Situational Analysis of Nexba Beverage

Discuss the marketing plan of Nexba Beverages.

Nexba Beverages has been able to establish a niche in the market with its focus on healthy drinks options. The company has transformed the soft drinks industry with its products of sugar free drinks as good and healthy options for Cola. The company was founded in the year 2010 with a strong vision of providing healthy drinking options to people. With time, Nexba is able to have a loyal customer base. However, the problem with Nexba bevearges is to acquire new customers. It is important that Nexba should have a strong marketing plan in place that would help the company to acquire more customers (Egger, Katz, Sagner, Dixon & Stevens, 2014). A brief recap of situational analysis of Nexba beverage can be discussed as:

The beverage analysis is a growing industry in Australia and competition is high. The customer switching cost is very low. Therefore, it is important that organizations should have a strong positioning in place that can help them to get a good deal of market share. Nexba has a unique product proposition of health drink in place and the company wants to create awareness in the market about its unique product range (Metin & Kizgin, 2015). The specific marketing problem for Nexba can be discussed as:

The company finds it difficult to acquire new customers as the product is a healthy drink and it is costly than the easily available substitute likes Cola and Soda drinks.

Nexba operates in a niche market. The key target market for company are the consumers that like healthy drinks. The good thing for Nexba is the increased focus on health and nutrition for younger generation. There are various variables of segmentation that Nexba can use. The key segmentation variables that organizations typically use are income, demographics, behavioural, etc. In the case of Nexba, two key recommended segmentation variables are behavioural and income (Mcdonald, 2016). The product is not a low income product. Therefore, the family income should be good. Moreover, the behavioural variable is good as consumers should have an interest in the health drinks.  

Nexba should realize that it produces a niche product and likewise its target market cannot be mass market. The potential target market for Nexba would be millennials, health and fitness enthusiasts, household decision makers, moms, etc. The above target market is recommended for Nexba as the consumers of Nexba would fall into one of the above group (D’souza & Krishna, 2016).

Marketing Problem of Nexba

The positioning statement of Nexba is to provide quality products to consumers at premium price. The company does not want to compromise on the quality of the products at any cost. The company wants to position its product portfolio as a premium product in the market. The company wants to have a segment that is focused and not for mass market.

Nexba beverages operates in beverage industry and the key business objective for the organization is increase its profitability and revenue. The marketing objectives of Nexba should be in line with the business objective of the company. The key business objectives for Nexba beverages can be highlighted as:

• Increase the market penetration in the Australian market. The growth in the market penetration should increase by 10% for next 2 years.
• Increase the revenue of the company and the revenue should increase at the growth rate of 8%.

The marketing objectives that arises from these business objective can be discussed as:

• The key marketing objective of Nexba beverages is to increase awareness about its products. At the same time, marketing function should help Nexba beverages to create a unique position in the market; wherein, consumers perceive Nexba beverages as a high quality player in beverage industry (Sasmita & Mohd Suki, 2015).
• Increase the marketing budget of the company to 3% of the revenue and use this marketing budget to achieve its business goals and objectives (Zhang, Watson, Palmatier & Dant, 2016).
• Nexba beverages should increase its marketing activities on social media platforms as social media is the fastest way to reach out to consumers (Hartigan, Patton-Ku, Fidler & Boutelle, 2017).
• With the focus on marketing, the company also wants to improve customer relationship. In fact, customer relationship marketing is a key objective for Nexba beverages.

It is important that the financial objectives should also be in line with the business objectives of the company. The key financial objectives for Nexba beverages can be discussed as:

• Improve the profit margins of the company by 6%.
• Increase investment in the marketing and advertisement areas with expected ROI as 2X minimum.

Nexba beverages is still an evolving company. Therefore, marketing plays an important role for company. The marketing function would help the company to achieve its business goals and objective. The key marketing strategy for Nexba beverages would be to use the power of social media to reach out to consumers. Nexba beverages has made mission to become part of healthy living. One thing which it is targeting is sugar or calorie intake for health and fitness enthusiasts (Mohebbi, 2014). The products of Nexba beverages are sugar free and natural. The product constitutes stevia, erythritol and natural fruit. Likewise, it is important that the marketing strategy of the company should talk about the various product benefits that the company provides. Another aspect of marketing strategy for Nexba beverages would be the use of mobile advertisement. Today, the penetration of smartphones has increased in Australia with close to 94% people using smartphones in Australia. Therefore, it is important that Nexba beverages should use some of the marketing budget as mobile advertisement. As a part of marketing strategy, the company should also focus on its website. It is important that the website of Nexba beverages should be used as a one stop solution for all the information related to product and organization (Owens, 2014).

It is important that the specific marketing strategy of Nexba beverages should be based on the four elements of marketing. Defining the four elements of the marketing mix is crucial for marketers. The marketing mix for Nexba beverages can be discussed as:

Target Market for Nexba

Product: For any organization in food and beverage industry, product is the most important element. The key product element for Nexba beverages is the sugar free and healthy drinks (Gummesson, 2017). As. A part of product range the company has ice tea, soft drinks, juices, etc. The one thing common across all the product ranges is the focus on healthy drinking. The product of Nexba beverages have very less calories and fat. All of its product will remain sugar free and natural. The company is investing a lot of resources in product development. It is important that Nexba beverages should continue to make product improvements on continuous process.

Price: The pricing strategy of the company is use premium pricing. The company knows that it sells the premium product; therefore, it can charge a premium for its prices. Moreover, Nexba beverages is not a mass market player. Therefore, company does not want to indulge in any price war with its competitors. The company is still a new entrant in the market and to increase the market penetration, Nexba beverages does follow the pricing strategy of discounts. The company offers discounts not only to end consumers but also to distributors (Perry, Daniels, Bell & Magarey, 2017).

Place: For any new entrant in the market, place is also an important element of the marketing mix. Nexba beverages uses both online and offline methods of distribution. The products from Nexba beverages can be easily bought on various retail stores (Marion, Eddleston, Friar & Deeds, 2015). At the same time, the products are also sold on various e-commerce platforms. For Nexba beverages, it is important that the availability of products should be high on both offline and online channels. For the target market of Nexba beverages, the online distribution channel make more sense as people have increased presence on e-commerce platforms (Husted, Allen & Kock, 2015).

Promotion: Nexba beverages has the marketing objective to increase awareness in the market and to emerge as a preferred player in the market. This is possible only when the company has strong promotion strategy in place. It is important that the promotion should be heavy on online channels and social media platforms. The social platforms like Facebook and Twitter can be used to reach out to consumers (Rundh, 2016).

Development of marketing plan is only one part of the solution. The next and the important part is the implementation of the marketing plan. While implementing any marketing plan, the marketers must also have the provision of implementation and control. The implementation mechanism would take a top-down approach. The senior management would have a key role of taking charge of the implementation mechanism. The implementation of marketing plan would also include the customers. The customers would be interviewed to get an insight of their changing requirements. These requirements will then be analysed in terms of their practical and economic feasibility (Barreda, Bilgihan, Nusair & Okumus, 2015). The products will be introduced in the market by proper pilot testing. As a control mechanism, the Nexba beverages should have a formal process of review in place. As a part of this review process, the organization would monitor the progress on quarterly basis. The quarterly review system would help the organization to ensure that the things are on track.

Positioning Statement of Nexba

As discussed above, one of the most important element of marketing mix for Nexba beverages is promotion elements (Banerjee, 2017). It is recommended that Nexba beverages should use a combination of offline and online marketing channels. As a part of offline marketing channels, the company should focus heavily on event based promotions. With event based promotions, the company would be able to increase its reach and position in the market. The budget allocation for different elements of promotion mix for Nexba beverages can be discussed as:

Online channels budget allocation: 65% of total budget

• Social media marketing: 60% of total online budget
• Mobile advertisement: 40% of total online budget

Offline channels budget allocation: 35% of total budget

• Event based promotions: 60% of total offline budget
• Newspaper promotions: 10% of total offline budget
• TV promotions: 30% of total offline budget

Conclusion

The above paper discusses the marketing plan for Nexba beverages. With the above discussion it can be said that the company should invest heavily on social media marketing tools. The social media marketing approach would help the company to achieve its marketing objective of brand awareness. It is important that Nexba beverages should also use certain key performance indicators to measure the success of this marketing plan. At the same time, the company can explore the possibilities of partnership with other players in the industry like Dominos.

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