Sms Banking Marketing Plan

Sms Banking Marketing PlanBankMuscat is I well known bank in Oman and consider the best financial organization and the winner of 8 in raw as Bank of the year ( times of Oman 2010). It provides large banking proceeds which fulfills most coun set about demands including consumers, businesses and government. The main divisions of the bank are retail banking and wholesale banking. Within these divisions in that location are E-channels which are call center, ATM, CDM, cards, Internet and mobile banking.The demand for electronic banking services is increasing since Oman strategic is to convert the conventional governance to E-government (e.oman 2010). While these changes in country is ongoing, most of organizations adapting to go electronically in order to compete in the trade. BankMuscat is one of the leaders to adapt naked as a jaybird innovative technologies which make them measuring ahead from early(a) banks.An opportunity exists for SMS banking for two reasonsNone of other bank s yet provided transactions over SMS while BankMuscat SMS banking animated frame support this feature.Expand the language to Arabic in SMS banking to cover existing BankMuscat node of non- handlingrs of SMS banking.All other banks local not offering this type of services and they nevertheless were providing informative SMS banking sort of than interactive transaction (Ecommerce Journal 2009). Our untried service in existing SMS banking will lead the grocery since BankMuscat has a large portion of market handle of customers. The current stats show a large usage in electronic services and people become more than technology aware. The stats shows in whatever case huge affix in the number of registered customers with SMS banking and comparing total registration in 2009 by 110,099 while in 2010 the total registration as of month of November is 134,926 (appendix 1,2). Moreover, the addition also occurs in the usage of the service comparing it by last years and also comparing it with monthly transactions, 1,118,826 request in 2009 and 1,430,399 requests in 2010 (appendix 1,2). With all this growing if we applied the new services like transactions over SMS and Arabic enabled interface we will lead the market for years. This also will increase our tutelage profit for each SMS sent by customer and will attract more service providers to use our SMS banking service as a channel for accuse stipend.Our tar germinate customers will be all type of customers capable of using mobile phones to send SMS. The rapid increase in cell phone market with cheap prices and good rates of service providers is our key of success. Also the growth in Oman and increase the percentage of roads traffic is changing the habit of customers of salaried for their bill posters and choose to do all this at their home at own suitable time.Situation AnalysisIn order to build good family with our all s expunge holders we have to understand our environment forces around all our relatio nships. In the attached section I will describe BankMuscat Internal and remote environments along with their analysis.External environment (Mic, Mac)As a bank its obvious other local banks are our competitors and the main force and we will analysis this with Porters louvre forces analysis.Porters Five forcesCompetitive Rivalry our rivalry banks are HSBC because its an planetary well known bank and locally NBO which the second successful bank in Oman. some(prenominal)(prenominal) are very adaptive to the technology and always competing.Threat of entry misuse of SMS banking services whitethorn raise law issues which interferes the service as what happened to the NAWARS tel. bill payment portal shutdown by force of law. Also there is threat of leaks this new service to our competitors before launching will make a bad image of BankMuscat is imitating others initiatives.The originator of buyers Our customer will intend to use the SMS banking service a lot because they are directly transfer amount from their floor to utility bills which is easer from withdrawal money from bank and then visiting utility providers outlet to pay their bills.The power of suppliers since our utility providers are a few companies so there is limited of suppliers which will offer to market for their utility payments exclusively to BankMuscat because of the huge number of customers dealing with.The Threat of substitutes the major threat is using the other channel which internet banking since its become more popular because the government encourages this initiative by name of E-government.Since we analyzed the microenvironment by using Porters analysis we also have a bun in the oven doing another analysis in macro environment by using PEST analysis.PEST analysisPolitical Factors Telecommunication Regulatory Authority whitethorn set rules and standards in order to protect the users from fraud by which will make the process of using SMS banking more complicated for users.Economical Fa ctors aft(prenominal) the break which happened during end of 2008 the market growth increases again in 2009 recovery stage and in 2010 most of companies started to gain profits (Oman Observer 2010). This increased the salaries and buying power from customers. In other hand, BankMuscat makes good profit in the three quarters of 2010 by increase in 26% (Sharif 2010) which allowed increasing the budget for de theatrical rolement for development. companionable Factors The resist of change is one of the culture factors that are facing the banking developments. Some of interior customers still prefer to pay their bills by visiting the utility providers. entirely the good thing is our Arabic based SMS banking will capture those who dont want to use other language to do their transactions. The go green campaign which sponsored by many environment organizations and with support of government is focusing in reduce papers in businesses and here comes SMS banking as free papers service which is astray accepted as eco-friendly.Technological Factors SMS banking has good opportunity because the bank strategies are to change the attention from visiting branches to do banking services remotely (BankMuscat 2009). Most companies prefer to do their transactions without using papers and this good sign change customers behavior towards our new electronic services. The availability of mobile coverage and the range of prize with cheap prices all adding value for using SMS banking as first alternative.SWOT analysisAfter we captured the information for from external environment we will use it in our SWOT analysis as opportunities and threats.StrengthsCurrent carcass already has the function for bill paymentsCurrent system is the latest in marketCurrent system has the capability to add additional languagesManagement are very adaptive for new changesLow cost upgradeWeaknessesLimited IT staff for implementation one-third party software needs support from vendorOther departments not support in marketing of other productsOpportunitiesFastest bills payment with one mistreat from broadside to utility provider.Easy to capture more utility providers because of large base of customers in BankMuscatGain the market of non-English usersGovernment support and collaboration for new technologiesThreatsInternational banks are more advanced in technologyLaw enforce in case of misuse of this service by customersInternet banking may attract big portion of SMS banking customersMarketing ObjectiveBankMuscat vision statement Over one million satisfied customers by 2010 through continuous sweetening of stakeholder value. In pursuit for customer satisfaction and comply with BankMuscat vision our new SMS banking system will fill the thirst of customers who deserve to get unique services at any time anywhere with no hassle of waiting.Target MarketTo get deep inside to our target market we will be using market partation process analysis.1-Segmentation VariablesGeographic since SM S banking is mobile technology based service, so there is no limits because it depends on the coverage of mobile interlock operator even its support international rooming. The Arabic based SMS is targeting customers especially in rural areas which they are not able to deal with English language.Demographics Targeted market customers with age range 18-65 years old both genders who are working in job or having business with all range of income with small level of knowledge in using mobile devices.Psychographic Targeted market customers can be any lifestyle orientations with personality open mindedBehavioral Common variables of this divide are customers prefer easy and fast way of bill payment for medium usage in monthly rate and heavy usage for discover enquiry. The user status can be ex-user, nonuser, potential user and existing user.2- Market segment profileAfter analyzing the market variables we will now match the common share of who, what and why to build segment profile. Our customer looks like any gender between 18-65 years old living anywhere having reckon in BankMuscat and using text messaging of our local mobile operators with sufficient knowledge in using mobile devices. Our customers appeals to do their bill payments at any time faster than any service with both local and English languages. Customers who want to make their bill payment easier and faster on monthly tush in case of bill payments and frequently in case of account quires. Our customer needs are to provide them with fastest one-click anytime and anywhere with free of forethought bill payments service, also at their convenient language.3-Targeting strategyOur marketing strategy will use a mix of undifferentiated and concentrated strategy. SMS Bill payment will satisfy any BankMuscat account holders who is having local mobile operator. But also our strategy will concentrate on special targeted customers who want to use SMS banking in Arabic version.4-Evaluate of market segmentsCurrent ly the total registered customers for year 2010 are 110099 by comparing to 2009 was 981120 which we estimate the increase by 25% because of the new service and additional language. There is no comparison with other banks because this is new service to market. The cost will only occur in implementation stage because of the system upgrade, Ads, brochures and banners.5-Selecting target marketBased on the overcome of the targeting strategy and along with BankMuscat vision we will use the mix of undifferentiated and concentrated marketing strategies to increase the usage between existing customers and to capture potential customers of our competitors to reach and exceeds the satisfactory levels.6-Market positioningWe are offering our new service to our main two segments, existing and new customers who will use their mobiles SMS for the first time to do transactions which no other banks in Oman provide such service for their customers. The second segment is to provide existing SMS banking service and SMS bill payment service in Arabic-based for remaining BankMuscat account holders. Like before this is new service which our customers will put through exclusively.7-Developing marketing mixThe next section we will be describing the marketing mixMarketing Strategies, 7Ps-Product Our product is upgraded SMS banking service for account query and bill payments with both English and Arabic interface.-Place SMS banking service can be accessed by any BankMuscat accounts holders using their mobile phones through our local mobile operators locally or international rooming.-Promotion Ads will be announced in newspaper radio stations and BankMuscat web site before launching to keep the customer informed for the new service launching and after launching. Brochures and banners will be distributed to all branch channels and ATM/CDM.-Price SMS banking will remain free of charge service and only customer cost is for SMS as normal cost rate of sending SMS from mobile phone to another. -Physical evidence Customer will get confirmation SMS after the transaction with transaction code for reference. Customer can use their account statement as a record for their transactions.-Participants Customers will get support by direct interaction with call center agents and branch staff.-Process The service will be monitored by usual function in the bank core system with status of the customer. SMS banking team and billing team will have the access to daily reports of the transactions.BudgetThe budget for the project will divide into upgrading the system and marketing for the service. The system upgrade will cost OMR 55,000 including support from vendor. The second part is for publishing Ads through media newspapers and radio stations and this will cost OMR 13,000. Last part is for printing brochures and banners, which will cost around OMR 25,000. There will be yearly budget for the rewards of the best selling branch. Part of the budget we will get it after the approval from th e management. We have good confidence in our management to support the new project as Sheik Abdul Malik Chairman of Bankmuscat described that BankMuscat is have any opportunity to develop pioneered products and services meeting the market changes (Letha 2010).ImplementationThe action plan is represented in a timeline schedule in next page and will shows each activity time and assigned department with the managers of that activityEvaluation and recommendationOnce we end with timeline of the project we will take deep insight view of how our new system is effectively meeting our goals. As we are providing a service we will have to depend on the reports of the system providing. The system will allow us to see for each branch how much registration they made in point of time. We will study these reports by same month of the previous year to see the percentage of increase. Monthly we will extract reports of the number of bill payments starting from the launching moth of July and forward to see if the increase is happening from month to month. We will also check the payments of each of bill type and to see where the bill type is needs more attention to boost the sale of it. In case there is system failure easily our IT team are ready to switch the system victuals mode which will stop any interaction with customers SMS and will send default replay as the system under maintenance please try again later. If the problem is persist in bill payment facility then we can disable this feature temporary and keep the normal account query facility working until we fix the problem. The bill payments complaint will be handled by bills team and to update any payments with utility provider. So the customer will not need to contact both the bank and the utility provider since we will do all the necessary actions to solve the customers issue.ReferenceTimes of Oman (2010) BankMuscat wins top Banker award. Times of Oman online 14 declination 2010. Available from 23 December 2010.IT A (2010) ITA Vision online available from 23 December 2010Ecommerce Journal (2009) Electronic banking in the Sultanate of Oman Ecommerce Journal online available from 23 December 2010Oman Observer (2009) Omans economic fundamentals remain strong. Oman Observer online 05 July 2010. available from 23 December 2010Sharif,A. (2010) Bank Muscat Third-Quarter Net Income Increases 26% on Lending. Business Week online 14 October 2010. Available from 23 December 2010BankMuscat (2009) BankMuscat widens reach of easy-to-use mobile banking service online available from 23 December 2010Letha,J. (2010) True leader. Business Today online 01 Jun 2010. Available from 23 December 2010