Sms Banking Marketing Plan

Sms Banking Marketing im ageBankMuscat is I puff up known brink in Oman and consider the stovepipe financial organization and the winner of 8 in raw as Bank of the twelvecalendar month (Times of Oman 2010). It provides large banking operate which fulfills most country demands including consumers, businesses and government. The principal(prenominal) di views of the bank ar retail banking and whole change banking. Within these divisions on that slur argon E- ducts which be c each(prenominal) center, ATM, CDM, cards, net income and prompt banking.The demand for electronic banking go is increasing since Oman strategic is to convert the conventional system 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 mart. BankMuscat is mavin of the leaders to adapt raw(a) innovative technologies which nock them step ahead from former(a) banks.An opportunity exists for SMS banking for two reasonsNone of separate banks yet provided exertions over SMS while BankMuscat SMS banking existing system withstand this feature.Expand the language to Arabic in SMS banking to cover existing BankMuscat client of non- usancers of SMS banking.All separate banks local not offering this persona of answers and they only were providing informative SMS banking rather than interactive transaction (Ecommerce Journal 2009). Our unfermented gain in existing SMS banking volition lead the market since BankMuscat has a large portion of market sh be of guests. The current stats show a large usage in electronic services and people establish more technology aware. The stats shows also huge growing in the bend of registered clients with SMS banking and comparing add 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 improvement also pass alongs in the usage of the service comparing it by las t 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 increase if we applied the in the raw services like transactions over SMS and Arabic enabled interface we impart lead the market for years. This also get out increase our commission profit for each SMS sent by customer and exiting attract more service providers to use our SMS banking service as a channel for invoice payment.Our target customers leave behind be all type of customers capable of victimization fluid call offs 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 roadstead traffic is changing the habit of customers of paying for their reports and elect to do all this at their home at own suitable time.Situation analytic thinkingIn order to figure of speech good relationship with our all bet holders we endure to understand our purlieu labours almost all our relationships. In the close section I will describe BankMuscat Internal and external environments on 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 five-spot forces analysis.Porters Five forcesCompetitive Rivalry our rivalry banks are HSBC because its an international well known bank and locally NBO which the second successful bank in Oman. Both are very adaptive to the technology and always competing. menace of entry misuse of SMS banking services may 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 open will serve a bad image of BankMuscat is imitating others initiatives.The indicator of buyers Our customer will intend to use the S MS banking service a lot because they are directly transfer amount from their forecast to utility bills which is easer from withdrawal notes from bank and thusly visiting utility providers outlet to pay their bills.The power of suppliers since our utility providers are a few companies so there is confine of suppliers which will offer to market for their utility payments exclusively to BankMuscat because of the huge figure of customers dealing with.The Threat of substitutes the major threat is victimization 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 exact doing another analysis in macro environment by using PEST analysis.PEST analysisPolitical Factors Telecommunication Regulatory spot may set rules and standards in order to protect the users from fraud by which will make the process of using SMS banking m ore complicated for users. frugal Factors later the recession which happened during end of 2008 the market growth increases over again in 2009 recovery stage and in 2010 most of companies started to gain profits (Oman perceiver 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 department for development.Social 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. But the good liaison is our Arabic basisd SMS banking will capture those who dont want to use other language to do their transactions. The go green campaign which sponsored by more environment organizations and with keep of government is focusing in reduce cover 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(prenominal) companies prefer to do their transactions without using papers and this good trait change customers behavior towards our new electronic services. The availability of mobile coverage and the range of choice 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.Strengths ongoing system already has the function for bill paymentsCurrent system is the a la mode(p) in marketCurrent system has the capability to add supernumerary languagesManagement are very adaptive for new changesLow hail upgradeWeaknessesLimited IT staff for implementationThird party parcel needs support from vendorOther departments not support in marketing of other productsOpportunitiesFastest bills payment with one step from accounting 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 technology jurisprudence enforce in case of misuse of this service by customersInternet banking may attract big portion of SMS banking customersMarketing ObjectiveBankMuscat vision contention Over one million satisfied customers by 2010 by continuous enhancement of s identifyholder value. In pursuit for customer satisfaction and play along 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 intimate to our target market we will be using market section process a nalysis.1-Segmentation VariablesGeographic since SMS banking is mobile technology based service, so there is no limits because it guesss on the coverage of mobile network operator even its support international rooming. The Arabic based SMS is targeting customers e limitedly in rustic 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 commons variables of this particle are customers prefer easy and fast way of bill payment for medium usage in monthly rate and sinister usage for account enquiry. The user status can be ex-user, nonuser, effectiveness user and existing user.2- Market segment profileAfter analyzing the market variables we will now gather the com mon share of who, what and why to build segment profile. Our customer looks like any gender amongst 18-65 years old living anywhere having account in BankMuscat and using textbook messaging of our local mobile operators with sufficient knowledge in using mobile devices. Our customers appeals to do their bill payments at any time fast than any service with both local and English languages. Customers who want to make their bill payment easier and faster on monthly basis 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 carriage bill payments service, also at their convenient language.3-Targeting schemeOur marketing strategy will use a mix of undifferentiated and concentrated strategy. SMS broadside 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 us e SMS banking in Arabic version.4-Evaluate of market segmentsCurrently 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 equation with other banks because this is new service to market. The personify will only occur in implementation stage because of the system upgrade, Ads, brochures and banners.5-Selecting target market found 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 build 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 liveing BankMuscat account holders. Like before this is new service which our customers will experience 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 interrogative 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 submission 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 custom er 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 hollow out system with status of the customer. SMS banking police squad and billing team will incur the access to daily reports of the transactions.BudgetThe budget for the vagabond will take off 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 budge t for the rewards of the best marketing branch. Part of the budget we will get it after the approval from the management. We have good confidence in our management to support the new project as Sheik Abdul Malik Chairman of Bankmuscat described that BankMuscat is welcoming any opportunity to develop pioneered products and services merging the market changes (Letha 2010).ImplementationThe action blueprint is represented in a timeline schedule in next pageboy and will shows each employment 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 feel for each branch how much registration they made in point of time. We will compare 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 onward 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 maintenance mode which will stop any interaction with customers SMS and will send default play back 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 understand the customers issue.Re ferenceTimes of Oman (2010) BankMuscat wins top Banker award. Times of Oman online 14 December 2010. lendable from 23 December 2010.ITA (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 straightaway online 01 Jun 2010. Available from 23 December 2010