Case Study-Avon Essays - American Brands, Avon Products, Free Essays

Case Study-Avon Essays - American Brands, Avon Products, Free Essays Case Study-Avon Avon Case What direct marketing efforts would you recommend to Avon? Who would be the target market? What range of products would be sold, and how would those products be offered? What other specific price, distribution, promotion, and product mix strategies and tactics would you propose and why? When I think of Avon the first thought that comes into mind are the Avon ladies and those Avon catalogs. This is actually what most people think of I believe. Avon is a extremely well-known company but this does not mean it doesnt have its problems. During the 80s Avon has had its shares of negativity; debt reaching -$400 millions but since then has bought itself up again and now into the 21st century it is trying many different options to increase sales which have barely climbed in the last four years. The direct marketing efforts that I recommend Avon make are to definitely focus on television advertisement commercials like they did in the early 90s. To be honest the only advertisement for Avon I know of or only recognize are the print ads in magazines. Having television ads would make people more aware of Avon than they already are. It definitely would linger in peoples minds more than just seeing magazine ads. Print advertisements should also increase in number and be published in different magazines ranging from teens to woman with products being advertised that are targeted to that specific group. Telemarketing can be help but I do not think Avon needs to focus on this. Maybe having telemarketers calling during holiday seasons offering a free holiday catalog or even just calling year round asking if consumers have an Avon representative or if they wish to receive a free catalog and have a Avon representative in their area contact them. Avon has used this method in the past but this method might be expensive and not yield much profit since you are not actually taking orders during these phone calls. Direct mailing could also be of help since Avon has tried this in the past and has a greater response then the norm (11% rather then the 1% or 2% norm). This could also erase telemarketing since it basically is the same concept but no Avon representative would be given the interested customers name and address. Adding bind-ins could be useful too since the average girl or woman do read a lot of magazines and this would work well with print media advertisements. Imagine having an ad for an Avon product and then right next to it you see a postage paid reply card for a free catalog. Even though Avon has in the past sent out samples of products maybe adding samples of makeup or fragrances in magazine ads would attract people to buy them and other products. Avon has recently begun to talk about how they are going to sell a special product line at stores such as Sea rs. This is a great opportunity for Avon to put ads in local newspapers of the cities in which there are Searss stores and also to buy space in Searss weekly flyer in Sunday papers. This can be an enormous plus for sales and profits of Avon. I know this will hurt Avon representative but what is being sold is not the same product line sold in the catalog. Loyal product users of the catalog makeup will always stick with their favorite from the catalog. Avons main target market has always been woman between 35 and 54. I feel that Avon should focus in the young woman/teen market. I feel that once young women become customers that they will be customer for a long time and maybe even life. It is best to expose and introduce someone to Avon when young because I know I am still wearing some of the same brands of makeup that I did when I was younger. College students to me would be a great target market since most dont have enough money to buy department store makeup and even drugstores Avon is known for its affordability and this group would be perfect to target. Once one friend has the makeup a ripple effect usually occurs. Groups of friends