Mid Semester Marketing Assessment

Proposal Report

Best of Brighton Holiday Letting: Recommendations to increase marketing share

in a highly competitive environment

1
 Table of Contents

1. Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 3
2. Market research....................................................................................................................... 3
2.1. Target market segments...................................................................................................3
2.2. Relevant environment factors............................................................................................4
2.3. Current marketing strategy of Best of Brighton Holiday Letting.........................................4
3. Implementation plan................................................................................................................ 6
3.1. Brand name....................................................................................................................... 6
3.2. Brand image...................................................................................................................... 6
3.3. Aims and objectives..........................................................................................................6
3.4. Key feature of the product.................................................................................................7
3.5. Pricing strategy................................................................................................................. 7
3.6. Promotion strategy............................................................................................................7
3.7. How and where products will be bought by consumers?...................................................7
3.8. Needed people/ skills........................................................................................................7
3.9. Delivering process............................................................................................................. 8
4. Discussion and conclusion.......................................................................................................8
References.................................................................................................................................. 9

2
1. Introduction

UK’s network of rental agents is diverse and plentiful. Among them, the Best of Brighton
Holiday Lettings (BBHL) is one of the most famous home letting agents in Brighton and
Sussex area. This agent specializes in providing rental housing services which can last
from 3 days to 6 months (bestofbrington.co.uk, 2020). The number of rooms is large and
the quality is varied, ranging from 3-star rooms in economy class to platinum class
(bestofbrington.co.uk, 2020).

This report builds on the context that competition has been intensifying in the rental
market as well as generally the business environment is highly competitive. This
context helps raising the idea that BBHL needs to have a marketing strategy that helps it
increase its market share as an effective marketing strategy helps the company gain
more market share (Farmanesh, Adibi and Hasiri, 2017). Therefore, this report presents
an implementation plan that in order to export some necessary steps in BBHL’s
marketing plan, thus, increasing competitiveness and helping this agent gain market
share in the market.

2. Market research

2.1. Target market segments

BBHL is a popular home rental service. It offers varied rooms at multiple rates while it
also offers customization of different interiors with multiple room types. BBHL aims to
accommodate a diverse range of market segments (bestofbrington.co.uk, 2020).

First, BBHL can meet both the needs of renting a room as a traveler, renting a room as a
student as well as renting a room as an entrepreneur. Because its home network is
diverse and it is available to rent with open time limits, BBHL can meet most of the
requirements of the above objects in terms of both rooms and rental period of time.

Second, another segment targeted by BBHL is tourists. Brighton hosts many cultural and
sporting events, which make it a notable destination (McMahon, 2020). For example, in
Brighton, the Pride festival is one of those festivals that attracts the attention of many
people, thus, rental agents like BBHL can benefit as they target segments of tourists.

Third, in terms of price, room rate of £600 to £2500 per week. This price may also vary
depending on the number of people in and the length of the rental
(originalcottages.co.uk, 2020). BBHL’s standard price is much lower than hotels like
Hilton, The Twenty-One, Jyrus Inn, etc. while BBHL’s 5-star platinum price is the same as

3
that of 4-star hotels, compared via booking.com’s website. As such, BBHL’s prices target
both the affordable and high-end segments, depending on the rental choice of
consumers.

2.2. Relevant Environment Factors

The first external factor relates to the average price. The average room rate in Brighton is
£78.75 per night (booking.com, 2020), equivalent to about £600 per week. More upscale
hotels can go up to £2,500 per week. Meanwhile, as above-mentioned, BBHL’s rental
rates are cheaper or BBHL’s rents are on par but with better room options.

It is worth noting here that property prices in Brighton are lower than London real estate
prices and the gap is getting bigger and bigger than thought an uptrend in rents is still
what both areas of experience in the period 2010-2020 (McMahon, 2020). Thus, the
overall market price factor shows that the value of real estate is increasing as well as the
rents of competitors are higher than rents at BBHL. These things provide a favorable
environment for the BBHL increase

Second, in terms of policies and laws, the Brighton and Hove authorities also provide
tenant policy advice in this area to both tenants and tenants (new.brighton-hove.gov.uk,
2020). Thus, clients, for example, international students, businessmen, tourists, etc. They
need to comply with these policies while it is BBHL’s responsibility to understand these
policies and terms to fully inform its customers.

In addition, in the UK, the number of social media users is about 45 million, which
accounts for 66% of the UK population (Johnson, 2020). This external factor leads to the
result that agents like BBHL need to pay more attention to e-marketing, specifically social
media marketing, which helps the company reach out to an extremely large network of
potential customers.

2.3. Current marketing strategy of Best of Brighton Holiday Letting

Currently, BBHL is applying a classic 4Ps marketing strategy according to the theory of
McCarthy et al (2008), combined with the use of social media Facebook and Instagram
as marketing tools (Krstić and Đurđević, 2017).

4
 - The products are homes, apartments, and rental rooms in the
Products/
Brighton area and the Sussex area. Meanwhile, the service that
Services
BBHL provides is real estate rental service.

- Prices fall at around £600 a week.

Price
- The highest price is around £2,500 a week.

- The number of properties for rent is large. The real estate is

Place
scattered in many places, thus, taking advantage of such
(Distribution
advantages as near school, near hospital, mountain view, lake
)
view.

- The discount program depends on the promotional campaign.

- Promote through Facebook official fan page and Instagram. Ads

through social networks mainly focus on real-life images of
apartments that BBHL rents.

Promotions

Insight the apartment for rent

Source: bestofbrington.co.uk, 2020

Source: Designed by author, 2020

However, BBHL’s current marketing strategies are not really effective. This brand did not
achieve social interactions with both Facebook and Instagram. The content posted on IG

5
is boring while the number of followers and interaction is low. It can be seen that social
media marketing of BBHL now is ineffective.

Social media marketing of BBHL

Source: Instagram.com, 2020

BBHL’s website is a bright spot with full information about the company and services, but
BBHL itself has no more effective advertising campaign for this website. So, even the
latest promotional campaign today is a sale of 50% of the rental, which is posted only on
the website, is not noticed by customers. Therefore, BBHL needs a more effective
marketing campaign to increase its market share in a fiercely competitive market.

3. Implementation plan

3.1. Brand name

Best of Brighton Home Letting

3.2. Brand image

High quality real estate agents with competitive prices.

3.3. Aims and objectives

The goal of the new strategy is to improve the old marketing strategy of BBHL, thus, and
improve marketing efficiency. From enhancing marketing effectiveness, BBHL can
increase its market share in the market.

6
 3.4. Key feature of the product

The houses are upgraded with better quality towards building product value core.

The rental service has been improved through the synchronous upgrade of BBHL’s
website, fan page and Instagram account.

3.5. Pricing strategy

As above-mentioned, BBHL’s pricing strategy is a page edge pricing strategy. At the

same time, the price economy strategy is also applied to bring competitive advantages to
BBHL (De Toni, Milan, Saciloto and Larentis, 2017).

3.6. Promotion strategy

Because BBHL’s prices are based on the economy pricing strategy, BBHL needs to have
appropriate advertising campaigns to emphasize its advantage.

Second, a customer recognition system and loyalty program were deployed. In particular,
customers who are members of BBHL’s customer network will receive certain incentives
compared to current customers.

Third, BBHL’s social network needs to be upgraded in terms of quality both in terms of
content and images. BBHL will run ads on both Facebook Ads and Google Ads to
advertise both its fan page and its website, thus, enhancing the effectiveness of social
media marketing.

3.7. How and where products will be bought by consumers?

Users can book at BBHL’s website.

3.8. Needed people/ skills.

The staff of BBHL currently consists of 06 staffs who take care of customers. This
number of people does not need to be increased. However, skills that need to be re-
tested and considered include:

(1) The ability to work professionally in a high-pressure environment;

(2) Ability to professionally communicate with customers in the real estate and rental
sector;

(3) Basic office informatics skills to access and extract necessary information when

7
customers need support.

3.9. Delivering process

BBHL’s staff assist customers with online booking and direct delivery at BBHL’s facilities
in the Brighton and Hove and Sussex area.

4. Discussion and conclusion

In a fiercely competitive environment, BBHL has been using a 4Ps marketing strategy
that is ineffective. Neither did its social media marketing tools show that they were
performing well. Even customer interaction and customer attention - key marketing
triggers - have not met expectations.

Therefore, this proposal report proposes to improve and upgrade the classic 4Ps
marketing strategy combined with modern social media marketing strategy to increase
marketing efficiency. This is based on a study which shows that the effectiveness of
marketing will have an impact on brand profits and market share (Farmanesh, Adibi and
Hasiri, 2017). Meanwhile, the marketing strategy is based on the theory of McCarthy et
al. (2008), the price strategy is determined through the study of the economic price
strategy and their effects in increasing the profitability of the market as mentioned by De
Toni, Milan, Saciloto and Larentis (2017) and a social media marketing strategy based on
the research of Krstić and Đurđev (2017). This leads to the fact that this implementation
plan has a solid theoretical foundation, applying theories into practice.

However, the downside of this plan is that BBHL does not have annual reports, thus,
related metrics like operations, supply chain or the specific way this firm connects with
tenants is not clear. Therefore, it is impossible to tell if those aspects of BBHL are running
smoothly or not.

In conclusion, in the context of fierce competition, Best of Brighton Home Letting - a

famous agent in the Brighton area, needs a marketing mix strategy and more effective
social marketing tools, combined with auditing and improve the quality of the
accommodation as well as the quality of the staff. Thus, ensuring core values and
enhancing marketing effectiveness will help the company increase market share and
compete in a fierce environment.

8
References

Bestofbrighton.co.uk (2020) About Best of Brighton Holiday Lettings | Best of Brighton

Holiday Lettings. [online] Bestofbrighton.co.uk. Available at:
<https://www.bestofbrighton.co.uk/about-us> [Accessed 4 September 2020].

Bestofbrighton.co.uk (2020) Best of Brighton Holiday Lettings | Self-Catering in Brighton.

[online] Bestofbrighton.co.uk. Available at: <https://www.bestofbrighton.co.uk/>
[Accessed 4 September 2020].

Bestofbrighton.co.uk (2020) Original Cottages Star Grading | Best of Brighton Holiday

Lettings. [online] Bestofbrighton.co.uk. Available at:
<https://www.bestofbrighton.co.uk/about-us/original-cottages-star-grading> [Accessed 4
September 2020].

Booking.com (2020) Hotels in Brighton And Hove. [online] Booking.com. Available at:
<https://bit.ly/3jEhRtw> [Accessed 4 September 2020].

De Toni, D., Milan, G., Saciloto, E. and Larentis, F. (2017) Pricing strategies and levels
and their impact on corporate profitability. Revista de Administração, 52(2), pp.120-133.

Farmanesh, P., Adibi, M. and Hasiri, A. (2017) The influence of marketing strategy on
market share. Project: Talent management. [pdf] Available at: <
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319108652_The_Influence_of_Marketing_Strat
egy_on_Market_Share> [Accessed 4 September 2020].

Johnson, J., 2020. UK: Social Media Usage 2019 | Statista. [online] Statista. Available at:
<https://www.statista.com/statistics/507405/uk-active-social-media-and-mobile-social-
media-users/#:~:text=The%20United%20Kingdom%20(UK)%20was,the%20population
%20of%20the%20UK.> [Accessed 4 September 2020].

Krstić, A. and Đurđević, B. (2017) Social media marketing. Marketing, 48(4), pp.254-260.

McCarthy, E.J., Perreault, W.D., & Cannon, J.P. (2008) Basic marketing: a marketing
strategy planning approach Sixteenth., Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

McMahon, J. (2020) How Brighton is dealing with a property market slowdown. [online]
Financial Times. Available at: <https://www.ft.com/content/37f5c08c-54cc-11ea-a1ef-
da1721a0541e> [Accessed 4 September 2020].

New.brighton-hove.gov.uk (2020) How to find and buy an empty property. [online]

9
Brighton & Hove City Council. Available at: <https://new.brighton-
hove.gov.uk/housing/private-housing/how-find-and-buy-empty-property> [Accessed 4
September 2020].

10