Samenvatting

This assignment focuses on PanArt, a communication and marketing agency located in Rhoon, Netherlands. The company provides full-service packages to its customers. At this point in time the company operates without the use of a marketing plan in a fast-paced work environment. Consequently, PanArt’s marketing channels have been performing lower than projected. The social media channels are currently of little added value to the company, whilst they have a lot of potential. The main challenge, therefore, is that without a marketing plan and/or strategy the company digital channels are headed in no particular direction. Accordingly, the objective of this assignment is to develop a marketing plan. The assignment is based on industry data, desk-research and a survey.
The analysis of the company’s business environment revealed that PanArt’s current marketing efforts have mediocre performance. This is especially true for the company’s social media accounts. The external analysis showed that the company has no direct competition for its full package service. However, the company does have competition for its individual services. It also became clear that PanArt does not currently have any partners. However, there are most certainly potential partners.

During the external analysis a confrontation matrix has been created. This matrix combines the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to help formulate strategies for the company. This confrontation matrix revealed some challenging and possibly threatening combinations, for which recommendations have been formulated. It also became clear that the company’s “clients first” policy makes keeping up consistency and regularity more strenuous. Research shows that consistency has become increasingly important on social media nowadays. After combining all the key findings resulting from the research a marketing plan was developed.
Based on the executed analyses, it is recommended that the firm formulates and communicates its goals towards its employees, as this causes the employees to become more motivated. If employees are not informed about the company’s goals, they may lack engagement resulting in a loss of turnover due to non-productivity. It is also recommended that PanArt starts budgeting time for its own social media efforts. This can prevent neglect and ensure consistency, consequently, increase the performance of the social media efforts. Moreover, to be able to use social media most effectively the company should implement a social media strategy to show the direction to be taken, as well as uncover desired content of PanArt’s customers.

In addition, PanArt’s own website should be optimized to reach the targets set. The company’s website has been slacking and no longer has a sufficient score according to SE Ranking, a tool to measure a website’s health and performance. Finally, PanArt should seek to invest in specializing its current staff. Allowing them to specialize will cause more efficiency for the company itself and its customers. Adopting these recommendations will ensure that the company’s marketing channels will improve in performance. Thus, resolving the issue of not reaching the full marketing potential.