Week 2 - Defining Markets and Understanding Consumer Needs.

This week we are defining markets and understanding consumer needs. We have been asked to figure out the market, identify our competition and find out who they are selling to. Our task/project for this week is to plan the universities halloween party.

Things we need to consider...

• Venue
• Back up venue
• Door staff
• Alcohol licence
• First aid member of college staff
• 3 other members of college staff
• Safety at all times
• Respect of the local community

Mitigating risks.

Mitigating a risk means to reduce the risk of something happening to someone at a planned event. The best way to reduce risks is to come up with a risk assessment. Here is an example I have mocked up to show the risk, the severity of the risk and how to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Persuasion.

We will have to be able to persuade people to come to the halloween party. The WHOLE group need to also have great communication skills with one another because this is key to getting the best ideas from everyone. If we made a facebook event for the party and invited as many people as possible then that could get the event advertised, also everyone loves a freebie so we could write a post saying something like 'Like and Share this post to win a bottle of vodka with mixers' This would get the event around the social networking site and maybe encourage others to share the post to get the word around. This is probably the best way to do it in this day and age.

Approach.

How will the market want the group or individual people from the group to approach them. It's probably best not to hound people of the market we want to target by sticking tickets in their face and saying 'buy one'. We decided as a group to set up an events table in the main reception and let the market come to us, make them think they approached us and not the other way around. We need to let them know what they are getting for their money. The ticket price is £5.00 which I think is very steep for a college party so the market will be wanting to know what they are getting and if it is worth parting with their money.

What students spend their money on.

This is a pie chart I got from
http://www.savethestudent.org
It shows that students spend most of their money on rent, this of course only applies to students who are living away from home (their parents house). For me personally I wouldn't spend anything on rent since I live at home and I am not required to pay anything, I don't really go food shopping either. I think I mostly spend my money on going out for meals and going places. Another big chunk of money goes on car insurance/petrol etc... so this makes up for the rent I don't have to pay. This student money survey was really helpful for me to understand what other students are going through regarding money.
http://www.savethestudent.org/money/student-money-survey-results.html

Markets.

A market is a specific group of people that buy a product. The market group can start from as little as ten people to any amount. Two can make a group but it is better to have a minimum of ten in order to gather data. There are many different types of markets and market settings, These include...

• Seasonal - Christmas, Easter, Halloween etc... 
• Annual - Anniversaries, Birthdays etc...
• Captured - Such as being in an airport or train station, you're stuck there so you have to pay a ridiculous price for something like a sandwich or a drink. 
• Psychological - A person can make their self believe they are in a captured market, for example, a person may be at a concert/festival and want to buy a t-shirt when they could have went home and bought the same t-shirt online for a much cheaper price. 

My Market.

For the Halloween party we are planning our target market will be Men and Women 18-25 who may attend CCAD. I think the prices of the tickets need to come down because students don't really have any disposable income after bills, rent and everything else they have to pay for. Maybe £2 a ticket would be better because it doesn't seem pricey and that's around or even below the average price of getting into a nightclub in Hartlepool that charges.