An UAE Event Management Firm’s Marketing Plan

Introduction

Worldwide event management has been treated as a tiresome and unappreciative task. The cause is event management is a completely new idea of the present modern and fast world. Events are the programs like a party or an assembly of people for a purpose like a celebration or a political program. Event management is a profession to help people to arrange a public or private gathering. From politics to business everywhere, various types of events are occurring on a regular basis.

To help to arrange these events, various types of event management firms are established. To promote and market these event management services is a tough job. Mostly, the financial success of an event management firm depends on its marketing activities. As marketing is a tricky and challenging job in the field of event management, it becomes more exigent. This assessment report will discuss the marketing of an event management firm named “Your-Event” and designs its activities.

Mission Statement

• “Make every event of the people of the country, who love and arrange programs and gatherings; unique, memorable, authentic, pleasant and successful and thus keep a cordial relation with the people and contribute to their memorable moments through our best efforts”.
• The efforts will be directed to the success of the event, not to the budget, and to ensure the best service of event arrangements will be the basis for the consistency and expansion of the business.
• Continuous innovation and creative operations of the business will be directed to ensure customer satisfaction, and the achievement of this satisfaction will be done through the maximum quality of service.
• As a firm, the business has the ultimate goal to maximise profit, but this would be based on achieving customer loyalty, highest quality of service, contribute to improve the meaning of the life of the people in the society and get the competitive advantages in the market through becoming a recognised event management firm.

Vision

‘Your-Event’ has the vision to become the market leader in the event management field not only in Riyadh but also in the whole of Saudi Arabia within four years through the best quality of service. It will contribute to each and every event coming to pass in Riyadh with innovative and inventive processes without considering the budget. Your-Event will arrange birthdays, marriage ceremonies, anniversaries, business parties, political and social programs, religious and cultural programs, and any other programs desired by the party as per their wish. Within six years, the business would expand with the vision of a profit-oriented but not profit-driven organisation. The business will ensure maximum customer satisfaction and loyalty by establishing branch offices in almost all states of the country.

Executive Summary

Your-Event is an event management company based in Riyadh which is mainly a customer oriented firm that helps the people and groups of the society to arrange their different types of programs in a meaningful, attractive, memorable and successful manner. It will reduce the hassles and tension of the party to arrange a program and give them the pace for enjoying the party with their guest and have fun.

The target customer will be the rich and middle-class families, business firms of any size and different political, social and cultural organisations of the country. This business has the ultimate opportunity of achieving a higher profit margin and gaining recognition countrywide. The primary objective of this business would be to contribute to the important events of the people’s life of the society and maximise profit without becoming profit-oriented. This objective would be achieved by different effective marketing programs and activities.

The Business and Marketing Opportunity

In present human life, people are busy with their various types of activities. So, it becomes difficult for many people to find out time and pace to plan and arrange an event or a party. Besides, arranging a gathering means the pressure of a lot of works and tasks of hard physical and mental tasks. Nobody is ready to take this pressure. So, they have hired an event management firm and transfer all pressure to them. Event management firms are willingly taking the responsibility to lessen the pressure and get some profit from this. This is the main business opportunity of Your-Event.

The marketing opportunities of Your-Event are

• There is a high demand for event management in Riyadh and all other parts of the country. So, marketing of “Your-Event” has the opportunity to attract the concentration of the customers.
• The target customer of “Your-Event” is mostly high and mid income group people who have some extra money to spend on event management. So, Your-Event has the opportunity to gain a good profit.
• There are a few competitors in Riyadh. So, Your-Event could achieve a good market share because of its quality of service and indifference to the budget of the party.

Business Objectives

The primary business objective of Your-Event is to help the people to arrange their different events with success and earn a good profit margin.

There are some secondary objectives also. These are:

• To uphold a good relationship with the people of the society by helping them as per their demand without considering the budget.
• Take the opportunity to have access to the business sector of the country through managing their events.
• To become the market leader within four years by growing the business nationwide and become a profit-oriented firm within six years.
• Achieve customer dependency so that they can call every time they arrange an event.
• Serve the customers with differentiated ideas and offerings and achieve complete customer satisfaction.
• Establishing branch offices in almost all cities and make it easy for the customers to get the service wherever they live.
• Manage effective and efficient management system to ensure financial, marketing, human resource and other resource stability.

Marketing Plan

Market Analysis

• Situation Analysis: The market of event management in Saudi Arabia is a unique one. There are many event management firms, but they have done their operations in a traditional way. That is, the market has the lack innovative event management ideas.
• Marketing Strategy Analysis: Your-Event is a completely new service to a new market segment. This strategy can bring some problems because the market is completely new. But with the help of experienced and skilled employees, Your-Event can remedy this lack. Besides, this strategy has the opportunity of attracting new customers with new and innovative offerings because they are new in the business.
• Marketing Capability Analysis: Your-Event will acquire experienced and skilled employees who will increase the ability of the firm to serve with maximum quality. Besides, it has enough financial, human and other resources to do its marketing program effectively and efficiently.

Marketing Research

Marketing research is a process to acquire, analyse and present information to help the marketing manager to take proper decisions. Your-Event will need some marketing researches to solve some problems.

There are five steps in marketing research. These are:

The marketing research has found some information which would be helpful for Your-Event.

• The service: Your-Event will provide event management service to its customers, ensuring maximum quality. The research found that there is a high demand for the service of “Your-Event” in Riyadh. People of the country need unique features in their events.
• The consumers: The ultimate customers are busy people. Marketing research explores new market segments, new potential customers and specifies the present customers. Thus the service will be designed accordingly to the demographics of the customers.
• The competitors: There are some existing competitors like restaurants and other event management firms. But none of them is keen to organise events of small size. Research has helped to find out the competitors and to find out the weakness of the present competitors.

Target Market

Here “Your-Event” has the intention to pursue within the high and mid-income earning people of the country who do not have enough time to plan and organise a party or event. Thus, it has customers of:

• Individuals who have money but have no time to organise an event,
• Business firms who have to arrange different types of programs regularly,
• Political parties who have to run their activities through some programs,
• Social organisations that have to arrange programs for creating awareness about many factors within the people of the society,
• Cultural organisations that have to arrange some recreational programs to amuse the people.

To keep the customers who ask for event management frequently, Your-Event will arrange different types of offers and facilities. For example, membership cards will be allocated to customers who are keen to get every event of them served by “Your-Event”. The membership can be differentiated based on some factors like time of relationship, budget or profession of the customer. The basic of these activities is to keep a good customer relationship and achieve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Market Size & Segmentation

Your-Event is targeting the people of Riyadh firstly, and it has the long term goal to have the people countrywide who want to make their occasions unique, successful, pleasant and memorable. The market size is thus small at first but will increase in a huge number in future. The size will vary from area to area. Thus the areas can be differentiated based on the number of customers living. There may be some areas where almost all are Your-Event’s customers, and there may be some areas where Your-Event has almost no customers. For this reason, the areas should be classified in different categories, give the weight of the area and run promotional activities accordingly to the weight.

Market segmentation can be of different types.

• Geographical Segmentation: Your-Event has the goal to expand its business countrywide. The geographical condition of Riyadh is not equal to other parts of the country. The occurrence of an event is differentiates based on some geographical factors. People of some cities love to arrange parties frequently, while in many cities, parties are rare to arrange.
• Demographic Segmentation: Your-Event has middle aged and aged customers who have a high income or middle-level income of most all gender. So, the demographic segmentation Your-Event is specific.
• Psychographic Segmentation: People who have the psychology of avoiding hassles of arranging events are the customers of “Your-Event.” There are many people who are not busy but also try to avoid these types of events treated them as a problem.
• Behavioural Segmentation: The people who have the tendency to arrange parties are the customers of Your-Event. There are some people who arrange parties frequently. Some people love to have to party. These people are the core customers of “Your-Event”.

Market Trends

The key market trends, the directions having momentum and durability, those the event management industry of Saudi Arabia should consider now include the following:

• The rise in income and hence disposable income: Saudi Arabia, as a member of High Income Oil Exporting Countries (HIDOECs), possesses a very high GDP and hence a very high per capita income. Therefore, a relatively high disposable income. The International Monetary Fund stated the per capita income of Saudi Arabia was $23,834 in 2008, and that estimated by CI fact sheet is $20,700 for the same time. The scenario possesses the idea that the country has a relatively high income to expend. Therefore, people of the country will use event management organisations to manage their events better.
• Rise in employment: since the country is innovating new oil reservoirs and since direct foreign investment in both oil and non-oil sectors increases, there is more scope of employment. Therefore, managing important events by oneself became a hard task.
• Rise in a number of multinational countries: since the country is allowing foreign direct investment to reduce the country’s dependence on the oil sector and to manage the oil sector better, there are various multinational countries doing their business. Since the number of MNCs increases, events management becomes more important.

Branding and brand positioning Strategy

To brand the Your-Event, a combination of different kinds of signs, symbols, or designs will be used. The organisation will also leverage brand equity from secondary sources such as organisations, successfully completed events, endorsement from third parties etc.

The brand positioning strategy of the organisation constitutes three parts, namely, the competitive frame of reference, defining point of parity (POPs), and defining and establishing points of difference (PODs). The competitive frame of reference of the organisation includes all the competitors in the marketplace (explained in the competitor analysis). The POPs include offering a similar type of product. The PODs include offering services to every single segment of the event management business and having personal selling.

Marketing Tools

Marketing tools of Your-Event include the website, brochures, personal selling, and demonstration events.

• Web site: the website will be filled with every detail of the organisation, its successfully completed events and upcoming events, prescheduled events arrangements, terms and conditions, and competitive advantages over rivals so that consumers can easily compare and select the organisation for the very purpose.
• Brochures: the brochures will contain various prescheduled events; they will work as a menu so that consumers can make a decision easily.
• Personal selling: employees of the organisation will provide vendor services by going to the consumers’ place to acknowledge the consumers’ requirements better. It will further work as a means of promotion.
• News Medias: daily newspapers will be used.

Marketing Objectives

The marketing objectives of Your-Event are as following:

• Maintaining a positive and strong growth per three months period: the Your-Event is aiming to have a 5% growth in every of the first four three months period, that is 20% growth in the first year.
• Increase market penetration: the organisation is determined to grab at least 15% of the market share of the industry.
• Decrease consumer acquisition costs: for being a very new player, the firm is aiming to reduce consumer acquisition costs by 2% in the first year.
• Increase brand equity: for the realisation of its growth, the firm is aiming to have unparallel brand equity.

Marketing Mix

Since the Your-Event is a service organisation, therefore, consumers’ perceptions also are taken into account and thus, the marketing mix of the Your-Event is as the following:

Product (consumer solution)

The Your-Event will offer a wide range of services to its consumers classified as:

Corporate events

corporate events are completely related to the promotional activities and demonstrations of corporations. The specific services in this category are:

1. Product launches: new product launching ceremony, demonstration of new products etc.
2. Press conferences: any kind of corporate press conference.
3. Corporate meetings: different kinds of meetings such as annual meetings, shareholders meetings, etc.
4. Conferences: basically ideas sharing programs.

Marketing programs

1. Roadshows: roadshows with heavy conveyance requirements.
2. Grand opening events: openings of new branches or outlets, initiation of a new business, initiation of an IT system etc.
3. Campaigns: promotional campaigns.

Special corporate hospitality events

1. Concerts: both indoor and outdoor concerts.
2. Award ceremonies: award ceremonies of every kind from education to business related awards.
3. Film premieres: initiation of new films.
4. Launch/release parties: new product launch or new book release.
5. Fashion shows: fashion shows of any kind.
6. Commercial events: promotional events.

Personal events

1. Weddings: wedding ceremonies of any religion.
2. Birthday parties: birthday parties of any size.
3. Social gatherings: any kind of social gatherings.

Logistics support

Logistics support for any event management organisations.

1. Place (Convenience): the Your-Event will place itself uniquely. It will use a direct marketing channel without intermediaries. The organisation will ensure its exposure by personal selling. There will be some regional offices for rendering services; however, the head office would work as the coordinator of its all outlets.
2. Price (Customer cost): the price for its services will be decided and set according to the consumers’ requirements withholding fixed costs explicit. The prices will be flexible enough to be agreed upon by the consumers, and the terms and conditions of pricing also will be flexible. The consumers will also be entitled to allowances and discounts based on the size and frequency of the usage of the services.
3. Promotion (Communication): personal selling also will be used as a promotional tool. The salespeople will be highly trained by outsourced training programs. The Your-Event is also aiming to get publicity facility, non-paid advertisement. For advertising purposes, the firm will use newspapers and TV media because both two mediums can reach a very wide consumer base. However, the advertisement will be customised according to intended consumers. The firm will also place advertisements on the internet. The promotional tools of the firm may include frequency programs (i.e., rewarding consumers on the basis of frequency and intensity of services usage), patronage awards (i.e., award in terms of cash or others based proportional patronage), Price-off (i.e., reducing prices) etc.

Marketing Growth

Kotler and Keller (2006, pp. 47) presented three types of marketing growth opportunities. The Your-Event will follow these three opportunities to realise its superior performance and profitability. The opportunities are:

1. Intensive growth: the organisation will first employ its resources to enhance the performance of the present business resulted from high market penetration, market development, and product development.
2. Integrative growth: the Your-Event will integrate all its outsourced firms after two years of operation for better performance and profitability. That is backward integration will take place.
3. Diversification growth: the organisation is also aiming to diverse its operations in unrelated service industry in near future.

Competitor Analysis

The competitors of the Your-Event include both national and international event management organisations, as the following:

• Riyadh Exhibitions Co. Limited: is operating in the Middle East and the North African Regions and organises events of all key economic sectors.
• ADG Trade Fairs: has been organising trade fairs and exhibitions at home and overseas. It further provides event infrastructure management services.
• Al Harithy Company for Exhibitions Limited: offers only business exhibitions.
• Bme Global Ltd.: has been operating as an international business event and Consultancy Company along with offering worldwide business and consumer exhibitions, being an intermediary to form new businesses.
• Bne Global: along with a team of experienced members, the firm arranges trade fairs.
• Dhahran International Exhibition Co.: it has been operating throughout the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) and the Far East Countries by offering specialised trade shows.
• Emirates Events: is a network (relationship) building company.
• Ozone International – Jeddah: is the leading trade show organiser in the UAE. It has the goodwill of organising all types of trade fairs, trade shows etc.
• Study Central Limited: helps education providers enlist more students from overseas in the course of rendering a range of elucidations that handle the emerging student markets.
• Terrapin Pte. Limited: provides services of trade exhibitions, business conferences, training and electronic and print publications.

From the above statement, there is no institution that can provide services to each of the four segments described in the product part. So the Your-Event has a competitive advantage over rivals.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

• Experienced event team: the Your-Event is employing some very experienced employees of existing event management companies by offering them lucrative fringe benefits. Moreover, the high officials of the organisation are well experienced in the field. Thereby, the firm has a strong and experienced event team.
• Excellent public relations (PR): the experienced employees are selected by taking PR as a standard of employment. Furthermore, the officials are also highly equipped with PR. They have contacts with almost a thousand corporate houses.
• Wide range of offering: the Your-Event has a very wide range of services described in the product part. These are only available in the firm because neither of its competitors has such a range of offerings.
• Flexible services: all the offerings of the firm are flexible to be suited to the consumers’ requirements.

Weaknesses

• Social loafing: society may not easily favour the event management firm. Furthermore, though they are incapable of holding their events, they might not rely on the firm at the initial stage.
• Synchronisation of services: it is completely illogical that the firm could handle every single consumer at a time because of its very first resource base. Even so, the firm will be able to handle every single order gradually.
• Lack of funds: at the very inception of the firm’s journey, it may face a fund crisis. However, as income increases, more funds will be available.
• Large target markets: meeting the demands of such large target markets will make the firm face difficulties in the very initial stage, but later on, it will be no more a problem.

Opportunities

• Favourable economic conditions: the economic condition of Riyadh is absolutely favourable for the event management firms, as has been described earlier.
• Authoritative supports: the firm can easily get authoritative supports from local authorities on organising events because of being a certified firm.
• Availability of the state of the art infrastructure: the firm is able to seek the state of the art infrastructures such as Badshah Faysal Hall. These very high profile infrastructures are easily available because of their people.
• Growing demand for event management organisations: there are growing demands for event management organisations because day after day, people loss their time to organise their events.

Threats

• Very high competitive environment: the business environment for Your-Event is very highly competitive since it has many international and national event management businesses.
• Weather: the weather may pose problems for some types of events such as an open-air concert, social gatherings etc.
• Lack of logistics supports: if the firm reaches its maximum capacity, then to handle other orders. It will be in problem to arrange logistics support from other organisations.

Conclusion

Your-Event aims to provide the state of the art event management services to corporate bodies, individuals and societies to organise their events as a success. Due to the rise in employment, people have little time to arrange their events, and due to more complexities in the business world, organisations also fail to arrange their events. Therefore, there is a strong demand for event management businesses in Saudi Arabia.

Since the demand for event management is increasing rapidly, Your-Event projected a growth rate of 20% in the first year of its operation along with a high market penetration rate. Usage of personal selling will result in a sustainable competitive advantage for the organisation. News Medias will play a vital role in the marketing tools of the organisation. Your-Event further aimed to realise every growth opportunity within the few years of its operations. If the organisation can successfully transfer its weaknesses too and match its opportunities with its strength, within a couple of years, the Your-Event will become the market leader in the industry.

Bibliography

Griffin, Ricky, Management, 8th edition, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston New York, ISBN: 0-618-35459x, (2006).

Hitt, Michael, Ireland, Duane, & Hoskisson, Robert, Strategic Management, 4th Edition, South-Western Thomson Learning, Singapore, ISBN: 0-324-041891-2, (2001).

Kotler, Philip & Kevin Lane Keller, Marketing Management, 12th edition, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006, ISBN 0-13-145757-8.

Perreault William, Cannon Joseph & McCarty Jerome, Basic Marketing, 14th Edition, McGraw-Hill, Irwin, 2006, ISBN- 0-07-240947-9.