Oakley Grove and Abraham Enterprises both market oranges and grapefruits. Oakley Grove has been in business for almost 40 years, while Abraham Enterprises has only been selling citrus fruit for about 18 months. Abraham Enterprises would like to take business away from Oakley Grove, and Oakley Grove wants to retain all of its customers. Explain which sales promotions each should emphasize in its marketing mix.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Oakley Grove wants to maintain its current customers. To achieve this objective, it can create a loyalty marketing program. Customers could earn points for each pound purchased, and after acquiring a certain number of points, customers could redeem them for a free gift box. Also, bonus packs would be a good sales promotion to use and would give customers an incentive to stock up. Another possibility is to have customers collect proofs of purchases off of the Oakley Grove packages and redeem those for some premium such as a juicer.

Abraham Enterprises would need to use different sales promotions because its goal is to persuade customers to switch from Oakley Grove to its brand of fruit. One method it could try is sampling, especially if it believes that its product is superior to Oakley Groves. It could also use a sweepstakes or a contest (such as who makes the best dessert using oranges) to gain publicity for its product and to draw attention to the products it produces. Abraham Enterprises could also use a premium offer, but it would need to be something unique (like the bounty off of one orange tree for a year) so that the premium would make a strong impression on the customers the company wants to gain from its competitors.