Marketing plan for the wedding planner company master project in business and marketing management

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC MỞ TP.HCM

UNIVERSITÉ LIBRE DE BRUXELLES

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

SOLVAY BRUSSELS SCHOOL

MBMM 4

VO THI THO
 
 

MARKETING PLAN FOR
THE WEDDING PLANNER COMPANY
 
 
 

MASTER PROJECT
MASTER IN BUSINESS & MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Tutor’s Name: Dr. Trần Hà Minh Quân

Ho Chi Minh City
(2010)
 


 

I

DECLARATION
I declare that this final project contains no material that has been accepted for the
award of any other degree of diploma in any university or other institution and
contains no material previously published or written by another person, except
where due reference is made.
This final project contains a survey that is primarily conducted by myself under
guidance and support of the tutor. Therefore it has high level of trust, confidence
and agreement.

Signed:

Vo Thi Tho
Master of Business and Marketing Management

15-Dec-10


 

II

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and great appreciation to
Dr. Trần Hà Minh Quân, my tutor, for his guidance, valuable advices and great
support in developing my thesis.
Secondly, I would like to express my sincere thankfulness all professors, program
coordinators, alumni community members, and my classmates for devoting me

their inspiration, support and sharing their valuable knowledge during my time
studying at the MBMM program of the Solvay Brussels Schools and Ho Chi Minh
City Open University.
Finally, I would like to thank my beloved ones for their love and continuous
encouragement to me during my study.


 

III

TUTOR’S COMMENTS
Ms. Vo Thi Tho tries her best to make the final project with the topic of “Marketing
Plan For The Wedding Planner Company”. The author has made a lot of efforts to
gather information as well as to conduct a survey to understand the consumer
behavior and attitude towards using wedding planner services. The recommended
marketing plan in this project is practical and useful.
The thesis meets the requirements for the final project of MBMM4 program. I
suggest the committee should allow the author to present it to your kind perusal and
consideration.

Signed:

Dr. Ha Tran Minh Quan

15-Dec-10


 

IV

TABLES OF CONTENTS
I

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1

II
2.1
2.2
2.3

COMPANY INTRODUCTION
Our services
Our mission
Our business objectives

2
2
3
3

III
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.4.1

3.4.2
3.4.3

4
4
4
5
6
6
7
8

3.4.5
3.4.6
3.4.7
3.4.8
3.4.9
3.4.10
3.4.11
3.4.12

MARKET RESEARCH
Research objectives
Sampling method and research method
Research scope and limitation
Research analysis
Respondent profile
Which way consumers usually choose to arrange a wedding
Type of wedding planner services consumers have used or intend
to use

Source of awareness and source of information for wedding
planner
Decision of using wedding planner services
Perceived advantages of wedding planner
Perceived disadvantages of wedding planner
Important factors of choosing a wedding planner
Brand awareness of key competitors
Brand leverage of key competitors
Brand association
Satisfaction with the wedding planner ever used

9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

IV
4.1
4.1.1
4.1.2
4.2
4.2.1
4.2.2
4.2.3

MARKET ANALYSIS

Market attractiveness
Market needs
Trends and drivers
Competitive analysis
Competitive landscape
Key competitor analysis
Our competitive edge

17
17
17
18
19
19
19
21

V

MARKETING STRATEGY

21

3.4.4

8


 

V

5.1
5.2

Market segmentation and targeting
Positioning

21
22

VI
6.1
6.2
6.2.1
6.2.2
6.2.3
6.2.4

MARKETING PLAN
Marketing objectives
Marketing mix
Service
Price
Place
Communication

23
23
23

23
23
25
25

6.2.4.1
6.2.4.2
6.2.4.3
6.2.4.4
6.2.4.5

Advertising
Public relations and commercial events
Windows or POS
Direct marketing
Marketing budget

25
25
26
26
26

6.3

Monitoring and evaluation tools

26

REFERENCE

28

APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
Questions for in-depth interview
APPENDIX B
Survey questionnaires

29
29
30


 

VI

LIST OF FIGURES
Figures

Pages

Figure 3.1. Age distribution

6

Figure 3.2. Marital status

7

Figure 3.3. Economic class

7

Figure 3.4. Ways of arranging wedding

7

Figure 3.5. Type of wedding planner services have used or intend

8

to use
Figure 3.6. Source of awareness and source of information

9

Figure 3.7. Decision of using wedding planner

10

Figure 3.8. Perceived advantage of using wedding planner

11

Figure 3.9. Perceived disadvantage of wedding planner

12

Figure 3.10. Important factors of choice

13

Figure 3.11. Brand awareness of key competitors

14

Figure 3.12. Brand leverage of key competitors

15

Figure 3.13. Brand image of key competitors

16

Figure 3.14. Satisfaction with the wedding planner ever used

17


 

VII

LIST OF TABLES
Tables

Pages

Table 4.1. Brief description of 4 key competitors in HCM City

20

Table 5.1. Segment of wedding planners

22

Table 6.1. Price list

24

Table 6.2. Marketing budget

26


I.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Wedding planner service is quite new to Vietnamese. Consumers still don’t get
familiar with hiring wedding planner. They prefer to arrange the wedding on their
own even though it’s time-consuming and stressful. Couples and their family’s
members desire to have a perfectly planned and executed wedding ceremony.
Usually they need to prepare and complete a lot of work at least one year before the
wedding date. These things leave them a sheer of exhaustion by the time the
ceremony has ended. They also realize that they don’t have enough time and energy
to make all the necessary preparation in a cost effective manner. Finally, the
professional advice to ensure every aspect of the wedding meet expectations should

be considered.
For most couples, their wedding day will be the most expensive important day of
their life and they might need professional advice when spending such a lot of
money. People pay an expert for advice when buying a house or a vacation, why
not the most important day of their life – their dream wedding. The problems are
supposed to come from consumer behavior toward using wedding planner.
Consumer behavior reflects why and how people make a purchase decision. A
thoroughly understanding of this will help a marketer to formulate appropriate
marketing stimuli that will result in increasing sales and brand loyalty. As The
Wedding Planner is a new player in the wedding planner market, it is essential to
know how to evaluate and influence consumer behavior. The research about
consumer behavior towards using wedding planner service will be conducted in
order to determine which marketing efforts should be used and when.
As using wedding planner service is new to Vietnamese, communication is
extremely important to educate consumers and to make them familiar with it.
Finally, this drives them to adventure to use wedding planner service and then
make a transition to hiring a wedding planner instead of self-preparing their


 

2

wedding. By offering a full range of wedding services with efficiency and
professionalism, The Wedding Planner will create a totally new experience for
consumers who strive for a dream wedding.

II.

COMPANY INTRODUCTION

2.1.

Our services

The Wedding Planner is a start-up company that provides wedding consulting
services to brides, grooms and their family members. Nowadays people are too
busy to plan their important individual events. They even get overly stressed and
frustrated when having to prepare the event as far as one year in advance. We are a
full-service wedding consultant company who help to create a memorable and
stress-free wedding for our consumers. We provide a wide range of wedding
services from wedding scheduling to day-of-wedding organization. We also design
a wedding suited to the couple’s unique style as a true expression of their
relationship and personality. They just need to sit back and enjoy their event.
Our core services include:
1. The whole wedding planner packages.
2. Partial wedding planner packages, including:


Pre-wedding:



Consulting service for weddings, honeymoons, receptions, and
anniversary.



 

Wedding event scheduling, and budget planning.


 

3



Wedding couture: answers to etiquette questions as well as fullservice referrals to bridal stylist, florists, hair stylists, entertainers,
musicians, photographer etc



Day-of-wedding organization and coordination: rehearsal attendance,
ceremony and reception organization.

3. Custom tailored wedding service upon request: destination wedding,
wedding theme design, etc.
2.2.

Our mission

The Wedding Planner is unique in that we offer our consumers a full range of
services for a wedding. Our consultants are experienced and dedicated
professionals with many years in event planning. We listen to consumers’ need and
create the wedding of their dreams. Our clients’ wishes become our commands.
Whether they need a traditional wedding or a western wedding, we can help. They
can choose a host of package or only one of our services include budget planning,
event scheduling, answers to etiquette questions, as well as full-service referrals to

florists, hair stylists, entertainers, musicians, photographer etc.
2.3.

Our business objectives

We understand that wedding is an especially meaningful event in our clients’ life.
Therefore we want to turn these special moments into magical days. We aggregate
many services under one roof in order to offer couples the ease of selection. They
can come with us for a full package or just one of services they need.

 


 

4

III. MARKET RESEARCH
3.1 Research objectives
The research will clarify the bellow 3 areas:
-

Attitude towards using wedding planner services in relation to selfpreparation: Advantages and disadvantages of wedding planner service

-

Determinants when choosing a wedding planner service

-

Brand awareness of key competitors

3.2 Sampling method & research method.
a)

Target respondents:

-

Male or female, age from 20 – 55

-

Economic Class A, B, C, D

-

They have just used/ or intend to use wedding planner services in the past 1
year

b)

Location: Ho Chi Minh City

c)

Sampling: 100

d)

Research method:

The research includes both exploratory phase (Qualitative research) and
confirmation phase (Quantitative research). Qualitative research will firstly be
started by in-depth interview in order to get an overview. Secondly, quantitative
research will be conducted by face-face interview with respondents based on selfadministered questionnaire developed from the qualitative outcomes. Analysis of
data collected from the survey will quantify and confirm the results of previous
analysis.
 


 

5

3.3 Research scope and limitation
The research only focused on consumers in Ho Chi Minh City. Cultural, social and
economic differences among areas (the north, central and south) would be ignored.
Descriptive analysis was used to describe the variables in term of frequency. No
software for the analysis of survey was used. Therefore, analysis of variance would
not be considered. Due to the small sample size, the analysis result would not come
into any model.
Wedding is a large industry in term of dongs spent on it every year. It is made up of
multiple smaller enterprises like caterers, wedding consultants, bridal shops,
various beauty suppliers, photographers, music, etc. While it is a billion dong
sector, each of the component parts is very small. Most of these small suppliers are
locally operated and privately owned. They are of traditionally the types of
businesses that do not necessarily report financial information to any agency other
than tax authority. Moreover, this industry doesn’t affect the economy as a whole
on an obvious scale. These make it not easy to access on this industry.

Many of the small components like carters, music, photographers, gifts, etc. also do
other events at the same time. Wedding is a part of their business and they just
don’t need to break their business down into wedding versus non-wedding. Some
of the individuals and businesses that provide wedding services and products may
only work part-time as freelances on wedding-related services to supplement their
income or out of friendship. Figure if we can track will likely not be in the industry
tally.
As overall industry numbers are hard to find, we will find the information by other
ways. One way is by searching local press and websites that provide information on
local market. Contacting local companies gives us experience and knowledge on
the local scene. Another important information comes from interview with future
brides and grooms.

 


 

6

3.4 Research analysis
3.4.1 Respondent profile
Wedding in Viet Nam is traditionally considered as an event of the whole family
rather than of couples. Decision of using wedding planner service comes from both
family members and couples. Therefore survey is distributed to respondents from
20 to 55 years old. The sample includes 81% of respondents aged from 20 to 35
years old and 19% of respondents aged from 35 to 55 years old. Figure 3.1 shows
age distribution.

Unit: %

Base: All respondents (n=100)
Ref: Q3 - Age

Figure 3.1 Age distribution

Of 100 respondents, 34% who got marriage already arranged their own weddings in
the past. The remaining 66% is single. Meanwhile marriage people give us
feedback base on their experience, single ones provide us their expectation on a
wedding planner. Most of them have involved in the process of arranging a
wedding as a bride or a groom or a family member. Respondents diversifying in 4
economic classes will cover difference in decision-making influenced by income.
Figure 3.2 and 3.3 respectively show marital status and income distribution of the
respondents.

 


 

7

Unit: %
Base: All respondents (n=100)
Ref: Q4- Marital status

Ref: Q16-Personal monthly income

A: > 15,000,000 VND
B: 7,500,000-15,000,000 VND
C: 4,500,000-7,499,999 VND

D: 3,000,000-4,499,999VND

Figure 3.2 Marital status

Figure 3.3 Economic class

3.4.2 Which way consumers usually choose to arrange a wedding
Do it by themselves is the most popular way consumers choose to arrange a
wedding. Hiring wedding planner accounts for only 27%, which is still a very small
number. This shows that consumers do not familiar with using wedding planner
services. The result is presented in Figure 3.4.
Unit: % 
Base: All respondents (n=100) 
Ref: Q1 – Way of arranging wedding  

Figure 3.4 Way of arranging wedding

 


 

8

3.4.3 Type of wedding planner services consumers have used or intend to use
Wedding event scheduling is the least interested. Only 16% of consumers want
budget planning service. Most of them need professional assistance for wedding
day organization (37%) and wedding couture (35%) for ensuring a perfect wedding
day.
Unit: %

Base: All respondents (n=100)
Ref: Q6 – Type of wedding planner
services have used or intend to use

Figure 3.5 Type of wedding planner services have used or intend to use

3.4.4 Source of awareness and source of information for wedding planner
Internet and newspapers or magazines are the key two channels for awareness of
wedding planners. However, consumers seek for further information about wedding
planners mainly from internet and recommendations from relatives or friends.

 


 

9

Unit: %
Base: All respondents (n=100)
Ref: Q7 – Source of awareness and
source of information

Figure 3.6 Source of awareness and source of information

3.4.5 Decision of using wedding planner services
Consumers are looking for a perfectly planned and executed wedding ceremony
(33%). They also need assistance and advice of a wedding planner during wedding
preparation process because they don’t have enough time to prepare on their own
(29%).

 


 

10

Unit: %
Base: All respondents (n=100)
Ref: Q8 – Decision of using wedding
planner services

Figure 3.7. Decision of using wedding planner

3.4.6 Perceived advantage of wedding planner
As compared to running from one wedding supplier to others for getting all they
need for a wedding, wedding planner is credited for delivering a stress-free
wedding and saving valuable time.

 


 

11

Unit: %
Base: All respondents (n=100)
Ref: Q9 – Advantages of wedding

planner

Figure 3.8 Perceived advantage of using wedding planner

3.4.7 Perceived disadvantages of wedding planner
Key barriers to adoption of wedding planner are expensive price and poor selection
of services. Consumers think that wedding planner only provides the whole
package service from pre-wedding preparation to wedding day organization.
Therefore they budget accordingly.

 


 

12

Unit: %
Base: All respondents (n=100)
Ref: Q10 – Disadvantages of wedding
planner

 
Figure 3.9 Perceived disadvantage of wedding planner

3.4.8 Important factors of choosing a wedding planner
The four leading factors when choosing a wedding planner are :
-

Wide selection of wedding suppliers (93%)

-

Well-known brand (90%)

-

Smart wedding scheduling (85%)

-

Quick and efficient service (84%)

-

Popular brand (80%)

Be noted that low price is the least in consumer’s consideration.

 

 


 

13

Unit: %
Base: All respondents (n=100)

Ref: Q11 –Important factors of choosing
wedding planner

Figure 3.10 Important factors of choice

3.4.9 Brand awareness of the key competitors
Vietnam wedding planner is the best-known wedding planner brand with 67% of
the respondents mentioning as the 1st name in the category.

 


 

14

Unit: %
Base: All respondents (n=100)
Ref: Q12 –Wedding planner awareness

Figure 3.11 Brand awareness of key competitors

3.4.10 Brand leverage of key competitors
Both Confetti and Vietnam Wedding Planner successfully build a very strong bond
with its users demonstrating through high retention rate across all levels of the
relationship ladder.

 

 

15

Unit: %
Base: All respondents (n=100)
Ref: Q13 –Brand awareness
Vietnam

Confetti

115%

Favorite
Recommend

70%

Ever used

59%

Phu The

Q Bridal

93%

75%

78%

Aware

Figure 3.12 Brand leverage of key competitors

3.4.11 Brand Association
Figure 3.13 shows that Confetti wedding planner and Vietnam wedding planner are
the two market leaders among wedding planners with significantly higher scoring
than other players on most important factors for wedding planner choice. Although
Vietnam wedding planner is the best-known brand, it has four among five most
important factors lower than the second known player-Confetti wedding planner.

 


 

16

Unit: %
Base: All respondents (n=100)
Ref: Q14 –Brand association

Q bridal

Phu The
Confetti

Vietnam

 
Figure 3.13 Brand image of key competitors

3.4.12 Satisfaction with the wedding planner ever used
Confetti wedding planner gets the highest satisfaction than any other competitors.
This reconfirms Confetti’s leadership among wedding planners.

 


 

17

Unit: %
Base: All respondents (n=100)
Ref: Q15 –Satisfaction with the wedding
planner ever used

Figure 3.14 Satisfaction with the wedding planner ever used

IV. MARKET ANALYSIS
4.1

Market Attractiveness

4.1.1 Market Needs
The wedding services market in Vietnam is fragmented with the overwhelming
majority of the wedding suppliers offering only a limited line of services. There are

numbers of bridal studios, florists, hair stylists and caterers. However, there are less
than 10 wedding planners in Ho Chi Minh that provide a wide range of services
associated with the wedding planning and execution. The current wedding planners
offer only a limited line of services like catering, photography, bridal couture,
wedding ceremony and reception set-up. They have not met consumers’
expectation for efficiency and convenience in using wedding planner services. That
is the reason why most of consumers prefer self-prepare their wedding. The