Kelly Mattison, a Computer Science college graduate, and Li Huang, an Interior Design college graduate, began Green Life Furniture together eleven years ago, selling customized office furniture to businesses.
Today, owners Kelly Mattison and Li Huang are excited about introducing a new home-use office furniture product line. They want to complete their marketing plan, but as their advisor, you pointed out that they jumped ahead, skipping an important step: understanding the target market.
As the proposed home-use office furniture product line is a consumer product, it will have a very different target market than their traditional office furniture. They quickly agree that they need more information to ensure the new market will be profitable.
They need market data to determine who would be the right target market for a line of sustainably sourced home-use office furniture and to decide what features and benefits best fit that market. Kelly and Li aren’t sure how to gather this market research, but you do.
You believe using a customer data vendor specializing in B2C data collection will provide efficient results. However, these vendors can be expensive, so getting the correct information from the results will be critical.
Green Life Furniture Company
Current Product Line of
Office Furniture
Proposed Product Line of
Home-Use Office Furniture
Target Market
Businesses with 15-50 office employees located in the USA and Canada
Missing
Market Access
Sold on Green Life’s website, shipped directly to business customer
Sold through retailers, both big box and home furniture stores
Design
Simplistic and elegant designs, sustainably sourced materials
Compact, high durability, sustainably sourced materials
Customization
The customer selects custom features, approving visual rendition of the design before ordering.
Limited product configurations offered, standardized design options
Product Reputation
High quality, Eco-focus
Convenient and home-use-friendly
Pricing Strategy
Value-based pricing
Competitive pricing
Promotion Mix
Trained inside sales specialists with superior customer service; focus on elite print and digital publications to emphasize high-end product features
Piggyback on future retailers’ marketing plans; co-op marketing events with established retailers; kick-backs to furniture store retail staff
Manufacturer Location
60% Taiwan
40% Bozeman, MT
100% Taiwan
Instructions:
As Green Life’s business advisor, you will create a presentation for the two owners and their newest investor. It’s important to ‘wow’ all of them to convince them to invest in data collection. Your presentation should include:
Introduction
Summarize Green Life Furniture’s current product line and why/how they have been successful.
Overview of the new product line being developed for home-use office furniture
Explain the key differences between the proposed and the existing product line in terms of the 4 Ps.
Explain what specific positive outcomes for the new product line can be achieved using market research about the target market (e.g., increased sales, market position).
Explain what a B2C Data Vendor is
Describe how customer data vendors provide information that would be reliable and useful for Green Life Furniture.
Describe the advantages of using a B2C data vendor compared to Green Life collecting their own data.
Compare and contrast two specific vendors (e.g., Resonate, Acxiom, Epsilon, Stirista)
Explore the similarities and differences of the vendors.
Identify which vendor your suggested partner is and why.
Closing and Takeaway
Include your Call to Action (e.g., Move forward with a B2C data vendor and start data collection to establish and understand the target market of home-use office furniture).
Submission Requirements:
Complete a Presentation using PowerPoint, Canva, or similar software that follows the instructions above.
Each slide is concise and contains a visual element (e.g., diagram, image, SmartArt, chart, etc.)
Each slide utilizes notes (or speaker notes) to capture what the speaker would say while the slide is displayed to the audience.
Be sure to cite your sources in-text and on a final reference slide following APA format.