor had opened a copycat business of the pool doctor. May be Jeff should try signing a non-competition agreement with his employees for stopping such incidents. There are two main competitors the pool doctor is facing is the pool clinic which was competition directly with us also Duguay pool services which is at a minimal competition with us and could be our major competitor if we enter into new markets.

Pool doctor was also in competitor with pool retailers which were offering after sales service, thought the customer were dissatisfied with the after sales service and were not properly treated and also cheated, so in this area the competition was going down.

There were areas were pool doctor was not operational in St. Boniface and St. Vital areas, which had major number of pool customers, the market is a huge comparing to number of people who regularly clean there pool, so making a awareness between the people about how effective pool cleaners are instead of servicing the pool by themselves.

There were small competitors with an average base of 30-40 customers in the area as well.

The other pool companies were using other kind of media advertisements, such as radio and billboards to advertise, therefore keeping in mind new channels we will be also advertising in the new mediums to generate new customer base.

The customers needs, want, habits.

The pool owners basically find pool cleaning to be very time consuming, other pool companies were poorly servicing the pools, higher prices were a cause for the pool owners to switch to pool doctor, reliability and poor quality was a factor in switching to pool doctor.

Jeff also noticed that the new pool owners were not a good source of pool doctors, the pool suppliers let the pool owners do the servicing on there own.

The pool owners were often faced with bad behavior and distrust and had to join the VIP club to get prompt service. Thought the customers tried to purchase automated cleaning devices, which only worked with routine, maintains schedules, they were further de motivated.

According to the survey conducted by Jeff, we should look at 26 percent of customer wanted to know more mechanical/technical know how, probably we should teach or impart private lessons on paid basis to customers. As the 26 percent of customer indicated that price was too high, as other competitors are not offering satisfactory and good customer service prices are well placed or we can introduce the new price, which might sound less at 39.99. To sum up the customers wants, needs and wants customers want a reliable, prompt, well treated, honest and clean pools which pool doctor is already providing.

Segmenting the market.

The segmentation can be divided into two categories independents and pool stores. There are only two sores krevco and aqua pleasure maintained the pools themselves. As we have seen the pool stores are very less concerned about after sales service, the independents are where we are in the market, which has more competitors.