Marketing plan for the Herbal Chest Packs, страница 2

In the end there exists a positive trend of intention of Russian consumers to buy modern and ecological products, including the medicine.

Herbal Chest Pack Substitutes

It could be admitted that Russian market can’t present the direct competitors for herbal packs. But there exist several products which were developed for the same purposes as packs. As it was already mentioned, “gorchishnik” is old-fashioned medicine for treating lung diseases, but Russians still use it. The consumption of this old treatment is decreasing but elderly people still believe that “gorchishnik” is safe and the best medicine.

The second substitute can be pepper plaster which is not very popular but it has a share of customers who buy it. Also cupping glasses and hot-water bottles are used by Russian consumers in order to become healthy and to prevent some lung diseases.

Customer analysis

In order to evaluate the potential of Russian market we’ve analyzed the statistics concerning our project.

Demographic characteristics are important for measure if Russian market is interesting for launching here the product. According to Russian population census in 2010 the overall number of people living in Russia reaches 105425284[2]. The income growth amounts 8,2% in comparison with the previous year[3]. Also there is a tendency of increasing spending of Russian customers on medicine. In 2010 it reached 2587,2 rub. per year which is 12% more comparing the previous year.

The number of families and also the number of families with children statistics implies the understanding of potential of this group of people.  Such statistics is essential for determining the final target audience of the herbal packs.  More specifically it can provoke to identifying the potential of different groups of the target audience. The quantity of families in 2008 is determined as 41659520. The number of families with children is measured as 14682542. The majority of families have one child[4].  We can conclude that statistics shows us favorable numbers so the launching our product is reasonable and has all chances to be successful from the first point of view.

In different articles and researches about Russian customers we can find the opinions and conclusions of the authors about tendency of Russians to concentrate on eco-friendly and useful products including medicine[5].

On the basis of we can draw a Russian customer profile: Russian families, who care about their health, prefer ecological and at the same time modern medicine.

Customer buying behavior

As for buying medicine process the majority of consumers prefer drugstores and clinics as places of purchasing. So these objects will be the most important from the point of view of marketers.

As a whole customer buying behavior can be influenced by powerful factors. The first factor is the decision-making centre itself.

The family consists of several roles. These roles can be classified by different classifications but the main thing is that there exist always several of roles. In case the decision-making process there also are different roles. E.g. a child can be user, parents are usually the buyers and grandparents can be great influencers as respected and experienced family members. Also the fact that it’s very difficult to argue with them can be taken into account by the parents in some cases.

On the other hand the existence of reference groups is a valuable factor of influencing. Sometimes these groups can be of great importance that’s why we believe that such medical product which needs to have positive word-of-mouth should be promoted by reference groups.

 In case of launching herbal pack we use the model of customer buying behavior to study the steps from understanding by customer of the need to decision and after-decision activity.

First step of the model implies the problem recognition. Here the family for example understands that some member of the family is ill. The second step consists of searching the information, finding different alternatives. Family should then establish some criteria of choosing the alternatives. For instance the family found two major options: herbal pack and ‘gorchishnik’. The criteria for choosing can be price, utility, consequences, comfort etc. The third step of the model implies the purchase decision (in our model it should be herbal pack choosing). And the last step is about after purchase experience. If the product is great family will recommend it to their friends and relatives.