Introduction 

The current business scenario demands effective and efficient business management from the side of the contemporary business organizations. This is due to the reason that the current business scenario is much competitive in nature. Thus effective marketing strategy is required for the business management and maximum return from the market. The tourism sector is expected to witness a huge growth in the West Australia due to the recent push of the government in promoting this sector (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). In this case, Adventure Hire is considering a few business objectives to enhance their business performances in the next few years. They have own fleet vehicles of different types, which can be hired by the incoming tourists in west Australia for state wide adventures. There are different routes being offered by them to the tourists. With the probability of increase in the business in the region in the next few years, the hiring business of Adventure Hire is also expected to increase. However, there are few risks also being identified by them that might have impact on the business of Adventure Hire. In the recent time, they are initiating to introduce survival kit in the market and it will be offered to other market segments as well.

This report will discuss about the marketing objectives that should be fulfilled by Adventure Hire in order to have the maximum market return from selling the survival kits. In addition, this report will also discuss about the major potential risks for Adventure Hire in their business. Based on the identified factors, the SWOT and GAP analysis will be analyzed along with the marketing mix elements. A few recommended steps will also be discussed in this report for Adventure Hire.

Identification of the business objectives 

• To cover the entire west Australian region in selling the survival kits and ensuring the maximum volume from the market
• To ensure minimum 20 percent of the sales return from the new business segment for Adventure Hire
• To ensure the market penetration of the survival kits in the region and target the customers across different income levels

Identification of the risks and returns 

The major risk identified is the operational risk due to the reason that uncertainty is associated with the effectiveness of the survival kit. The survival kit will primarily provided to the vehicle hirers only and the acceptance level of the survival kit among them is uncertain. The added cost to involve in the installation of the survival kit will be detrimental for the vehicle hirers. On the other hand, in terms of the operational risks, the extent to which the kit will be effective for the vehicle hirers at the time of emergency is uncertain (Austin, Lee & Fine, 2016). Thus, they might be hesitant in buying the same. It is also identified that Adventure Hire will face the financial risk due to the reason that the investment to be made in manufacturing and promoting the survival kit will be at stake for poor sales and lower acceptances in the market. Hence, the probability of emergence of financial risks is also high.

However, on the other hand, there are few returns also detected from the marketing and promotion of the survival kit. The major return will be the added value propositions for the customers. This is due to the reason that from the existing product portfolio, customers can only have the cars to be hired and with the introduction of the survival kit, they will get the access to added safety facility. This will increase the competitive edge of Adventure Hire in the market. Moreover, it is also identified that with the help of the survival kit, the probability of the damage to the cars will get reduced and thus Adventure Hire will have to incur lower cost in the maintenance. The customer satisfaction rate for Adventure Hire will also get increased because of the fact that they will get added safety benefits and this will improve the relationship between the two entities.

SWOT analysis

Strengths	The expertise and experience of Adventure Hire in this sector will be beneficial due to the reason that they will be able to design the survival kit according to the preference of the target customers. The deep market coverage and penetration in the west Australian region by Adventure Hire will also be beneficial in targeting the maximum customer segments.The new product will be in the same business line of Adventure Hire and thus they will have better strengths in managing the new challenges.
Weaknesses	Adventure Hire is not having their brand identity outside of west Australian region and thus they will face the challenge in marketing the survival kit in the outer markets.It will only target the adventure seeking customers and will have limited market opportunity across the region.The effectiveness of the survival kit is not proven yet in the market and will face challenges in promoting them to the potential customers. Adventure Hire is having limited access to the financial access and it will affect the new product development process.
Opportunities	Targeting the different market segments will increase the opportunities for Adventure Hire and sales volume.The average cost of vehicle maintenance will get lowered along with the average cost of operation. Hence, profitability will get increased for Adventure Hire.The rapid increase in the trend of adventure tour will further increase the opportunities for Adventure Hire in terms of marketing the survival kits.
Threats	Emergence of new competitors in the market will pose challenges for Adventure Hire due to the reason that the more will be the competition; the lower will be the market share and sales volume for Adventure Hire.Lower acceptances of the survival kit in the market will be another major threat for Adventure Hire. This is due to the reason that lower acceptance will reduce the business viability for Adventure Hire.Economic recession can also pose threat for Adventure Hire as the adventure tourism is considered as leisurely activities, which will be affected due to the slowdown in the market.

GAP analysis

As per the analysis being done about the current capabilities of Adventure Hire and the marketing objectives, it is identified that the major gaps are present in the market coverage capability. This is due to the reason that Adventure Hire is having limited brand presence in the west Australian region and not beyond that. On the other hand, they are targeting to achieve the market penetration beyond their existing region. Thus, this gap should be mitigated. On the other hand, it is also identified they are targeting to ensure 20 percent of revenue from the sales of survival kits (Mineraud et al., 2016). However, this will require the rapid development and improvement of the product periodically and according to the change in the market. In this case, Adventure Hire will face the gap due to the reason that they are having limited access to the financial resources and might not be able to cope up with the change in the market trends. Thus, this gap should also be mitigated (Suriadi et al., 2014). Different strategies will be discussed on the basis of this gap in the following section along with the implementation tactics.

Marketing mix analysis

Product 

The core product will be the survival kit that will be offered as the added accessories to the customers. This kit will be available in different conveniences and designs that will be compatible with the different vehicle models. The more diverse will be the compatibility of the kit, the more will be the effectiveness in the market. However, it should be noted that the product design process will be based on the market trends and preferences.

Pricing

It is recommended that Adventure Hire should follow market penetration pricing strategy due to the reason that it will help to ensure more sales volume and market penetration. More customers will get attracted with the lower price of the survival kit. This will also be beneficial for Adventure Hire in gaining brand identity in newer regions. However, with this strategy, the sales profitability per unit will be less for Adventure Hire but the increased volume will adjust for that. Hence, the finance related issues will not get emerged (Spann, Fischer & Tellis, 2014). With the initiation of the market penetration pricing strategy, equality among the target customer bases will be maintained and the entire market will be targeted (Ingenbleek, Frambach & Verhallen, 2013). Thus, the ethical consideration in targeting the customers will be met.

Placement 

It is recommended that Omni Channel distribution strategy should be selected in order to have the maximum usages of available mediums. It is also recommended that extensive distribution strategy should be initiated (Li & Kannan, 2014). This will ensure that the survival kits will be available in maximum areas. This will also ensure the market penetration. Extensive distribution will involve third party retailers and thus the cost to be involved in distribution will be limited for Adventure Hire (Moon & Oh, 2017). This will help to meet the budgetary considerations.

Promotion 

In terms of promotion also, Omni Channel approach should be initiated to have the maximum reach. Both the online and offline mediums should be used. Online mediums such as social media marketing will reduce the cost of promotion for Adventure Hire. Thus, this process can be implemented within the budgetary considerations. However, the schedule of promotional process will be tighter as trend of promotional activities is getting rapidly changed (Vitouladiti, 2014). The promotions will be informative in nature and will not contain any explicit materials.

People 

Employees will be selected from the existing operations in the initial stage due to the reason that they are having the expertise in the same sector. In the later stage, employees from different sectors will be inducted based on the availability of the survival kits to the different market segments. The performance of the human resources will be used for monitoring mechanism. Intrinsic benefits will be more provided to the employees in order to meet the budgetary considerations.

Process 

The core process will involve online and offline mediums. Minimal time will be ensured in delivering the products to the customers. Thus the ethical concerns of meeting the customer values will be met. Operation manager will be responsible for managing the process.

Physical evidence 

The survival kits to be provided will act as the physical evidence for the customers. In addition, each of these kits will be branded stamped, which will also ensure the evidence.

Target market identification 

Target market for Adventure Hire will be selected on the basis of different segmentation variables. The following sections will discuss about each of these segmentation variables.

Demographic factors	Customers between the age groups of 25 and 45 will be targeted because this age group will be the most preferable towards adventure tourism. In addition, families will be targeted as safety facilities will be more preferred by them. Customers from both the genders will be targeted.
Geographic factors	In the initial stage, customers from west Australian region will only be targeted. Based on the success in the home market, different other geographical regions will be targeted. However, the tier I and II cities will only be targeted as customers from these cities are having the affordability for leisurely activities.
Behavioral factors	Active lifestyle seeking customers will be the targeted one as they will be acceptable towards adventures. In addition, customers seeking safety value from the adventures will also be targeted.
Psychographic factors	Loyal customers will be preferred as they will help in generating positive word of mouth and continuous flow of revenue.

Recommendations 

• It is recommended that the survival kits should only be offered with the hired vehicles in the initial stage in order to increase the brand value. In the following stage, the new market segment can also be targeted based on the gained popularity. The strategic direction of Adventure Hire of covering the entire home region can be met.
• It is also recommended that cost leadership strategy should be followed to offer the survival kits in the minimal price. This will meet the strategic objectives of Adventure Hire of market penetration by targeting the customers across different levels.
• Adventure Hire should also have standalone retails apart from the third party retailers, which will help them to provide the highest service quality to the customers. The objectives of managing the customer relationship can be met with this strategy.

Measurement of the marketing performance 

Different performance indicators will be used in measuring the business performance of Adventure Hire. One will be the number of clicks in the online mediums. As discussed earlier, online mediums will be extensively used and number of likes will denote the performance of the same. The more will be the clicks, the more effective will be marketing strategy and vice versa. In addition, the conversion rates will also be considered as the more will be the conversion rate, the more will be the effectiveness of the marketing campaign. This also denotes that customers are interested with the same. Lastly, return on investment will also be considered due to the reason that if the actual return on investment is same to the desired one, then it denotes the positive outcome and vice versa.

Time schedule of implementation 

1st month

2nd month

3rd month

4rth month

5th month

6th month

7th month

8th month

9th month

10th month

11th month

12th month

Market research

Product development process

Pilot project

Feedback analysis

Finalizing value proposition

Designing pricing strategy

Designing distribution strategy

Designing promotional campaign

Commercialization of the product

Monitoring activities

Implementation action plan 

Activities	Accountabilities	Person responsible
Product design and development	To design the product according to the market trend and meet the maximum requirements of the target customers	Production manager and marketing manager
Pricing strategy	To have the most effective pricing strategy, which will add value to both the company and the customers and will complement the product positioning	Upper level managers and production manager
Distribution strategy	To have the most effective distribution process, which will enable to have wider reach in the market and maximum product availability	Supply chain and logistic manager
Promotional strategy	To reach out to the maximum number of customers in the target region and gain the highest level of awareness	Marketing manager and social media consultant
People management	To manage the internal stakeholders in the most effective manner and ensure the highest return from them.	Human resource manager

Monitoring mechanisms

It is recommended that Adventure Hire should use questionnaire method in monitoring the human resource activities. This is due to the reason that with the help of the questionnaire method, the employees will be able to provide their feedback, which will further help in gaining the insights about their issues. In addition, it is also recommended that benchmarking should also be used for monitoring the progress. It should be done against the best performing competitor in the segment and review the areas of improvement.

Ethical and legal considerations 

The major ethical considerations for the marketing for Adventure Hire will be protection of privacy and confidentiality. Breach of these factors is having higher probability due to the reason that customer data will be gathered. Thus, this data will be protected against any breach. The personal information of the customers will also be kept confidential. This will also help in adhering with the legal standards also in terms of customer value.

CAMPAIGN TYPE	PROJECTED SUBTOTAL	%
Regional Marketing	$2,000.00	3%
Location based Marketing	$6,200.00	9%
Public Relations	$800.00	1%
Content Marketing	$14,400.00	22%
Social Media	$6,800.00	10%
Online	$3,200.00	5%
Advertising	$11,700.00	18%
Web	$6,400.00	10%
Market Research	$4,800.00	7%
Sales Campaigns	$5,900.00	9%
Other	$3,165.00	5%
	$65,365.00

Conclusion 

Thus, it can be concluded that there are number of market opportunities as well as threats to be faced by Adventure Hire. In this report, these factors are being identified and analyzed. It is also identified that there are number of gaps being faced by them. The marketing mix elements are discussed and will be beneficial in meeting the long term objectives of Adventure Hire. Lastly, the most potential target customer segments are also identified in this report.

Reference 

Austin, P. C., Lee, D. S., & Fine, J. P. (2016). Introduction to the analysis of survival data in the presence of competing risks. Circulation, 133(6), 601-609.

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Li, H., & Kannan, P. K. (2014). Attributing conversions in a multichannel online marketing environment: An empirical model and a field experiment. Journal of Marketing Research, 51(1), 40-56.

Mineraud, J., Mazhelis, O., Su, X., & Tarkoma, S. (2016). A gap analysis of Internet-of-Things platforms. Computer Communications, 89, 5-16.

Moon, B. J., & Oh, H. M. (2017). Country of origin effects in international marketing channels: how overseas distributors account for the origins of products and brands. International Marketing Review, 34(2), 224-238.

Notta, O., & Vlachvei, A. (2015). Changes in marketing strategies during recession. Procedia Economics and Finance, 24, 485-490.

Spann, M., Fischer, M., & Tellis, G. J. (2014). Skimming or penetration? Strategic dynamic pricing for new products. Marketing Science, 34(2), 235-249.

Suriadi, S., Weiß, B., Winkelmann, A., ter Hofstede, A. H., Adams, M., Conforti, R., … & Rosemann, M. (2014). Current research in risk-aware business process management―overview, comparison, and gap analysis. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 34(1), 52.

Vitouladiti, O. (2014). Content analysis as a research tool for marketing, management and development strategies in tourism. Procedia Economics and Finance, 9, 278-287.