Executive Summary of Integrated Marketing Communication of MEERQAT

     In this paper, Integrated Marketing Communication is presented with all the relevant details and aspects associated with the business of MEERQAT. This IMC plan will demonstrate how MEERQAT has taken its risk management consultant business in the industry and how things are being managed. First of all, the situational analysis of the company is described with the help of PESTEL analysis. This analysis described all important aspects of the business with regards to political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors. The PESTEL analysis is done as a Macro Environmental Analysis. The paper has also included the Micro Environmental Analysis to get an overview of Internal Analysis of the marketing functions. For this purpose, it is important to do SWOT analysis so that the strengths and weaknesses of the company are known to map out future threats and opportunities. It proved that if the company is dedicated to its objectives, then they have good enough strengths to capture the opportunity of market growth and expansion. The competitor as well as target audience analysis is also presented keeping the communication objectives in context. In the last part the complete budget of marketing communication has been presented. Each cost that will be incurred is mentioned in the budget.

Step 1 – Situation Analysis Section 

Business Introduction and Background of Integrated Marketing Communication of MEERQAT

MEERQAT is a company that has created a web-based platform, which uses self-assessment tools for businesses to assess their strengths and weaknesses within their company. They do this by engaging staff to discuss what they believe needs improvements and map out the processes being done in the business. This is used as a way businesses can assess potential risks and improvements that are able to be made. MEERQAT outlines business achievements and weaknesses, so the company is then able to recognize opportunities to minimize their risks and create improvements but implementing new programs/processes.

MEERQAT competes in the risk management consulting industry. 

MEERQAT started as a business used to improve the quality of health care workers, due to concern by the DHHS that increased numbers of workers/students would decrease the quality of their work/education. Firstly creating a Map-Enabled Experiential review (MEER) for health care facilities to assess business processes. In 2013 this tool was created online, called BPCLEtool used by Victorian Healthcare facilities. MEERQAT, as it is today, is a quality assessment tool (QAT), was launched in 2015, now as a tool for any business to use. 

Situational analysis:

Macro Environmental Analysis of Integrated Marketing Communication of MEERQAT

To analyze the Macro environment, the PESTEL model was employed. As MEEQAT operate significantly in the healthcare sector, it has been featured prominently in this analysis.

Political of Integrated Marketing Communication of MEERQAT

Economical of Integrated Marketing Communication of MEERQAT

Due to external factors like the US and China tariff increases and an overall economic growth slowdown, particularly in western countries where there is fear of recession, it is anticipated that there will be “weaker-than-anticipated global activity” in the coming years (International Monetary Fund c. 2019), which can negatively impact the amount the government is willing to spend on healthcare funding (Wray 2013), leading to fewer resources that can be allocated to organizations like MEEQAT.

Social of Integrated Marketing Communication of MEERQAT Business management trends are lending themselves well to the service MEEQAT offer to clients, in that many businesses today are “moving away from the previous function-oriented management practices” with research indicating “organizations are critically aware of the importance of BPM [business process management] to the future success of their business” (Rosing et al. 2015). This trend spawns an increased need for the process management software MEEQAT offer to clients.

Technological of Integrated Marketing Communication of MEERQAT

With the development of new computer enterprise technologies that connect the workplace in more ways, the trickledown effect into healthcare industries and all businesses who are now beginning to employ tools like the cloud, mobile applications and computer technologies within every step of a business process, this makes the deployment of MEEQAT’s software incredibly more simple and effective. MEEQAT in itself promotes its product as technological innovation to business management.

Environmental of Integrated Marketing Communication of MEERQAT

The environmental factor within the healthcare industry and all industries is one that is directly also directly linked to the technological factor, with healthcare being one of the largest industries in its consumption of paper (https://electronichealthreporter.com/healthcare-organizations-can-reduce-reliance-paper/). Many businesses, in general, are attempting to transition into a more digitized operation, and this desire to become more sustainable lends itself well to software solutions like MEEQAT.

Legal of Integrated Marketing Communication of MEERQAT

The Australian government has a major impact on the healthcare sector, particularly through its state-operated divisions like Work Safe Victoria (https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/healthcare-and-hospitals-safety-basics) that communicate a large list of legal duties all businesses within a given sector should abide by, along with recommendations for how to do so. Legislative changes to these guidelines and laws would have dramatic effects on how the healthcare sector operates, as all stakeholders involved, in particular managers and quality monitors, would be impacted due to the enforced nature of these policies and procedures, creating an immediate need for a process management tool to immediately enact change effectively.

Micro Environmental Analysis of Integrated Marketing Communication of MEERQAT

Internal Analysis on the marketing functions: 

MEERQAT uses their own website, LINKEDIN and EDM (email) to market their business. Although this is not working for MEERQAT adequately as the engagement to the business is very low. 

EDM is MEERQAT’s main form of marketing as they are increasing their subscribers. Although EDM subscribers have increased those receiving emails only 25.44% of people are opening these emails (decreased from 31.51% in May 2018), with less than 2% of people clicking the content within the email. This averages only 17 people out of the 845 subscribers actually engaged in the content provided, showing a clear weakness in the content within these emails. The use of these emails is a strength with the growth of subscribers, and making it engaging will create a useful marketing strategy. 

MEERQAT’s website is a weakness with little engagement in the site at all. The website doesn't use advertising to increase their visibility when searched. Often searches for MEERQAT come up with alternative companies or searchers, making it hard to find their site. The website itself has a higher engagement by people using back links, and this may have come from the Asia-Pacific health care conference which has a backlink where most people come from when visiting the website. 

LINKEDIN is used to attempt to get more business engagement, although with only 4 posts and an inactive account for 7 months the LINKEDIN doesn't represent what MEERQAT does adequately and has little information. To make LINKEDIN a useful tool to gain followers and viewers, MEERQAT needs to be more consistent with posts, engage with their audience, and explain what they do. As LINKEDIN is the largest professional network to connect business’s this can be a great tool for them to use to gain clients and interest. 

MEERKAT lacks advertising skills within the company meaning engagement is very low. Their strengths are within their emails although they need to create content that makes recipients engage in the content. MEERKAT is using good platforms with LINKEDIN and its own website, although they need to make it easy to find and clear to attract viewers and clients. 

SWOT Analysis of Integrated Marketing Communication of MEERQAT

Strengths

Highly skilled team: MEERQAT has established a strong, skilled and motivated team to deliver the services to different businesses like health care sector, businesses, educational institutes, etc. and in different business areas. Like companies have experts that offer multiple services to their clients like strategic planning, process implementation, deliver innovative solutions for their business problems, business& process evaluation, quality improvement, development of corporate policies, market and social research, risk management, and number  of other activities. The services that the company offered to its customers helped to improve their business activities that ultimately result in better management and profits(MEERQAT, 2019).

Business growth: The Company is highly focused on growing its network by partnering with consultants that offer services in different business areas in which company operates. This strategy helps the company to have a knowledge pool and experts in different business areas, and the company is also in a better position to fulfill the needs of customers in a timely manner.

Weaknesses of MEERQAT

Lack of advertising: Lack of advertisement is a major weakness of the company. Due to poor advertising skills company is not able to offer its services and not able to engage with its customers appropriately. As social media is the best platform to directly interact with the customers but the company is unable to utilize it. Although MEERQAT is present on LinkedIn, the company does not properly utilize that medium to advertise its services. The company also advertises its services through its website, but the website is not interactive.

Threats of MEERQAT

Poor economic condition: Poor economic condition in the upcoming years is a threat for the company because slow economic activity leads toward budget deficit, and the government spending  toward healthcare funds decreased , which is a threat for the company because it will negatively impact the profitability of the company. 

Increasing competition: Increasing competition is a threat to the company, although currently the market is not highly competitive. However, in future more businesses will come into this business area that is a threat to the company because more companies entering into this business mean decreased profits.

Opportunities of MEERQAT

Market expansion: Company can expand its presence in Australia as well as outside Australian market. As recently MEERQAT has been selected by the Victorian Government as one of the participants in health-related start-up ‘uprAsia program’ to understand Asian markets. The program is first initiated in the Chinese market. It is a great opportunity for the company to be part of such initiatives and develop strategies and relationships to enter into other Asian countries. This will help the company to enhance its presence in the international market(MEERQAT, 2019).

Capture new customers through online channels: The company can use different social media sites like facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. to promote its services in local market. MEERQAT can better engage with their customers by regularly advertising their services.  Regular updating of services can enable the company to capture more customers.  The company can also focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. This will enhance the company's presence on search engines, which means that people will be able to find the company when they will search for the company’s website.

Business development:Being a consulting firm, MEERQAT has been continuously developing its business activities. The company is highly focused upon finding new business opportunities on continuous basis. For this purpose the company attends different programs and participate in different conferences in order to increase its presence among government agencies, NGOS, and consultants (MEERQAT, 2018). The company is also focused upon improving its applications on continuous basis; thus improved services could be provided to its clients.

Relationship with clients: The Company offers its services to variety of clients that include healthcare centers, businesses, educational institutes and others. MEERQAT is highly focused on developing strong relationships with its clients by offering them innovative solutions for their business problems and also focused upon improving their services on continuous basis thus it could be beneficial for the clients, and that could help the clients in smooth running of business and improved business activities. To build strong relationships with customers, the company offers customized services to its clients.

Communication: Being a consulting company, MEERQAT communicates its customers on a regular basis. Regular communication with the clients helps the MEERQAT to rapidly respond toward changing customers’ needs and demands. This also results in satisfaction and retention of the customers.

Organization of all activities: Being a consulting firm, MEERQAT has excellent organizational skills, which is a critical factor behind the company’s success. The company planned its course of action, timely implement the plans and also efficiently manage the time. Management of the company is well aware that if the company failed to plan its activities then it has to perform the task, again and again, that would be a total wastage of time and resources of the company. Timely management of tasks helps the company to avoid work-life balance issues. This is the reason that the company has high employee retention ratio.

Designing systems and software:The success of the company is highly dependent upon systems and software design for its customers. For this purpose the company has established a strong team and promotes teamwork in the organization thus all the employees work collaboratively. Teamwork culture also helps to timely completion of the tasks.In order to increase the skills of the employees the company conducts regular training session thus their knowledge and skills remain updated. A well-managed and highly skilled team is one of the major factors behind the success of MEERKAT.

Competitor Analysis of MEERQAT

As MEERQAT is quite a unique company their competitors are few and far between however there are still companies that within the same market as MEERQAT and they by no means stand alone. RingLead is an example of a competitor business for MEERQAT. RingLead offers business data quality assessment tools that expose all the technical and business issues that are related to data. The tools offered then allow the businesses to execute the process of data cleansing using data quality tools provided by RingLead. RingLead’s strengths consist of the ability to inform consumers of what their quality assessment tools can do and how they are helpful for companies. RingLead also offer strategies to manage data for businesses. Some weaknesses of RingLead are their ability to directly communicate one on one with customers as tested through their website with no reply after two hours. Another weakness of RingLead is that their advertisements are bland however they are informative. Fortunately for MEERQAT, there aren’t really any other major competitors.  

Company Mood Board of MEERQAT 

Stage 2 – Strategy section.

Target audience analysis of MEERQAT

Segmentation of MEERQAT

The primary target segment identified was done so based on firm behavior. MEERQAT’s service offering is primarily based on making process management and quality control as easy and simple as possible for a manager and organization. Firms that are primarily focused on legal and legislative adherence and compliance not only for the betterment of the law, but also for the health and safety of all stakeholders involved have been shown to directly benefit from a more holistic and integrated process approach, with “achieving a balance between control and business objectives” being a major challenge for businesses operating with these compliance requirements (Sadiq &Governatori 2010). Therefore, the main segment of focus is that of businesses that operate under very strict and enforced compliance regulations and laws, which would include many government-controlled sectors in healthcare and public safety, along with the construction industry, who also operate with strict budgets and are looking to better maximize monetary resources.

A secondary segment of focus leads on from the same insight, into the use of MEERQAT’s software, focusing on firmographic segmentation with small-medium size businesses that operate at a significant scale for their amount of human resources, and therefore require simple to use holistic solutions to process management in order to compete with larger companies with seemingly endless resources.

The last segment is based on geography, with locations being primarily based in Melbourne to enable more one-on-one interactions between MEERQAT representatives and the businesses they are working with. This can be expanded once MEERQAT expand operations to other cities. 

Target Audience Personas of MEERQAT

-        Create three personas of MEERQAT

o   1. The main decision-maker at an organization within our target segment like the CEO

o   2. A logistics manager at a medium-size business within our target segment

o   3. A low-level employee who needs to communicate MEERQAT to their own managers in order to buy the program (free trials are useful for these guys).

-        Use this as a basis:https://www.brightspark-consulting.com/b2b-buyer-personas/

Communication objectives: 

-        Chaffey’s 5 S’s

o   Sell – grow sales

§  Objective: grow online sales to represent 20% of all sales

o   Serve – add value

§  Educate customers on the problem MEERQAT is solving more effectively and therefore increase the time users spend on the website by double on average.

o   Speak – get closer to customers

§  Increase the number of website inquiries by double the existing number

o   Save – save costs

§  Increase organic search traffic to the website from owned social media and organic web search to reduce overall advertising needs.

o   Sizzle – extend the brand online

§  Improve brand awareness

IMC strategy of MEERQAT

-        Using the IMC elements PR, Advertising, and Digital.

o   PR: sponsoring conferences and trade shows, providing marketing collateral for these trade shows that communicate the USP and links to the website.

o   Advertising: Increasing SEO and Google AdWords for more paid and organic website traffic, and paid LinkedIn and website banner ads leading back to the website.

o   Digital: Significantly improving the website to be more educational content on the problem, and MEERQAT’s solution phrased interactively in terms of features and benefits of the product.

-        Ultimately, create synergy between all three of the IMC elements to guide the customer on a journey through marketing to MEERQAT.

-        Using the IMC strategy, the elements of PR, Advertising and Digital could be evaluated:
1.    Sponsoring trade shows
Securing the sponsors for trade shows means that the budget for the event to do further research but with respect to fulfills the unique sponsorship opportunities in order to fill the gaps of investment. The funds collaborate with the trade shows that it will be beneficial for the perfect marketing of the product launching the new product. Sponsoring conferences and trade shows, providing marketing collateral for these trade shows that communicate the USP and links to website. The sponsorship required large portion of funds as it requires more funds to sponsor an event.
2.    Marketing collateral for the events
In the budget allocation, resources are distributed in different parts of the expenses. The major portion of marketing research is consumed on consultant fee which is larger than other portions. The funds are consumed to make the product familiar to the people. The marketing expenses are security in the business that it will return to the business with margin. These are connected with the total revenue generated by the business so that the product gets familiar with the customer with strong goodwill. 

3.    Advertising through Google Adwords
Increasing SEO and Google AdWords for more paid and organic website traffic, and paid LinkedIn and website banner ads leading back to the website. The small and medium scale business are required to spend a large portion of funds on advertisement to promote the product in the market. Google ads are most cheap and advance medium to introduce your product in the market. The PR funds are not allocated on Google ads which should have a portion in advertisement expenses. It is easy to manage the Google ads by the company as it just required to upload an ad.
4.    Digital website optimization of MEERQAT
Significantly improving the website to be more educational content on the problem, and MEERQAT’s solution phrased interactively in terms of features and benefits of the product. Through digital website, customer could easily get approach to the product by searching the features which are required by them. Digital website helps the consumer to access the product with just one click.
All the resources are allocated with the view that the product need it to come in the market so that it could be get it by the customers just according to their need. These resources are invested in the business to get maximum return.
-        Ultimately, create synergy between all three of the IMC elements to guide the customer on a journey through marketing to MEERQAT.

Budget Allocation of MEERQAT

 Creative strategy of MEERQAT

Positioning statement:

Don’t just fix your business process, prepare for the future

Message strategy:

Meerkats stand sentry, scouting for potential threats and warning others for prevention.
Fixing business processes is much more than simply altering existing operations, which is why we use the MEEQAT approach, by not only providing a means to managing businesses processes in a holistic way, but also providing insights based on existing processes automatically, working with you to avoid any potential errors and threats so they never occur again.

Big idea of MEERQAT

Take the MEERQAT approach

-        Discuss how the MEERQAT approach simplifies the product and communicates it’s unique selling proposition in an effective way.

Creative appeals of MEERQAT

-        Aim to appeal to the emotions of customers. Manager frustrations with complicated processes and managing a variety of different compliance issues and quality control requirements is a key emotion to target. Tell the story of MEERQAT using this frustration emotion to immediately identify with the manager, and then appeal to their cognitive side by promoting the features and benefits of MEERQAT as the obvious solution to their frustrations.

Creative execution:

-        Synergy between PR, advertising and digital.

-        The website should reflect creative appeals in an interesting way, immediately highlighting the positioning statement and message strategy while further identifying with the struggles and frustrations of managers. It should also provide video content that educates consumers using meerkat animations how the program identifies key insights to help improve processes, and other product features.

-        Marketing collateral for PR events should reflect the front page of the website and link directly to it.

-        Advertising efforts should be small versions of these marketing collateral flyers, communicating the tagline and positioning statement while also further communicating with the outlined creative appeals.