REB Preposal
Order Description
Write up and calculate sample size section and quality management section for the work uploaded as missionstatement.docx in accordance to the professors lecture, which is attached in the form of a power point presentation.
For the sampling plan (see the PPT Weeks 8&9) and For the quality management plan (see the PPT Week 11)
Mission statement
“KoolieKup” is a fun and safe way to keep your drink cooled anywhere be it at the beach party, comfort of your backyard or at a family picnic.
Background
“KoolieKup” is already in development for several years, though due unfortunate terms of events the final product was never finalized nor delivered to the market.
My job as a researcher
My job as a researcher is to help the client finalize the product development and establish a competitive Internet marketing and sales strategy minimizing the client investments whilst keeping the sales at their peak.
I will provide all necessary research and options for the client to consider when choosing whether to pursue the proposed strategy or to decline it.
Literature review
Internet sales do heavily rely not only on statistics and proper strategies but as well a certain graphic and content components like branding, design and copyrighting. There are hundreds of similar products available on the market so further mentioned research would be concentrated on creating a certain “aura” or so to say around the MRT’s “KoolieKup” for it to stand out.
Branding
Branding is a disciplined process used to build awareness and extend customer loyalty. It requires a mandate from the top and readiness to invest in the future. Branding is about seizing every opportunity to express why people should choose one brand over another. Desires to lead, outpace the competition, and give employees the best tools to reach customers are the reasons why companies leverage branding.Wheeler, A. (2009). Designing brand identity: An essential guide for the entire branding team (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
Taking this quote in consideration, I will devote a lot of attention to the brand development and appeal as a main tool for creation of a successful product in the fast paced and diverse Internet market.
Design
It’s imperative for an organisation to stand at the position of strength, meaning that the brand created is supposed to be genuine and sustainable, and that can be achieved by creating a unique an appealing graphical solutions be it a color palette for the product or a company name mark or logo. As an example, 1.2 billion people enjoy a refreshing Coca-Cola on daily basis. Turner Duckworth recreated the brand in a simple yet recognizable way branding everything from delivery trucks to glasses creating a simple yet recognizable logo that defines the company today. I believe that this example more then explains the importance of design.
Copywriting
Copywriting is the process of writing advertising promotional materials. Copywriters are responsible for the text on brochures, billboards, websites, emails, advertisements, catalogs, and more. This text is known as “copy.” Copy is everywhere — it’s part of a $2.3 trillion industry worldwide. Unlike news or editorial writing, copywriting is all about getting the reader to take action. That action might be to purchase, opt-in, or engage with a product, service, or company. Copywriting should not be confused with “copyright.” Copyright means an individual or company has the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute someone’s work (such as books, music, artistic items). The purpose of a copyright is to protect that material and prevent illegal use of it by unauthorized agents. The owner designates the material is copyrighted with the symbol ©.What is Copywriting? (n.d.). Retrieved December 30, 2015, from http://www.awaionline.com/what-is-copywriting/
Therefor we clearly see an essential role of copywriting in creating a unique product and company identity.
Review of research methods
Focus groups
Using focus groups is beneficial because it uses a limited sample of respondents to generate ideas, understand consumer needs, motives, and understand quantitative studies; however caution must be used to generalize findings (Bush & Burns, 2014).
Taking in consideration that the clients product is still in the prototype stage we can gain a significant insight in the potential customers needs in a cold beverage travel cup, analyze them and try to implement them in the final cup design.
Online survey
“Online surveys have the advantage of being real time research because of speed, convenience, and flexibility” (Bush & Burns, 2014, pg. 163)
To further extend the focus group findings an anonymous online survey would be conducted.
Conclusion
Any product can be sold on the Internet as long as the story and a picture accompanying it are good. As a researcher I will try to summarize the potential customers expectations and provide the client with in-depth analysis and an action plan to succeed in online sales.
Research Purpose and Objectives
The purpose of the research is to find what steps and strategies are the client to implement to create a successful and affordable online marketing strategy that in its turn would lead to a significant drive in sales.
Objectives
1. Define a final design for the “KoolieKup” based on the potential customers expectations
2. Select a proper niche and online retail platform for the “KoolieKup”
3. Develop a quality graphical and copywrited content including logo, website, proper social media content and etc.
4. Develop a proper online advertisement campaign including social media, Google promotion and etc.
Operational Definitions
• Black hat marketing strategy is the cheaper way of creating a history for your website. As per Marketing-schools.org the Black Hat strategy is considered to be deception and robot manipulation that is unethical and untrustworthy. Based on my quite extended experience in real life that is most implemented strategy of them all due to the immediate effect and the cpc factor. Blackhat includes but not limited to: Meta Key stuffing, backlink placements (also known as farming), content cloaking and etc. Generally the strategy can bring the cpc to a range between $0.3 and $0.1 depending on the investments. Even though if one institution considers the Black Hat Marketing unethical it’s not illegal or forbidden. Based on the development of the industry BHM as a trend appeared far later then WHM due to that reason some players are stuck with enormous investments in WHM so they don’t want to let the competition to ride the organic search ranking.
• White hat marketing strategy other wise called organic SEO, it’s a longer yet cleaner method that works on the basis of generating proper quality content that will potentially lead to your website. In other words the website gains popularity over time thus becoming popular and therefore is ranked higher. With a strategy like that creating a proper “history” for the product will take months if not years and thousands upon thousands of dollars in investment and content creation.
• SMM (Social Media Marketing) as per Wikipedia SMM is “the process of gaining website traffic or attention trough social media sites” the statement is absolutely on spot – SMM is an effective way of gaining an extreme amount of traffic but unfortunately is associated with a tremendous amount of backend work and provides a positive effect only when works in tandem with one of the strategies mentioned above. SMM include but not limited to the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, VK, Linkedin, You Tube, Vimeo and others, of course all of them require creation of additional content.
• ORP (Online Retail Platforms) On par with retail giants like Amazon and Ebay there are other less advertised platforms: Shopify, Bigcommerce, Volusion and Bigcartel. Despite of them not being on top of the “food chain” these platforms are known to be reliable partners in setting up initial and “niche” product sales, through the research the best strategy and “niche” as well as the platform(s) for the product would be determined and presented to the client.
Key definitions
Backlinking – links placed across you’re the internet leading to your website
Web design – website design
Online retailer/trading platform – online store
CPC – cost per click, how much a single click worth
Methodology
The methodology I’ve selected for conducting research for the purpose of defining the level of interest in both, the product design and product qualities of the MRT “KoolieKup”. I will be taking a mixed method approach. I believe that a mixed method approach in both quantitative and qualitative data collection will provide my client with the most relevant and reliable information. The overall research design will be descriptive as I’m trying to discover the level of interest in the potential customers for the product, as well as it’s design and the companies “aura”. In order to collect this information, three phases of consecutive research are proposed.
Phase I: Secondary data research
January – February 2016
The first proposed phase is some initial secondary research. Here I will scan similar competitor products and their marketing approach as well as their price range, niche and ORP choice.
Phase II: Focus Group
February – March 2016
To allow for both qualitative and quantitative research on potential customers that will provide an in-depth view on to the product and it’s acceptance as well as design flaws and potential changes that can be implemented. Focus group would consist of the volunteers aged 19 to 30.
The idea behind the focus group is to gather 5 to 10 people and distribute the prototype cups among them for a period of one to two weeks, and then gather their feedback on maters previously mentioned.
Phase III: Online survey
February – April 2016
To understand potential customers perception, beliefs, opinion and attitudes towards the suggested product, a survey will be my third and final phase. This survey will be administered via Internet on a unique domain name (.com/.net). I will be building this survey using WordPress Content Management System and associated survey plug-in creating a unique and secure environment for the participants. At the end of this survey, participants will have the opportunity to indicate if they would be interested in receiving the final results through email or not, otherwise the survey will be completely anonymous and no personal data would be collected whatsoever.
Some of the answers to the survey questions will be similar to the focus group questioner and will be used to emphasise the Phase II findings.
Sampling plan
Population of interest:
Phase II: People of a minimum required drinking age with no gender specification.
Phase III: People of a minimum required drinking age with no gender specification.
Available sample frames:
For the Focus group 10 people from among students of RAP program at Georgian College as well as friends would be recruited to participate in a focus group with the limitations being minimum drinking age.
For the online survey there would be no minimum required number of participants with an only limitation being a legal drinking age. Based on my professional experience the number of participants would vary between 500 and 20000 over the survey conduction period. After the survey completion the domain name and all the scripts associated would be passed to the client possession therefore becoming his property.
Sample size
Sampling design and selected rationale
The sampling design for the survey will be random sampling. As I have no specific demographic characteristics except for the minimum age to screen for.
The sampling design for the focus group will be convenience sampling the purpose behind the method is that the time for recruitment is extremely short and the age diversity of the students fits the set criteria perfectly.
Recruitment, Incentive and Informed Consent Procedures
As previously mentioned the focus participant screening is limited to only required minimum drinking age in Ontario, therefor, students of the RAP Program are more then appropriate source of participants.
There is no recruitment process necessary for the Phase III, as the survey would rely on random anonymous people visiting the survey page. To provide a steady flow of participants a strategy of posting in related opened discussion treads on social media would be implemented, it should provide a flow between 500 and 20 000 participants within a selected time frame.
Implementation
TASK SEP OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR
Client meeting X
Problem Definition
Development of Research Purpose & Objectives X X
Research Design
Development of Methodology & Sampling Plan X X
Development of Survey Questionnaire
X
Development of Focus Groups Discussion Guides X
Ethics Board Approval X
Research Proposal Presentation
Data Collection
Phase I: Conduct Secondary Data Research X
Phase II: Focus Group X
Phase III: Online survey X
Post-Collection
Data Entry X X X
Data Analysis X X X
Final Interpretation X
Final Report/Presentation X
Costs
Based on the understanding of the client needs the budget needs to be shrunk down to a bare minimum. The research being a major research project considerably saves funds on data gathering and analysis. Focus group participants can be reimbursed by keeping the prototype cup as momentum. Online survey participants do not require any reimbursement due to their being anonymous and participating on their own free will.
Below you’ll find a bare minimum of necessary expenses.
Task Cost
Phase I: Secondary data research No cost
Phase II: Focus Group 30 Prototype “KoolieKup”
Phase III: Online Survey
Just host 1 year website hosting + domain name package $118.08
Survey website design + plugin installation and industrial security and data protection setup $150
10 Unique professionally written posts and their daily social networks deployment $100
Total $368.08
References
Wheeler, A. (2009). Designing brand identity: An essential guide for the entire branding team (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
What is Copywriting? (n.d.). Retrieved December 30, 2015, from http://www.awaionline.com/what-is-copywriting/
Burns, A., & Bush, R. (2014). Marketing research (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education
Aronczyk, M. (2013). Branding the nation: The global business of national identity. Oxford University Press.
Onaindia, C., &Resnick, B. (2013). Designing B2B brands lessons from Deloitte and 195,000 brand managers. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Vaynerchuk, G. (2013). Jab, jab, jab, right hook: How to tell your story in a noisy social world. HarperBusiness.
Brown, S. (2001). Marketing the retro revolution. London: SAGE.
Appendices
Focus group participation consent form:
Purpose:
The Research Analyst Program Studentsat Georgian Collegeare conducting a research under the supervision of Tim Krywulak. You are invited to participate. The purpose of the study is to evaluate a prototype of a cooling cup. Specifically, we want to understand if the cup needs any improvement at all and if any improvementsare necessary what would they be. We will use this information to further advance the cup and create a product that a consumer can enjoy.
Procedures:
If you participate in this study, you and a group of approximately 8 – 10 other participants would use a cup for a period of two weeks. If you volunteer to participate in this focus group, you will be asked to provide some feedback related to your experience with the product. This feedback will help us to better understand the potential consumers needs and further advance the final product design.
Your participation is completely voluntary. You may withdraw from this study at any time without penalty. Benefits and Risks:
No risks greater than experienced in ordinary conversation are anticipated.
Everyone will be asked to respect the privacy of the other group members. All participants will be asked not to disclose anything said within the context of the discussion, but it is important to understand that other people in the group with you may not keep all information private and confidential.
Confidentiality:
Anonymous data from this study will be analyzed by Research Analyst Program students and will be reported to the above-mentioned administrator. No individual participant will be identified or linked to the results. Study records, including this consent from signed by you, may be inspected by the administrator. The results of this study may be presented at the client and administrator meetings; however, your identity will not be disclosed. All information obtained in this study will be kept strictly confidential. All materials will be stored in a secure location.
Consent:
By signing this consent form, you are indicating that you fully understand the above information and agree to participate in this focus group.
Participant’s signature: ___________________________________________ Printed name: ________________________________________?Date: _____________________________________________
If you have any questions or concerns about this study, please contact Alex Svetlaev at [email protected]
Disclaimer online survey
• This is an anonymous survey, we would not request or require any personal information.
• If you’d like to see the results of the survey, you can do so by pressing the “see results” button at the bottom of the survey page.
• This is an age-restricted survey you have to be at the minimum age of 19 to participate.
Online survey questioner
1. How do you normally drink your beverages?
– From a can/bottle
– From a glass cup
– From a plastic (single use) cup
– From a plastic (multi use) cup
– Other, please specify
– Don’t know/prefer not to say
2. How often do you have picnics or bbqs with multiple guests?
– Once-twice a summer
– Once per month
– Every weekend
– I don’t do that stuff
– Don’t know/prefer not to say
3. Would you pay extra for an eco friendly cup?
– No, I won’t
– Yes, but not more than $0.5
– Yes, but not more than $1.00
– Yes, I want to save the planet no matter the cost
4. Do you like to use a straw for your drinks?
– Yes, all the time
– Yes, most of the time
– Yes, once in a while
– No, straws suck
– Don’t know/prefer not to say
5. Would you prefer an easy to store and carry cup over a cup with a cap?
– I want a cap so my drink won’t spill
– I carry a bunch of cups with me I’d rather fit them all in my backpack
6. Are you an outdoorsy person?
– Hitchhiked through Europe!
– To hell with it I’m driving
– Never went past my backyard deck
7. Which outdoor activities do you prefer?
– Name 3:_____________________
8. What are your favourite colors?
– Name 3:______________________