Magazine article - Marketing Plan

2015

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

After

a lot of time planning and organising exactly what type of event we wanted to hold and the message we wanted to portray; we finally decided that our mission for the event of Miss & Mr Liverpool, would be that we aim to increase awareness on Miss Liverpool by giving people more knowledge on what type of event it is and what type of contestants are wanted. We also want to help promote Liverpool as the great city that it is by using different marketing strategies.

Like us on Facebook @ Miss & Mr Liverpool

We

will use social media to promote the event and create awareness on what goes on. We will do this through a Facebook page, a Twitter account, an Instagram and a blog page. This way Miss Liverpool can connect to the target audience on their level and make it easier for both contestants and guests to get the latest information and news on the event. As a team, we decided that we would use celebrities to attend and perform at the final and hopefully increase ticket sales. We wanted to include Rebecca Ferguson, Ray Quinn, Danielle Lloyd, Paul O’Grady and Jennifer Ellison, as all of these celebrities are known for Former Miss Liverpool 2014 being from Liverpool, and therefore representing and showing pride for the city.

We decided that local business’ could come and set up stalls replicating their shops – showing visitors to the event what it is they do and demonstrating and giving samples. We decided on a few companies that we could use – such as Andrew Collinge, Mac, Herbert’s, Claudia Pink, Benefit & Infinity Beauty Salon. We thought this would be a successful way to draw people in and it would attract people to the event, so they could see how companies work. We also thought that they could give out demonstrations – which would be another way to get visitors. The involvement of the charity would increase awareness and help others rather than just the competitors and give an updated view of the event.

We want lots of applicants to show the city in a good view and to create a buzz on Liverpool to make others see why the city is so successful.

Mr Liverpool

2015

TARGET MARKET

The target market for Miss Liverpool is contestants aged 17 – 24, single with no children and for Mr Liverpool are men aged 17 – 27, single with no children. This is the set criteria for entry into the competition. Another target market would be those who go to the event. This could be family of the competitors, celebrities that attend, the media who are reporting the event, students, and people with interest in the stalls there, people who want involvement in the charity, Liverpool residents and then sponsors and boutiques with involvement.

BUDGET

Pat didn’t really have a budget for her event as she got a lot of favours and didn’t make money from the event overall. The tickets for the event are £10 and money for each contestant will be raised via sponsors. All the money she raised went to a charity. There may have been a few printing costs for flyers which altered the budget.

When we changed the event around to make it our own, we decided we would need a budget in order to make the event successful. We needed this in order to have stalls come to the event, we also needed a budget for the catering and drinks available. As well as this we needed to pay the celebrities that we wanted to come to the event. We also needed a budget to pay everyone that worked there. As we had to pay a few people that worked there we didn’t decide on an exact figure overall. We definitely needed a budget however, as our event wouldn’t have worked out otherwise.

COMPETITORS

2015 One thing that Miss Liverpool will have to overcome is the amount of competition there is when holding this event. One big competitor is the LMI group. LMI Events hold 4 annual modelling competitions each year. They hold Miss LMI and Miss Independent. These are both Official Miss England heats. These 2 beauty pageants are for girls all ages tiny, mini, little, Miss and Mrs. The winner of Miss Category goes through to Miss England and is in with the lucky chance of going through to the Professional Miss World. That sounds great doesn’t it?

But by LMI also holding a pageant giving access to Miss England then that therefor makes it harder for Miss Liverpool to have access to all the contestants. Miss Liverpool in comparison to LMI is not as glamorous and doesn’t appeal as much to the younger audience. I think this is a huge problem for Miss Liverpool as they need to rebrand their pageant and make it more modern to appeal to more young ladies. The positive though is that LMI don’t have a pageant for Males. This is where Mr Liverpool could really be successful. They don’t have it

much competition at all and with the right prompting and marketing techniques it could really hit off and become hugely popular!

The dates of the event there are only some minor events that are going on in Liverpool. These events don’t exactly target our target customer which makes it easier for us to try and get the best turn out for the event. I feel if we make the event like I say before more modern and give off that cool/fun poisoner a lot more people would be interested in taking part in it.

MARKETING & PROMOTION

So the very first thing we are going to do with regards to promotion is create social network accounts because of course everything is on the web these days! We will set up a Twitter, an Instagram and update the existing but very out dated Facebook. We will create a poster that gives all important information about the event and we will take this to colleges and universities so that we can advertise to the appropriately aged candidates (ages 17-27).

2015

2015

We will create a blog that people will be able to follow. This blog will include all the information about the event but also makeup tutorials from Cassie Lomas’ makeup school and hair tutorials from Andrew Collinge Hair College (both sets of students from these schools will be working on the models on the night of the show). This is also a good way to promote our event as Cassie and Andrew are both very well respected within the fashion and beauty industry. We will have interviews with past contestants and short videos of current constants so that the public feel involved with everyone taking part.

We created posters and flyers and went into the town centre to hand them out. While we did this we scouted for potential boys to enter the competition as there is a huge lack of boys who are interested in entering. The advantage of physically handing out flyers is that it creates a buzz and people will be intrigued as to know what’s going on and what the event is all about if they haven’t previously heard of it.

We are hoping to use celebrity endorsements as a marketing technique – especially local celebrities. This is a great way to promote the competition as these people will be well known within Liverpool so they will advertise to people who live in Liverpool and are likely to be able to attend the event. We want to use local radio stations as another way to promote the event. We are hoping do to some sort of countdown during the week prior to the event. We would like to have a different local celebrity live on the radio each day during the week countdown giving people an insight of what to except from the event – this will create a hype that the event needs. We need to get people excited for it and try to make it a big event for the city that people look forward to annually.

2015 We are thinking of setting up a sample show – this would be a smaller version of what to expect from the actual event. We would have a small number of stalls whereas on the event night we would have a lot more. We would have say one local celebrity hosting instead of a number of them like we would on the official night. This is just another way we want to create hype and excitement. A sample show is also a brilliant way to find out what people like and what works and what doesn’t.

We will be giving out goody bags on the night and these will include samples and free gifts from the stalls we will be hosting during the event (MAC, Herbert, Claudia Pink, Benefit, Infinity Beauty Salon and Andrew Collinge). We are going to create an app that will show all the backstage gossip, beauty tips from Cassie Lomas Make Up School students and Herbert’s employees (the companies who will be doing the models makeup and hair). It will also include a profile of every model taking part and you will have the chance to vote for your personal favourite model – the model that wins this category will be called Miss/Mr Public’s Choice.

2015

Plan B Now every business/event should have a back-up plan. As Mr Liverpool isn’t as big as other events there aren’t many things that could go wrong. Therefor making things such as having to change venues on the day very unlikely. Well that would only happen if there was something wrong with the actual function room we were using!! Fingers cross that never happens! But just in case it is a good idea to look at other venues to know where else you would like to hold the event!

Other things to consider for the event are tickets. There has to be a certain amount of tickets sold to cover the costs. A good idea if they haven’t sold is to put them on places like Groupon or other sights like that which will also help promote the show the event is being further exposed! We could also go round colleges and universities in Liverpool to fashion students and hair and beauty students where they would be more interested in coming to an event like this and pay.

To help with the event Pat could easily get students to help run the event and get more then maybe needed so if one falls sick they won’t be down on people.

Students that may be really interested in helping run the event would be events management students and they would definitely make sure they would be there every step of the way as they would gain good work experience.

I think the main big thing that could go wrong is one of the contestants dropping out. If it’s a few weeks before the competition we could replace them with someone who didn’t make it through to the competition which isn’t a problem. But for someone who falls ill or gets too nervous a day before or the day of the show that would mess up the routines in the show. So the chorographer would have to be on hand to change the routines and go through it if they have time!

The reason we chose the Titanic Hotel was because it’s got a lot of history for Liverpool, it is modern but most of all it’s a hotel. This means the contestants could book to stay there the night before and also the guest/celebrity performers and judges. This would prevent any trouble with transport and weather conditions preventing them from coming or being late.