Frontiers in Business, Economics and Management ISSN: 2766-824X | Vol. 4, No. 3, 2022 19 IMC plan for “Electronic Moxibustion Instrument” Product Zhifeng Wu Xi’an Jiaotong-liverpool University, Jiangsu, 215123, China Abstract: As an important branch of traditional Chinese medicine, moxibustion has the miraculous effect of curing diseases, beautifying and nourishing the skin, and replenishing the vital energy, but it also has the disadvantages of inconvenience, environmental pollution and high temperature burns. With the rapid development of computer technology and sensor technology in recent years, the desire to use modern technology to improve moxibustion therapy has become increasingly urgent. This essay will describe in detail how to successfully promote crowdfunding product “Electronic moxibustion instrument” to the market and expand business through IMC plan. Specifically, it will involve product competitor analysis, target group selection, promotion channels, advertising creativity, financial and resource support. Ultimately, a comprehensive IMC program to promote “electronic moxibustion instruction” to different target groups, shifting the product from a push strategy to a pull strategy, with consumers creating their own demand and actively buying the product. Keywords: IMC plan, Electronic moxibustion instrument, Crowdfunding product. 1. Introduction In order to successfully promote the market and increase the business for the “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product of SHEN LONG company which has completed the crowd-funding, this essay made an IMC plan. The reasons for choosing this product are as follows: a. Traditional moxibustion comes from traditional Chinese medicine and has a long history. It is a medical method that can treat diseases and enhance physical fitness (Chen, S.-Z., Pan, W.- X. and Jing, X.-H, 2021). This means that moxibustion has a profound cultural foundation and history, and its safety and practicality are very high, which is conducive to gaining the recognition of consumers; b. More potential consumers. Jianyi Hao (2021) reported that the Chinese government plans to add knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine to the education curriculum. In the future, especially in the Chinese market, there will be more and more people to understand the knowledge of moxibustion; c. Safer and more convenient. Traditional moxibustion requires lighting to be used, which can cause fire and burns to some extent. “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product improves the safety through electric drive, and can freely control the smoke volume of moxibustion, which is more convenient to use and carry; d. Better use effect. The effect of moxibustion comes from smoke and heat. “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product can intelligently control the smoke and heat of moxibustion. Its product introduction mentions: "The first ten minutes are smoke and smell, and the last thirty minutes are dominated by mugwort.” 2. Situation Analysis Because “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product combines traditional moxibustion with modern technology, there are few substitutes in the market, so the biggest competitor of this product is traditional moxibustion. SWOT analysis of traditional moxibustion: S. Strength is that traditional moxibustion has a long historical background and clinical experience, so it can persuade consumers to get more support. In addition to this, according to the papers published in China from 1954 to 2007, moxibustion can treat at least 364 kinds of diseases (Dr Raghuram Y.S. MD and Dr Manasa B.A.M.S, 2020). This means that moxibustion has good curative effect, and the applicable consumer groups are also very diverse; W. The weakness is that first of all, traditional moxibustion needs to ignite moxa stick and heat the skin at close distance, so that the heat of moxibustion can better pass through the skin and enter the human body, but it will have fire risks when used, and it is very easy to burn the user. Secondly, when traditional moxibustion is lit, a lot of smoke cannot be controlled. It is very inconvenient to use in a closed space, a large amount of smoke cannot be drained away in time, which greatly affects the experience of users and surrounding people; O. The opportunity is that the government gradually attaches importance to the importance of traditional Chinese medicine in recent years and has planned to let more people know the knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine in the future, which makes the potential customers of moxibustion more and more. As Jianyi Hao (2021) claimed that especially with the popularization of moxibustion and acupuncture knowledge, the Chinese government is increasingly aware of their practicality and is worried that no one will inherit them; T. Threat comes from two aspects, the first is from the internal factors of traditional moxibustion, due to the need to use fire there are a lot of risk, there have been many cases of user injuries, makes some consumers with hesitation. Followed by the external factor, such as the impact of “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product into the market, to break the traditional moxibustion model monopoly on the market. 3. IMC Objectives and Strategy Firstly, classify “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product into self-actualization needs by “consumer motivatior Maslow's Hierachy needs”. Secondly, according “consumer decision-making process” to find target consumer groups, customize different communication and advertising strategies for each consumer group. Finally, make a comprehensive marketing plan to solve the problem of “brand touchpoint” 20 more efficiently and accurately, and turn “Push strategy” into “Pull strategy” in the future, let consumers create their own demand. IMC goal is clear division of consumer groups, and efficient integration of promotion, advertising, public relations and a series of transmission resources, thus more accurate unified message to different target consumer groups, hit the needs of different consumer groups, thereby saving businesses time and resources, let consumers understand product quickly, and to promote the product into the market. 4. Ideal Target Markets Target Market 1: Chinese 20-30 years old office working young consumers. In the today’s society, especially office workers, young workers because of irregular live time, lack of outdoor sports, most of them have some health problems, such as sleep disturbance, muscle pain, irregular heartbeat…All of the above symptoms can be called sub- health. It can be seen from Table 1 that the group aged 18-22 is the age of high incidence of sub-health, and the first two bar charts in Table 2 show that moxibustion has a good effect on the treatment of sub-health. This means that for “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product, it is very accurate to correspond to the needs of this consumer group, which can not only improve the sub-health status of this group, but also avoid the disadvantage of traditional moxibustion, can freely control the size of smoke, and can also be convenient to use in the office, so this consumer group will have many potential customers. Target Market 2: Japanese identify with the traditional Chinese medicine of the retired elderly consumer groups. Japan has the highest proportion of elderly people in the world, with 27.3 percent of the population aged 65 or over (Shiho Fukada, 2020). Meanwhile, Wenjun Yu and Mingyue Ma (2017) point out that Traditional Chinese medicine is also highly recognized in Japan, due to the similarities between ancient China and Japanese culture, and the Japanese government also attaches great importance to it in modern society. Therefore, due to the large number of elderly people in Japan, the high recognition of traditional Chinese medicine culture, and the electric drive can well prevent the elderly from being scalded during moxibustion, “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product has a large potential market among the elderly in Japan. Table 1. Statistics of health status by age range in China. Table 2. Effects of moxibustion on sub-health. 5. Communication Mix “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product will be promoted through social media and outdoor advertising. Target Market 1: For young Chinese consumers, promoting products through social media can be very efficient and precise. 88 percent of 18 to 29 years old young people use social media every day (Surprising Social Media Statistics- The 2021 Edition, 2021). This means that if you advertise the product on social media or cooperate with KOL, let the brand name and product efficacy be quickly remembered by young potential consumers, it will be very precise to let this target group know about the product and promote sales. The advertisement of “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product for this target group should pay more attention to the application of science and technology to the product, so as to make the publicity more scientific and technological, because the young group is more willing to accept something different. Target Market 2: Although our target consumer group is the retired elderly in Japan, since the elderly basically have no 21 additional income except the pension and their consumption power is limited, the real consumption decision makers for this group are the children or grandchildren of the elderly. However, the age of the grandchildren of the elderly has been included in the first target group, so the outdoor advertising method is mainly aimed at middle-aged Japanese, that is, the children of the elderly. Middle-aged Japanese have stable basic incomes and more free shopping time. Compared with online shopping, this consumer group is more willing to accept the traditional offline shopping method. In addition, the majority of middle-aged Japanese have their own independent families and spaces, and they have more opportunities to go outdoors, which means they have more opportunities to see outdoor advertisements. 6. Implementation The Chinese market: “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product is planned to be priced at 284 yuan, and is planned to be advertised mainly through Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou and Bilibili, which are popular social media in China. The launch time is about one month, and the cost is planned to be 700,000 yuan. And establish the network marketing model, mainly through the network discount to stimulate consumers to buy products, in order to achieve the purpose of accumulating customer base. In addition, it is planned to successfully operate official social media accounts belonging to “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product in the next two years, shoot short videos to teach how to use moxibustion and how to find the right acupoints to treat diseases through the way of MPR, so as to increase user brand loyalty and expand potential customer groups. The Japanese market: “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product are priced at 2,999 yen, and the company plans to launch outdoor advertisements on the busy commercial streets of first and second-tier cities in Japan, as well as simultaneously promote the products through social media. In order to save costs, the outdoor advertising will last for two weeks and social media for one month, and the plan is to spend about 700,000 RMB. At the same time, they enter large e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and sell products through online marketing mode. To sum up, including the production cost, the budget is about 2 million people, and the publicity cycle is one month. The government needs to issue a product quality certificate to open an online shop, and carefully review the advertising content to ensure that consumers understand the product to the greatest extent, and identify with the brand. 7. Conclusion In general, the IMC program is characterized by targeted publicity methods and resource applications for different target customer groups. In this way, “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product can select target customer groups more accurately through IMC plan, achieve better marketing effect and have more diversified ways. Different promotion channels can be used to make different advertisements for each consumer groups. In addition, the basic idea of IMC for “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product is to obtain more consumer markets through marketing and discounts in the early stage of entering the market, so as to let more people know about the product and brand, such as a large amount of publicity spending and discount sales on e-commerce platforms. In the future, when consumers are gradually loyal to the product, more resources should be spent on improving consumer experience, such as opening more offline stores, so as to improve the after-sale level of the product and timely repair and upgrade the product for consumers. It is always the transformation from Push strategy to Pull strategy, allowing consumers to create their own demand and take the initiative to buy “Electronic moxibustion instrument” product. References [1] Bingwei Ai and Jie Shen (2018) ‘Effectiveness of Mild Moxibustion for Sub-Health Conditions in Pre- and Post- Menopausal Women: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial’ doi: 10.12659/MSM.909721 [2] Chen, S.-Z., Pan, W.-X. and Jing, X.-H. (2021) ‘[Internationalized background of developing modern acupuncture and moxibustion-on the reform of teaching material of Acupuncture and Moxibustion ]’, Zhongguo zhen jiu = Chinese acupuncture & moxibustion, 41(3), pp. 237–241. doi: 10.13703/j.0255-2930.20200211-0002. 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