Greater Building Society Marketing Plan

The rationale of this report is to write a Marketing Plan for an existing company in the UK (BSkyB Sky), selected from any industry (telecommunication industry). This plan is aimed at identifying ways in which the firm designs its strategy for the next 5 years.

The housing crisis of 2008 can trace its origins back to the stock market trends of the mid- to late 90 's. During a period of extended growth in the stock market, increased individual wealth among investors led to generalized increases in spending, including in the housing market. With more disposable income in the pockets of consumers, the demand for housing increased in the late 90 's. Due to the fact that homes are large projects and their construction takes a large amount of time, the supply of homes in the market is inelastic on the short term. Because of the fixed supply of homes, as per the law of supply, which

The housing crisis of the late 2000s rocked the economy and changed the landscape of the real estate business for years to come. Decades of people purchasing houses unfordable houses and properties with lenient loans policies led to a collective housing bubble. When the banking system faltered and the economy wilted, interest rates were raised, mortgages increased, and people lost their jobs amidst the chaos. This all culminated in tens of thousands of American losing their houses to foreclosures and short sales, as they could no longer afford the mortgage payments on their homes. The United States entered a recession and homeownership no longer appeared to be a feasible goal as many questioned whether the country could continue to support a middle-class. Former home owners became renters and in some cases homeless as the American Dream was delayed with no foreseeable return. While the future of the economy looked bleak, conditions gradually improved. American citizens regained their jobs, the United States government bailed out the banking industry, and regulations were put in place to deter such events as the mortgage crash from ever taking place again. The path to homeowner ship has been forever altered, as loans in general are now more difficult to acquire and can be accompanied by a substantial down payment.

First of all, from 2008 to 2015, property prices of all capital cities in Australia have increased rapidly. People have had obsession with buying houses. At the same time,

Post-housing/financial crisis of 2007-2009, the housing market seems to be showing signs of improvement after great downturn. With the downturn in housing prices, many homeowners did not have enough equity to avoid taking a loss on the sale of their homes so they are sitting with home loans based off of higher-than-current mortgages. However, in November the National Association of Home Builders’ sentiment index jumped to 20, which is the highest reading in over a year. Demand for mortgages has also seemed to pick up a bit according to the Fed’s 4th quarter loan survey. Construction remains at historically low levels but has increased as of late, and the number of

I. Executive Summary II. Situation Analysis o Market Summary  Target Market Demographics  Geographic  Demographics  Behavior Factors Market Needs Market Trends Market Growth o SWOT Analysis  Strengths  Weaknesses  Opportunities  Threats o Competition o Product Offering o Keys to Success o Critical Issues III. Marketing Strategy o Mission o Marketing Objectives o Financial Objectives o Target Markets o Positioning o Strategies o Marketing Mix o Marketing Research o Action Plan IV. Financials o o o V. Controls o o o VI. Summary Implementation Marketing Organization Contingency Planning Breakeven Analysis Sales Forecast Expense Forecast

The business overview, current situation analysis and marketing objectives are reviewed in this document as the following briefly details.

The Australian economy is reliant on three key sectors: services, housing, and mining. The services sector employs the largest percentages of Australians – around 80 percent – and is responsible for approximately 70 percent of the country’s GDP (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010). With jobs in a variety of specific industries, this sector drives the success of the Australian economy. The housing sector is experiencing unprecedented growth leading to concerns over a potential asset bubble. An increase in the amount

Recently, The Australian housing market has been growing rapidly which reflects the housing affordability crisis as the housing price rises much quickly than household incomes. There are two key observations of current Australian housing market from Yates, firstly today’s housing affordability problem is mainly a structural problem and intensified by cyclical pressures. It began 40 years ago when inflation switched focus on housing, besides, there are more renters than purchasers under today’s housing stress situation, and the housing

Marketing plays the most important role for the success of a business. In this chapter, the business’ marketing objectives are laid out together with the plans or actions that will be needed to achieve these objectives. Furthermore, this chapter includes the profile of the respondents which aided the researchers to create this part of the feasibility study.

Around 2006 the price of houses began to fall substantially fast. “The oversupply of houses and lack of buyers pushed the house prices down until they really plunged in the late 2006 and early 2007” (The Subprime Mortgage Crisis Explained). These actions threw investors into a big dilemma. In the beginning they believed buying the mortgages would bring them a profit, but quickly realized that the mortgages would cost them more financial damage than reselling the homes. “Nationwide, home vales have declined about 16% since the summer of 2006 and experts project that the drop will continue until homes have lost about 25% of their value” (Biroonak, 2008). In other words mortgage homes are “underwater”, that is, the mortgage owed equals or exceeds the value of the house (Biroonak, 2008). Investors and homeowners started to go more in debt trying to pay off their original debts.

Porter (1980) identified some competitive forces that shapes and fosters competition in a market and determines the inherent long run attractiveness of a market. He also said that, this analytical tool could be effectively used to understand the industry level situation. However, the findings based on the Porter's model clarify that, the company has strong competitive situation now in the UK as ASDA has strong rivals like; Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons etc.

Whereas the mission defines the scope of a business or business unit and the goals define its strategic performance dimensions, its business unit competencies determine the means for achieving success.

Declining price attract people with the easy loan facilities of their banks. And banks are ready with very high risk loans. This excess supply of home inventory placed significant downward pressure on prices. As prices declined, more homeowners were at risk of default and foreclosure. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller price index, by November 2007, average U.S. housing prices had fallen approximately 8% from their Q2 2006 peak and by May 2008 they had fallen 18.4%. The price decline in December 2007 versus the year-ago period was 10.4% and for May 2008 it was 15.8%. Housing prices are expected to continue declining until this inventory of surplus homes (excess supply) is reduced to more typical levels.

Westwood, J., 2002, The Marketing Plan: A step-by-step Guide. 3rd ed., London, Kogan Page Limited, p