Marketing Warfare Strategies
Marketing Warfare Strategies
There are a variety of Warfare strategies available for Walshs
Hotel to use. Each warfare strategy will not, however, be suitable
to use for each of their products and services. Theses strategies
include Offensive, Defensive, Flanking and Guerrilla tactics.
The offensive warfare strategy is designed to attack competitors
head on. For this strategy to be successful the business must
believe customers could be won over by a superior deal. Walshs
Hotel could use this strategy when competing in the restaurant
industry. They believe their head chef to be of an extremely high
quality and so the superior quality of the food they are offering
could attract customers to their restaurant in oppose to taking
their service to one of Walshs many competitors.
Another area in which Walshs could employ this strategy could be
in the marketing of their Bar, especially concerning Friday and
Saturday nights which are proving less successful than the popular
Sunday night. Walshs Hotel views the bar as one of their cash cows.
This means they believe to have high market share while there is
low market growth. I am unsure of this view. I believe Walshs is
missing out o a lot of their potential market share for their bar
service when it comes to Friday and Saturday nights. Possible ways
Walshs could employ the offensive marketing warfare strategy for
their bar would be to investigate where a high percentage of their
target market attends on a Friday and Saturday night and why. From
my own research I have discovered that many of this market of 18 to
30 year olds attend Dormans in Magherafelt. While Walshs see
themselves as market leader I Maghera, because Magherafelt is so
close by, the bars in that town are also main competitors for
Walshs. Walshs could possible take part in more drink promotions,
which is known to be successful when attempting to increase market
share. This type of promotional activity is not done by many of the
competitors, including Dormans, leading me to believe that by
undergoing drink promotions Walshs bar facility could take a
substantial amount of Dormans and other competitors market share
away from them.
However, when taking part in offensive marketing you must be
aware that your competitors may retaliate. This could lead to the
various bars in the surrounding areas starting a new promotion or
having special guests attend to attract the crowds. However, in
this case, I do not believe that drinks promotions will be held by
Walshs competitors therefore I would advise this as the way to go
about attracting new customers.
By employing a defensive strategy, Walshs will be focusing on
maintaining market share. This would be a suitable strategy to use
concerning their Sunday night bar and nightclub success. To
maintain their market share they must ensure they keep customers
coming on a Sunday night. To do this they could do some customer
research to find out why existing customers come to use their
services on a Sunday night and from this information, promote what
is attracting their existing customers. By doing this they will
continuously remind their customers why they prefer Walshs and
possibly attract new customers. Walshs Hotel needs to ensure that
they are attracting new customers constantly as they will be
continuously losing customers due to them aging out of the target
market or circumstances, habit or trends within different age
groups change. That definitely needs to be constantly examined by
Walshs marketing team as this could become a problem for the
business. They will need to be aware of up and coming trends within
the society and their target market to maintain interest and
custom. Unfortunately it is hard to develop customer loyalty in the
bar and nightclub markets and so this is not an option or worth
while pursuing. Walshs hotel seems to believe they are doing that
as their DJ has a bebo sight. I do not agree with them here as I
live in Maghera, am in their target market and did not have
knowledge of this. I also believe that even if I did have previous
knowledge of this that it would in no way attract me to attend
Walshs Hotel over their competitors.
To undergo flanking marketing warfare strategies would consist
of Walshs Hotel finding a new market with either an existing or new
product. At first this seems completely inappropriate and cross
industrial companies such as Virgin, who produce a cola drink,
provide an airline service, produce and sell CDs, along with many
other products and services, comes to mind. However, Walshs Hotel
is undergoing a less dramatic flanking marketing tactic. No other
Hotel or B and B service known to me offers separate flat for Stag
and Hen night parties. This enables Walshs to target this market
without having to worry about it effecting corporate or tourist
customers as they will be separate from the noise and disruption
brought by the rowdy hen and stag night customers. This is believed
to be an extremely lucrative market and it is worth Walshs Hotels
while targeting and providing a service for this sector. To attract
custom to this part of Walshs Hotels service they are offering a
deal unmatched by any other hotel in the competing area. They offer
a meal, accommodation in the flats of the Hotel, free entry into
the bar and nightclub of the Hotel and free cocktails all for a
very competitive price. By targeting this market they are targeting
a combination of existing services; the bar, nightclub and
accommodation, and new services; the new flats targeted
particularly at this market.
Guerrilla strategies rely on an element of surprise, identifying
larger businesses potential weaknesses and attacking them. This
will only be successful if Walshs Hotel has loyal customers.
Therefore this strategy will be inappropriate to use for marketing
the bar and nightclub services as customer loyalty dos not exist in
this market. This strategy could be used for the promotion of
Walshs Hotels accommodation service and the promotion of their
Unique Selling Point; their Pub Grub. By using guerrilla warfare
tactics Walshs Hotel will be able to attack their bigger
competitors weak points in a number of unexpected bursts. Their
accommodation is based on their history as an old inn and so is
styled I this way. This is different from their competitors and may
attract tourists who would be interested in the history of Walshs
Hotel. They could also use guerrilla tactics by having special
offers on accommodation. In the opinion of Walshs Hotel their
location is a USP. They believe because they are situated between
two main cities in Northern Ireland they should attract a high
number of corporate clients who are over for meetings in these
cities. I do not believe it is true. In my opinion Derry city and
Belfast city are only two hours apart and so corporate clients
would travel from and to each of the cities, staying in one of
them.
The Pub Grub offered by Walshs Hotels bar facility is definitely
a Unique Selling Point. No competitors in the surrounding area
offer this service and it has been proven that the Pub Grub market
is increasing fast. This will attract customers who do not wish to
go out properly for an expensive/fancy meal. Because there are no
competitors in this market Walshs have total market share. They
could use a guerrilla warfare strategy for their Pub Grub by
marketing the informality of this service and how this form of
eating out is less expensive. By attracting more customers this
way, they will be gaining more sales from their bar service.
