The objective of this project is to gain proficiency in the strategic marketing planning process. The firm can be a for-profit or non-profit entity. It can be a product or service or some combination of the two. It can be a new or existing product and/or firm. Your plan includes an extensive search of secondary literature to learn more about the industry and the competitors. See the “Marketing Plan Worksheet” for more details on the plan.
Include the following in your proposal:
Prepare a Situational Analysis for your firm, product or service. In this section, analyze the market for your product or service in more depth. Your analysis should be based on secondary marketing research data.
Some questions to answer:
the Situational Analysis asks you to analyze the key competitors and the estimated market shares of each competitor. The analysis should cover both direct and indirect competitors. Show the direct competitors in a table such as this:
Name of Competitor Percent of Market Share Competitive Strength Price (add rows as needed)
Your Situational Analysis should be four to five pages long and should include at least four outside sources. Provide APA-style citations for any resources used.
Prepare a SWOT analysis for your firm, product or service. This analysis should summarize the macro-level external environmental factors that affect your product or service, an assessment of the competitive environmental factors, and the internal environment in the firm. Some questions to consider:
Prioritize your strategic intentions and develop at least one specific goal and two or three objectives for your marketing plan.
Prepare your Marketing Strategy for your firm, product or service. In one to two pages, describe the core product, the enhanced product and your brand strategy in detail. Some questions to answer:
Your plan is evaluated based on its completeness, the quality of the data, and the strength and congruence of your strategy.
Assemble all of the sections of the plan, making revisions to previous components. Also, add the conclusions section, which should consist of responses to the following questions:
Provide APA-style citations for any resources used. Your document should follow the following formatting principles for business documents:
Executive Summary
This report focuses on Patterson Companies, Inc., one of the oldest and biggest dental supplies company in the US. It provides a marketing strategy that can rejuvenate Patterson’s performance and familiarity with its clientele, which is currently shaky. A situation analysis examines the internal environment and finds that most dental clinics and dentists have been shifting their supplies purchasing activities to online platforms, which provide a wider variety of options for customers and bring more efficiency to the process. Unfortunately, Patterson does not have such a platform, denying it a lot of lucrative business, which is lost to more flexible rivals in the industry. The company must therefore set up a B2B (business to business) sales platform that enhances existing distribution channels, especially for clients who are far away from any of the company’s branches. The company’s competitors include Henry Schein, which specializes in the same products and services, has revenues of $10 billion and profits of $3 billion in 2019 on 120,000 products from its stable and other manufacturers. Darby Dental Supplies, which offers 50,000 products from internal production and external manufacturers, is the only one among the three with a robust online sales platform.
The transition of millennial dentists into private practice has contributed to the shift that suppliers are making towards online sales platforms. As more dentists born after 1982 make their way into the upper echelons of medical practice, this trend will only grow over time. This transition will transform the way suppliers serve their clients in terms of lead times, customer care sensitivity, convenience, cost-effectiveness, etc. This younger generation of consumers has a broader choice of purchasing options, making them less inclined to put up with poor or average service from suppliers. Marketing messages targeting them must also adapt to the new reality by emphasizing quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
This report, therefore, has a SWOT Analysis to help produce an effective marketing strategy, followed by a SWOT Matrix and a competitiveness proposal coupling strengths and opportunities while suggesting avenues of eliminating threats and weaknesses. After that, it provides the marketing goal of reclaiming Patterson’s place as the leading dental supplies company with the associated objectives and the marketing goal of fully adapting Patterson to the changing dynamics in the dental supplies industry and its related objectives.
Finally, the report provides a marketing strategy and implementation framework. The strategy identifies the primary target market for Patterson as dental clinics and practices seeking a reliable supply of consumables based in urban centers, with the secondary target market being dental clinics and practices seeking equipment. The core of the strategy is Patterson packaging its interactions with clients as an experience of vintage excellence similar to the way major global brands like Johnny Walker, Mercedes Benz, or Rolex package themselves. The clients should be so excited about the company they’ll be willing to patronize anything with the Patterson logo. Consequently, there are comprehensive pricing, distribution and integrated marketing and communication strategies
Situation Analysis
The Internal Environment
Review of marketing goals and objectives
Patterson Companies is a dental and animal health products supplier established in 1876, one of the oldest players in the dental health industry. The products they supply include equipment and medical props that dentists, their assistants and patients need for dental procedures, which now number thousands of different items for the entire orthodontic supply line. Some of these products include dental-related products, machinery and software tailored for administration and dental management (pattersoncompanies.com, 2020). The company has, over time, developed a formidable reach in the industry and is renowned for having Different financing options available, an extensive product portfolio, the latest technology and more than a century as the industry’s very best pedigree.
Dental offices and dentists, in general, have been shifting their supplies purchasing activities to online platforms, which provide a wider variety of options for customers and bring more efficiency to the process (Christensen, 2011). The traditional catalog order method runs out of steam as companies try to minimize supplies lead time and unnecessary expenses. Since the bulk of Patterson’s clients are other businesses, they have the aim of setting up a B2B (business to business) sales platform that enhances existing distribution channels, especially for clients who are far away from any of the company’s branches. The realization has informed Patterson’s decision to aggressively embrace the approach to remain competitive and improve convenience for existing client companies. The company there has an online marketing strategy to not only sensitize its clients on the benefit of this business approach but also enhance its competitiveness in the cutthroat industry.
The firm has had the mission of providing the best customer service in the dental health industry since its founding in 1876, which has ensured its longevity (pattersoncompanies.com, 2020). This mission of customer service has been at the heart of the company’s continued relevance and regard as a market leader among younger players. Furthermore, it is consistent with trends in the external environment due to the shift from actual face to face purchases to e-commerce, which has arisen due to improved internet connectivity and efficiency in online platforms. All indications are that this approach is likely to persist and grow over the long term, as more people not just in the US but also across the world embrace online purchases over offline. Clients also prefer to undertake online purchases with companies they trust because it saves them time and expenses, translating to a better bottom-line. In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly hampered movements and interactions, which are the primary transmission modes for the virus, which has compelled many to turn to online platforms that can satisfy their demands.
Review of current marketing strategy and performance
Patterson has had a longstanding marketing strategy involving agents who deal with their clients directly. So much so that the company does not even have a marketing manager as these agents fall under the COO who oversees their work (pattersoncompanies.com, 2020). The agents also help distribute products to dentist clients all over the country and even overseas. This arrangement means the company hardly has any direct contact with its client base who are in the hands of external entities that may not know its strategy and mission in the industry.
According to its annual report for the financial year ended April 2020, the firm had a turnover of $5.5 billion and a gross profit of $1.2 billion, with 39% of this being dental revenue and the rest coming from the veterinary business (Annual report, 2020). Within the dental division, Consumables made up 54% of the revenue, equipment and software made up 32%, while other services accounted for 14%. The company is, therefore, the second largest in the sector behind Henry Schein, who had sales of $10 billion and a profit of 3.1 billion for the financial year ended December 2019.
For both companies, these results indicated marginal growth compared to previous years, meaning something is either affecting the whole economy or the dental industry.
Review of current and anticipated organizational resources
As of 2020, Patterson has the weakness of not having a stand-alone marketing department. Among its senior executives are the offices of the Chief Officer, the President, Dental, the President, Animal Health, the Chief Financial Officer, the Chief Human Resources Officer, the Chief Information Officer, the Chief Compliance Officer, the Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary and the Vice President of Distribution Operations. The roles of marketing are not accorded the attention they need because the company has outsourced this function to agents who are its face to the customers. Considering its slow but steady increase in revenues and profits, it follows that it has enough resources to set up the department to increase the oversight role over such a critical function.
Review of current and anticipated cultural and structural issues
The company’s customer orientation is, therefore, dependent on the sieve of its outsourced marketing agents who pass on whatever the clientele says. While this is a neat arrangement for increasing efficiency and cost-cutting for short to midterm profit gains, it is dangerous over the long term because the company is in a competitive industry. Its rivals produce products that are just as attractive as theirs. The battlefront is, therefore, neither quantity nor quality but other factors such as customer satisfaction, customer care sensitivity, rectification and repair policy, after-sales services, etc. Considering it has no marketing function, the firm is risking losing out to rivals who have a much better pulse of how they present themselves to clients and how they respond to their products. The firm’s structure is, therefore, not very supportive of its current strategy because a dedicated department must exist to oversee the online sales platforms.
The Customer Environment
Who are the firm’s current and potential customers?
The firm’s current customers are dental companies and dentists who purchase their consumables and equipment for their clinics and hospitals. These are mostly small businesses of 2 to 5 individuals with not more than two actual dentists, a nurse and a secretary/receptionist (Dunning & Lange, 2016). They constitute the units and businesses that Patterson’s agents target with new products, services such as administrative and diagnostic software as well as equipment such as dental chairs and flashlights. They are found mostly in urban centers, even in rural states where their clients can locate them quickly and consist of middle-aged professionals who may have begun their careers in bigger hospitals before branching out to start their practices.
The principal dentists in such firms, therefore, tend to be older than 35 years with a staff that may or may not be in the same age group. Having obtained one of the highest qualifications in medicine, these dentists tend to be having large student loans they are yet to pay off and, therefore, always busy working, trying to earn their way out of their debts. This client base obtains most of its information about dental supplies from marketing agents of companies like Patterson and Schiel. The decision to purchase is usually the dentists’ and sometimes the nurse, meaning the customer is highly impressionable depending on how the marketer handles him.
What do customers do with the firm’s products?
Patterson’s products facilitate the treatment of dental patients, making addressing patients easier for both nurse and dentist. The company has an excellent reputation in the industry because it is the oldest in the business and has impacted more than five generations of dentists across the country. It is also known for applying innovation to produce high-quality products that address customer need in the most comprehensive way. Clients often consume the company’s products in combination, with dentists preferring to order their entire supplies from the same source due to logistical demands, rather than from separate producers who have to bring in many different marketing and distribution agents conveyance and delivery. The ‘Consumables’ category of products is incredibly popular, bringing in more than 50% of its dental revenue. This fact is an illustration of how dominant the company is in the market even 150 years after the establishment
Where do customers purchase the firm’s products?
Until recently, dentist clinics would catalog order their supplies from Patterson in partnership with the marketing and sales agents who also doubled up as customer care liaisons. With the growth of outsourcing as an efficient business practice, the firm separated the sales and marketing function from its core business, allowing external agents to handle it. Patterson products were available on its website, but clients had to order them via a marketing agent. The growth of e-commerce in the last decade has inspired the company to commence the process of setting up a direct sales online platform it controls to enhance customer care, reduce the outsourcing costs and have a direct link to the sales process.
When do customers purchase the firm’s products?
Purchases of Patterson’s products continue all year round due to its diverse clientele of small, medium and big dental concerns that have restocking needs at different times. This reality ensures that seasonality does not influence revenue fluctuations. Furthermore, dentists handle teeth and mouth problems that have no seasonality to them, meaning they need supplies whenever their clients come, not when different seasons affect their health.
Why (and how) do customers select the firm’s products?
Patterson has been in the dental business for more than a century and has a deep understanding of what dentists need, how they think and how to engage them successfully. This experience has created an almost intuitive relationship between the company and its customer base, which has ensured a continued brand loyalty among dental professionals. In response, the company has created a productive culture of innovation and daring, continually pushing the envelope to satisfy customer needs, whichever way possible. Due to the unique B2B nature of the relationship, which prevents conventional advertising in ordinary media (radio, television, newspaper), the company has also adopted the agent marketer as their tool to interact with dental professionals. This approach has worked for almost four decades but is now under erosion with the emergence of e-commerce.
Why do potential customers not purchase the firm’s products?
Potential customers, e.g., relatively young dentists who are setting up their practices, are not patronizing Patterson’s products for several reasons. First, the firm does not have robust direct sales platforms that the customers are used to, having grown up making purchases on eBay and Amazon. The modern customer, though remote and hidden behind a computer device, is also the most sensitive and immediate because he is easily accessible digitally and expects high standards of service. Lacking an online sales portal for him is a quick way of driving him away from the business. Second, the firm’s reputation is under pressure as some of its sales and marketing agents mishandle clients on deliveries and responsiveness. This situation has resulted in some notable court cases (rgrdlaw.com, 2020).
The External Environment
Competition
Patterson’s biggest competitor is Henry Schein, which specializes in the same products and services it has to offer. Schein is the most prominent dental supplies producer in the US, with revenues of $10 billion and profits of $3 billion in 2019 and an aggressive outreach program (Annual report, 2020). It is also an old player in the business, having started operations in 1931. Today the firm has a whopping 120,000 products it supplies from its production and other manufacturers, offering a vast array of output ranging from dental solutions to technological solutions. It also has a similar marketing model to Patterson, but several times bigger and much more aggressive. Another competitor keeping Patterson under pressure is Darby Dental Supplies, the youngest of the three, having commenced operations in 1948 and supplying up to 50,000 products today from internal production and external manufacturers (darbydental.com, 2020). It is the only one among these three with a strong online presence where it offers the products, good customer care, warranties and after-sales services.
Economic Growth and Stability
Patterson faces a massive task taking on competitors this year because of the Covid-19 pandemic that has drastically reduced disposable incomes and generally ravaged the health industry (Edejer, 2020). Ordinary citizens fearing coronavirus infections are staying at home to avoid diseases, which means there could be numerous dental cases out there that dentists would ordinarily address but cannot handle now. Furthermore, many citizens have lost their jobs, and many more have lost their insurance, meaning unemployment and low incomes will have an impact on healthcare expenditure. Strained incomes at the citizen level will lead to strained incomes at the dental clinic level, which will rise to the supplier level, hampering business.
Legal and Regulatory Issues
Patterson and other dental supplies companies stand to benefit if the Democrats win the 2020 presidential and senate elections (Lambrew, 2018; washingtonpost.com, 2020). If it happens, then the Affordable Care Act will be upheld and possibly free healthcare adopted in the US, leading to increased healthcare access and more business for dentists. With a higher turnover in their books, dentists will conduct more business with the suppliers.
Technological Advancements
The emergence of e-commerce as a viable trade option for big, medium and even small companies has made business dealings much more efficient, transparent and cost-effective across the whole world (Laudon & Traver, 2016). Consumers are now able to compare products from different producers around the globe and make more informed decisions. These changes are also gripping the dental supplies industry, offering clients more choice, especially in cases where producers have robust online sales platforms. These developments are behind the pressures that Patterson is experiencing in its push to establish a robust online presence. The company has no choice but to follow the lead of companies like Darby Dental Supplies, which are already reaping the rewards of robust online sales platforms. This edge is evident in the number of private brands that prefer to use their sales portal to reach clients, mostly dental clinics.
Sociocultural Trends
As mentioned above, the transition of millennial dentists into private practice has mostly contributed to the shift that suppliers are making towards online sales platforms. As more dentists born after 1982 make their way into the upper echelons of medical practice, this trend will only grow over time. This development will transform the way suppliers serve their clients in terms of lead times, customer care sensitivity, convenience, cost-effectiveness, etc. This younger generation of consumers has a broader choice of purchasing options, making them less inclined to put up with poor or average service from suppliers. Marketing messages targeting them must also adapt to the new reality by emphasizing quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Strength 1: Brand integrity due to long history, enabling the company to reach new clients and retain old clients due to familiarity
Strength 2: Large financial resources, enabling the company to adopt new initiatives and market them efficiently.
Weaknesses
Weakness 1: Non-existent marketing and sales function, preventing a direct relationship with customers
Weakness 2: Poor online sales presence, preventing remote business transactions with customers
Opportunities
Opportunity 1: Growing movement of consumers to online platforms where marketing is cheaper
Opportunity 2: The growing presence of millennial professionals in the target market, i.e., dental, medical practice.
Threats
Threat 1: Fast adoption of online sales and marketing solutions among the competitors
Threat 2: Covid-19 will prevent patients from visiting clinics and other health services, reducing purchases from these clients.
The SWOT Matrix
| Strengths
· Brand integrity due to long history, enabling the company to reach new clients and retain old clients due to familiarity · Considerable financial resources, enabling the company to adapt new initiative and market them easily |
Opportunities
· A growing movement of consumers to online platforms where marketing is cheaper · The growing presence of millennial professionals in the target market, i.e., dental, medical practice |
| Weaknesses
· Non-existent marketing and sales function, preventing a direct relationship with customers · Poor online sales presence, preventing remote business transactions with customers |
Threats
· Fast adoption of online sales and marketing solutions among the competitors · Covid-19, which will prevent patients from visiting clinics and other health services, reducing purchases from these clients |
Developing Competitive Advantages
Patterson can match its integrity and long brand history to the opportunity of the growing number of millennials in the dental profession by adapting an introductory offer for young dentists and young clinics (less than five years). The company could grant such customers a 12-month long discount program in which they receive supplies at concessional rates to survive the challenges that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought on their young businesses. Furthermore, the company can match the strength of financial resources with the opportunity of increased e-commerce by setting up the most prominent and popular online sales platforms to address shifting customer preferences. Such an approach would improve the company’s grip on product leadership within the industry and greatly enhance customer intimacy, creating lifelong clients.
Patterson can also address the weakness of a non-existent marketing function by establishing a full-fledged marketing and sales department, which will manage its second weakness of a poor online sales presence. This double-edged solution will also alleviate the threat of competitors who have a strong online sales presence.
Developing a Strategic Focus
The strategic focus of this marketing plan is developing an aggressive and innovative approach within the operations of Patterson. No dental supplies company has emerged as the undisputed leader in marketing and sales in the new e-commerce dispensation. Patterson has an opportunity to aggressively build on its pedigree to accommodate the latest developments in business processes by adapting to recent digital trends in sales and marketing, which will rejuvenate its phenomenal run over the last 150 years.
Marketing Goals and Objectives
Marketing Goal A: Reclaiming Patterson’s place as the leading dental supplies company
Objective A1: Establishing a marketing and sales department within three months under a Chief Marketing Officer’s supervision
Objective A2: Establishing functional protocols that will enable the marketing department to rapidly survey and address the immediate demands of clients within three months under a Chief Marketing Officer’s supervision
Marketing Goal B: Fully adapting to the changing dynamics in the dental supplies industry
Objective B1: Set up an online sales platform for the sales and marketing of Patterson products within six months under the supervision of the Marketing manager’s supervision.
Objective B2: Introduce phenomenal sales discounts for longtime customers and new market entrant clients as a means of re-asserting its experience and pedigree.
Marketing Strategy
Primary (and Secondary) Target Market
Primary target market
The primary target market for Patterson is dental clinics and practices seeking a reliable supply of consumables based in urban centers. This market wants convenience, efficiency and cost-effectiveness and is also the type of consumer that prefers to conduct their purchases online for quick supply and support for their businesses. They are likely to comprise less than five employees, many of whom are above 30 years.
Secondary target market (optional)
The secondary target market for Patterson is dental clinics and practices seeking a reliable supply of equipment based in urban centers. This market wants convenience, efficiency and cost-effectiveness and is also the type of consumer that prefers to conduct their purchases online for quick supply and support for their businesses. They are likely to comprise less than five employees, many of whom are above 30 years.
Product Strategy
Patterson needs to package its transactions as an experience of vintage excellence similar to major global brands like Johnny Walker, Mercedes Benz, or Rolex package themselves. The clients should be so excited about the company they’ll be willing to patronize anything with the Patterson logo, which it must maintain. Bundled with the products should be discounts on other products or services to deepen the Patterson experience, complete with limited callbacks or surveys about customer satisfaction with the consequences.
Pricing Strategy
Patterson should make all its products and services 5% cheaper than competitors. They should also bundle these products such that if a client buys specific equipment, they can get consumables at a more affordable rate than if they purchased each product individually. They can also introduce ‘Black Friday’ type of sales opportunities on consumables with substantial sales offers that would keep their clientele excited and continuously engaged.
Distribution/Supply Chain Strategy
The company should develop its own sales platform to reduce reliance on external marketing and sales agents gradually. It should also be ready to market itself as the most accessible dental supply company in the industry. The company should use its platforms to push its products are a monolithic and delightful experience.
Integrated Marketing Communication (Promotion) Strategy
Patterson’s IMC strategy should revolve around promoting itself as a trusted and experienced player in the dental supplies industry who offers an ‘experience’ of products, services and after-sales services second to none. The marketing department can name this strategy #ThePattersonExperience. The firm can use all the social media platforms its consumers frequent to show how they can enjoy more than just the sales it has on offer. It can commence this process once it sets up the online platforms suggested in the marketing objectives above, showing clients how much value, they can derive from having Patterson as their preferred choice. The budget for this push should not exceed $1 million with a timeline of not more than 12 months when the effects should be evident for the company.
Marketing Implementation
Structural Issues
The overall approach to the strategy should be organic with input from the marketing team for implementation and suggestions from the external marketing and sales agents because they already understand their niche markets well.
This approach will require the appointment of a substantive head of marketing and an expansion of the marketing team, the establishment of a robust digital operations team under the marketing manager as well as the creation of healthy customer care and sales department.
Concerned departments would be sensitized for a week on the new strategy, and the external agents need to write a report on how the company can maximize its reach under the new system.
Tactical Marketing Activities
| Specific Tactical Activities | Person/Department Responsible | Required Budget | Completion Date |
| Product Activities | |||
| 1. Packaging products and services as an experience of vintage excellence | Marketing and commercial | ||
| 2. Bundling products and services with discounts | |||
| 3. Limited callbacks or surveys about customer satisfaction | $100,000 | 3 months | |
| Pricing Activities | |||
| 1. Make products and services 5% cheaper than competitors | Commercial | ||
| 2. Introduce ‘Black Friday’ sales occasions on consumables with substantial sales offers | $50,000 | One month | |
| Distribution/Supply Chain Activities | |||
| 1.Develop own sales platform | Marketing | ||
| 2. Market self as the most accessible dental supply company in the industry | |||
| 3. Push message products are a monolithic and delightful experience that all serious businesses should try for success. | $500,000 | Six months | |
| IMC (Promotion) Activities | |||
| 1. Promoting itself as a trusted and experienced player in the industry, i.e., #ThePattersonExperience, the centerpiece of the strategy. | COO and marketing | ||
| 2. Use all the social media platforms its consumers frequent for new strategies e.g Facebook, Twitter and Instagram | $350,000 | 12 months | |
Evaluation and Control (refer to Exhibit 9.5)
Formal Controls
The input controls that Patterson should secure before implementing the marketing plan is financing that can accommodate the attempt. This amount, as suggested above, should not exceed $1 million with a contingency fund of $200,000 to accommodate overshoots. If the money required exceeds this amount, then the board of management should meet to discuss and possibly approve, with the performance of the plan being their primary guide. To successfully implement the #thePattersonExperience strategy, Patterson must tightly control the suggested budgets with weekly reports on expenditure pace for balance. Only the marketing and commercial team will require training to implement the plan, with a week sufficient. The research the marketing department conducts with the clients and reports from external agents should fall within this budget.
For process controls, the new marketing team should undergo training for a week before implementing the plan. This training will not only induct them into the company culture but also elaborate on expectations. This training should be done for the entire team.
The output controls for the marketing plan will include various indicators. First, an increase in sales of more than 20% year on year. This offer will not only show that the discounts and lower prices are attracting customers, but also indicate new interest among clients drawn from other suppliers. The best evidence of the growing success of the company will be increased sales on its platforms as well as on other distribution channels. A look at consumables, equipment, and services will indicate what is contributing to the success of the strategy. Second, A subscription of more than 100,000 customers on the sales portal within the first six months of portal launch. This growth will indicate a real marketing impact and instantly create a direct connection to clients and enhance customer care. Third, customer suggestions on new products and services based on sales platform feedback. Fourth, private brand requests to use the platform as a sales channel for their products and service.
Overall performance standards
The overall performance standard should be a 20% increase in sales year-on-year after the marketing strategy comes into play. Considering the performance trajectory of the company, this will solidly maintain it in profitability while remaining an indicator of customer satisfaction, customer retention and customer base expansion.
Product performance standards
The company should aim at increasing the supply of dental consumables in terms of quantity and quality. If it cannot compete on quality against rivals, it can seek to accommodate private brand manufacturers who have better offerings. For quantity enhancement, it can introduce occasions such as ‘Black Friday’ when to offload excess inventory and help itself and partners recoup.
Price-performance standards
To allow the marketing strategy traction, the company should sweeten the deal for customers by lowering all prices by 5% below the industry average. This move, if practical, should lead to higher sales that eventually deliver the 20% revenue increase. This rise should occur organically with only advertising to support it so that the performance of different product and service categories can respond without influence.
Distribution performance standards
To improve distribution efficiency, Patterson can consider increasing its distribution to reduce delays and lower waiting times for customers. Such a development will excite the customers and stimulate a word of mouth campaign about the speed of delivery when patronizing Patterson products. The process of actual distribution to clients should remain as before but primed for speed and efficiency.
IMC (promotion) performance standards
Communication objectives
Patterson should ensure that its existing clients know about the new offers within the first month of strategy launch. With the process being a rolling program for 12 months, a monthly target of 10,000 registrations on the online sales platform could work out fine in enrolling the 100,000 members. The marketing and digital teams should work out how many more clients the campaign should target to produce the 10,000 monthly registrations.
Brand awareness, recognition, or recall;
Using target market surveys and client callbacks, the company can gauge the level of awareness, recognition and recall to determine how effective the strategy is in producing the desired results. The marketing department should have a few officers able to conduct client surveys, interpret the results and even extrapolate performance to inform company policy over the short term (2 years).
Campaign reach, frequency, and impressions;
Similar to the surveys on brand awareness, client engagement to determine campaign reach will be vital for the strategy. Furthermore, the feedback should also inform how frequently the company needs to engage target clients with engagements and impressions.
Purchase intentions;
Building on the brand awareness and campaign reach surveys, the company can derive purchase intentions. Once it achieves this, it would be possible to tailor its products and service offering to the purchase intentions of the clientele, enhancing its responsiveness to the customers.
Public relations, sales, and sales promotion effectiveness.
The metric to determine public relations, sales, and sales promotion effectiveness would be customer inquiries type of inquiries and frequency of queries. The mere increase in customer inquiry numbers should indicate that the marketing strategy is stimulating a response among customers. The type of questions will show whether the public relations approach is appropriate or not and if it is stimulating interest in the different product and service categories as designed and anticipated.
Informal Controls
A monthly check on the performance of the products in terms of sales, customer inquiries, and sales portal registrations will act as an essential informal control.
The marketing and commercial team can also provide feedback on their callbacks through comprehensive reports highlighting positive and negative indicators. Weekly meetings between participating teams for sharing of feedback must also take place for the duration of the strategy.
Marketing Audits
The CEO’s office will conduct an audit of the marketing and commercial departments’ activities with weekly and monthly budgetary and revenue targets being key indicators. If the activities do not meet expectations, remedial brainstorming sessions with all affected departments will follow with new directions issued within a week.
If this does not work, the company should consider altering some elements of the strategy, especially if they are overshooting target budgets without commensurate increases in sales revenues. They can then also involve external promotion partners as consultants to guide the #ThePattersonExperience campaign.
Marketing Audits
| Month | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| Product Activities | 1. Packaging products and services as an experience of vintage excellence
2. Bundling products and services with discounts 3. Limited callbacks or surveys about customer satisfaction |
|||||||||||
| Pricing Activities | 1. Make products and services 5% cheaper than competitors
2. Introduce ‘Black Friday’ sales occasions on consumables with substantial sales offers |
|||||||||||
| Distribution Activities | 1.Develop own sales platform
2. Market self as the most accessible dental supply company in the industry 3. Push message products are a monolithic and delightful experience. |
|||||||||||
| Product Activities | 1. Promoting itself as a trusted and experienced player in the industry, i.e., #ThePattersonExperience
2. Use all the social media platforms its consumers frequent for new strategies. |
References
Christensen, G. J. (2011). Is the current generation of technology facilitating better dentistry?. The Journal of the American Dental Association, 142(8), 959-963.
darbydental.com. (, 2020). https://www.darbydental.com/Scripts/AboutUs.aspx
Dunning, D. G., & Lange, B. M. (Eds.). (, 2016). Dental practice transition: a practical guide to management. John Wiley & Sons.
Henry Schein Annual Report (2020). https://investor.henryschein.com/annual-reports
Lambrew, J. M. (2018). Getting ready for health reform 2020: What past presidential campaigns can teach us. Commonwealth.
Laudon, K. C., & Traver, C. G. (2016). E-commerce: business, technology, society.
Patterson Companies Annual Report (2020). https://investor.pattersoncompanies.com/investor-relations/financial/default.aspx
pattersoncompanies.com. (2020). https://www.pattersoncompanies.com/who-we-are/default.aspx.
rgrdlaw.com (2020). Robbins Geller Obtains Class Certification in Patterson Companies Securities Case. https://www.rgrdlaw.com/news-item-Obtains-Class-Certification-in-Patterson-Companies-Securities-Case.html
washingtonpost.com (2020) https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/policy-2020/medicare-for-all/
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