Promoting Pomegranate

Introduction

Over the centuries, people who view pomegranate fruits as a symbol of prosperity and abundance have been adored them. The fruit is valued because of its exquisite flavor, beauty, the health benefits as it contains vitamin C, and the distinctive crown that shows its royalty amongst fruits. However, the increased awareness of the fruit’s health benefits has escalated the fruit’s popularity and demand all over the world. Consequently, it is risky to make some overly optimistic projections for the growth of the pomegranate business because of the increase in competition from the swiftly growing worldwide market.

Promoting a business is the most important and essential part of any business entity as it determines the life and success of the business. Through promotion, a business entity can market itself and the products it offers, thus expanding its customer base. Promoting a business does not only help in boosting its sales but also opens new windows of opportunities, which could be a little distinct from the operations of the business, but beneficial. Nevertheless, the process requires one to understand the business fully in terms of its strengths, weaknesses, and the target market, in order to carry out the process effectively. The reasoning behind this is that, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of pomegranate will aid in creating the opportunities and dealing with the threats.

SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats)

The SWOT analysis is an essential technique that is used in every business to help understand the strengths and weaknesses of the business as well as identify any imminent threats and opportunities open to the business. Therefore, with the SWOT analysis, it will be possible to carve a sustainable market niche for pomegranate by uncovering the opportunities that the business is well placed to exploit (Bo?hm, 1). Through analyzing the weaknesses of pomegranate, it is possible to come up with strategies that are essential in eliminating the threats that would have otherwise caught the business unawares. Bearing in mind that the industry has a rapidly growing market, SWOT analysis helps to develop strategies that would help distinguish the business from the competitor business through a successful market comparison. This assessment tool has been remarkably successful as it provides ultimately helpful insights that are close to the accuracy and assist managers to decide on whether a certain situation is worth pursuing.

Strengths

The product, pomegranates, have a wide range of uses including making juice blends, alcoholic beverages, baking, cooking, and to some extent, they are used for medical purposes. Pomegranate has a good public image and offers good quality products that are known for their health benefits. The industry is young, although rapidly growing, and, therefore, there are no much risks of being obsolete in terms of technology. The product does not require complex techniques to get the end results and, therefore, there is no burden of competing and investing huge sums of money in innovation to outdo the competitors. The seasonal climatic differences between northern and the southern hemisphere producers of pomegranates make it possible to produce the product throughout the year (Bo?hm, 6).

Weaknesses

Like noted earlier, the industry is still young and subsequently too small for the big producers to depend on due to the high risks associated with the market as it is not stable yet. The products are considered as unfriendly to the consumers because it requires detailed and complicated procedures for preparation (Bo?hm, 6). There is limited knowledge of production patterns and technology to enhance the harvesting. In addition, the funds available to facilitate market research, development, and promotion are limited. The industry also requires high labor costs and a well-coordinated structure to enhance marketing through networking, which is lacking.

Opportunities

By investing some quality time and other material resources in the industry, Pomegranate could take advantage of the underdeveloped domestic market and develop grower networks in the region. The market has great potential for extensive value addition as well as easier to address and regulate market access barriers. With new products being supplied to the marketplace, the customers and the food media get excited, making it advantageous for pomegranate, who make more sales. Other opportunities include health professional endorsements and the standardized quality control specifications.

Threats

The major threat to this industry is the tremendous increase in production of pomegranates in other countries, which indicates an increase in market competition from other firms. This situation is coupled with the dwindling market opportunities overseas as well as the varying exchange rates, which pose a risk of incurring losses overseas. The industry is massively fragmented, as there is no particular huge firm that could exert adequate influence in moving the industry towards a certain direction (Bo?hm, 8). Competition from other food products, negative information provided by the media on medical issues, as well as the attacks by pests and diseases are some of the issues that pose a threat to pomegranate.

 

2) First Mover and Late Mover Advantage

According to Durand and Coeurderoy (471-474), the definition of the first-mover is determined by the order of market entry. As such, the first firm or product to enter the market is referred to as the first-mover, and it is usually the pioneer firm or product. In this case, the firms that took the initial competitive actions, either strategically or tactically, in developing and ensuring success in the sale of the pomegranate products. They are the firms that have the resources, capability, and competence that boost their competitive advantage brought about by innovation and expertise in entrepreneurship. Being a young industry, the first-movers in pomegranate hope to earn huge returns before the competition intensifies by gaining customer loyalty, which helps them, create a sturdy barrier to entering the market. Nonetheless, the ultimate competitive advantage is determined by the kind of competitive actions taken, the industry as well as the complexity in imitating the industry. A first-mover in the pomegranate industry faces various limitations including the risk associated with being the first company like inaccurate predictions on undertaking an action successfully (Green et al., 7). Additionally, the second movers do not spend developmental costs like the first movers; thus they have spare finances that they could use to intensify the competition against the first movers.

Responding to the competitive actions of the first-movers in the pomegranate industry as a last-mover does not provide the firm a competitive advantage in the market. Consequently, a late mover relatively undergoes the same troubles the first mover went through and worse, the first movers could easily do away with them. The late movers perform poorly because their resources are normally limited and very few customers will be loyal to such firms; thus they are quite weak to respond to competition. In addition, Tellis and Golder (22- 23) emphasizes that the late movers join the industry after it has been explored and covered by the first movers. As such, making is difficult for them to advance their operations and build a stable foundation of customer loyalty. Nevertheless, the late movers in this industry of pomegranates enjoy various benefits like the opportunities for free riding from the ready market created by the first movers. More also, the late movers benefit from the ease of adapting to the innovations and the strategic decisions already established by the first movers. As such, they spend almost zero funds in researching on pomegranate because the first movers have conducted most of the research.

 

3) Selecting target market

While promoting pomegranate, it is essential to establish a clearly defined target market as a market strategy for the firm as it forms, the actual consumers that the firm attempts to sell its products. As much as it is difficult to get the attention of every customer in a target market, it is important that the pomegranate firm focus its efforts on providing services to the target market as it makes sales easier. First, the firm requires dividing the market into segments and then establishing profiles for each of these segments by describing them in details, including their sizes and profitability measures. The second phase now involves integrating this data with specific objectives of the firm, considering the resources at the firm’s disposal, to select the most appropriate target market for pomegranate. Therefore, it is essential to analyze, discuss, and review the decisions made by target market selection before undertaking the process (Moore, Karl, and Niketh, 142).

During market selection process:

Analysis of the benefits that the customers obtain from pomegranate products is made.

Customers are then categorized according to age, gender, occupation, and even marital status.

Identifying category that uses the product most is another step, as well as determining their personal attributes as they could influence their need for pomegranates.

Analyze the target market for competitors and establish the areas that they overlooked, and then try to fill the void within the market.

Analyze the current customer base, as it will help in determining their interests

With these findings, it becomes easier for the firm to determine the categories of the consumers to serve.

4) Creating Marketing Mixes

Using the customer profiles obtained, a marketing mix can then be created in such a way that it will help you build a stronger customer base (Moore, Karl, and Niketh, 40). Here, it is essential to create products that the identified market will need, and take it to that place that target market is or where the identified customers frequently visit as noted in the research conducted. More also, stipulate logical prices that will provide a competitive advantage and that align with, the value that the customer feels they derive from its consumption. This means that pomegranate will need to be satisfying and beneficial to the customers in order to create its value to the customers. Nonetheless, good sales cannot be achieved if the customers do not know about pomegranate or where they could purchase the products. As such, determining the means to relay the marketing messages like through billboards, on TV or through radio, will be essential.

5) Responding to the marketing environment

Having established clear marketing mixes that are effective enough, the firm will need to be ready and flexible enough to adapt and respond to any changes in the external environment. In responding to the marketing environment, a marketer could decide to do nothing at all, be proactive, or even react to the marketing forces. As for pomegranate, something has to be done in order to boost the production and stay in the market. Where the marketing environment is totally uncontrollable and difficult to predict, the firm could undertake a passive approach in adapting to the changes in the environment. Therefore, the firm will analyze the environmental changes and wait to react, only after the changes have occurred (“Responding to the Marketing Environment – Business-Marketing: Responding to the Marketing Environment.”). On the other hand, where the marketing environment is controllable, the proactive marketing strategies are favorable in the scenario. The firm could help finance political parties or using its influence in shaping the opinions given by the public in order to make the marketing environment favor its operations.

6) Competitive Forces

Several factors influence the competitive nature of pomegranate in the industry including the bargaining power of the customers and suppliers, as well as threats posed by new firms that are trying to enter the market. These competitive forces help to determine the attractiveness of a firm as well as its profitability within the industry. to achieve this, pomegranate will need to assess the uniqueness of the services offered by suppliers, the ability of the firm to either control or be controlled by the suppliers, as well as their prices. Having more suppliers to make a choice on is advantageous for the firm, meaning that the suppliers lack power over the firm. In determining the competitive rivalry in the industry, the firm could establish number and the competencies of the other firms. Many competitors in the industry mean that the product is attractive and that the firm has little power over the market (Porter, 24- 30).

 

Works Cited

“Responding To The Marketing Environment – Business-Marketing: Responding To The Marketing Environment.” – Business-Marketing. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 May 2015.

Durand, R., Coeurderoy, R. (2001) Age, Order of Entry, Strategic Orientation, and Organizational Performance, Journal of Business Venturing, 16: 471-494

Tellis, J.G., Golder, P.N. (2002) Will & Vision – how latecomers grow to dominate markets, McGraw-Hill.

Porter, Michael E. “The five competitive forces that shape strategy.” Harvard business review 86.1 (2008): 25-40.

Green, Anna, Sedef Karan, and Björn Rasmusson. “Factors indicating first-mover advantages and second-mover advantages.” (2004).

Bo?hm, Anja. The Swot Analysis. Mu?nchen: GRIN Verlag, 2009. Internet resource.

Moore, Karl, and Niketh Pareek. Marketing: the basics. Routledge, 2009.