Using Internet as One of the Avenues to Market the Products - Assignment Example

?Running head: MARKETING 18th December Question A As the competition in the local and global market becomes stiff, many organizations have turned into using internet as one of the avenues to market their products. Internet marketing entails the use of email and web to advertise or promotes brands in the market with an aim of increasing consumer awareness resulting to high sales. Three major areas that make up the internet marketing include email marketing, social media marketing and web marketing. Web marketing entails use of web sites and search engines to provide information about the prices and other aspects of firm’s brands to the consumers. Email marketing on the other hand involves marketing of brands through the use of messages sent to the existing and potential consumers. Social marketing, one of the most used marketing channels in the contemporary business world, entails use of social sites that includes Face book, You Tube, Digg and Twitter. The concept of perceived benefits and perceived sacrifices indicates that for a customer to experience his or her value, the perceived value or the gain of acquiring the product must be higher than the cost of acquiring the product. An organization can adopt three major value parameters. First, a firm must provide a marketing strategy that meets and exceeds customer needs. Secondly, in a service industry, a firm should ensure that its customers feel comfortable and valued, based on the services provided by the company. Thirdly, in a manufacturing industry, customers must be provided with a service that is of higher value as compared to that of the competitors. Internet marketing that is aimed at matching customer value and reflecting on extensive marketing effectively applies the concept of perceived benefit and perceived sacrifice. One of the notable companies that emulate effective internet marketing to create a customer value that exceeds their expectation is McDonald’s Restaurant. For example, the firm has a website that allows the consumers to browse and get timely information on the latest products that the restaurant has introduced in the market. Additionally, the firm has established a restaurant locator in their website where potential and existing consumers only need to put their street country or town and find a McDonald’s outlets near them. Similarly, Virgin Company has a culture of placing its customers at the centre of its operations. For example, the company has embarked on market research and innovation in order to come up with products that meet the needs of its customers. The Consumers are satisfied when they perceive that psychological costs as well the cost of conversion of sacrifices to benefits are lower that the value they will receive. Thus there is need for companies that aim at creating strong positive customer product relationship emulate internet marketing that provides valuable information to the consumers. By upholding customer value, McDonald’s and Virgin Atlantic have created strong customer base resulting to high sales and sustainable profit for the firms. Similarly, the customers have become loyal towards the firms brands an aspect that has resulted to repeated purchases and strong relationship between the firms and the consumers. Question B Marketing myopia is a marketing term that indicates that any firm or business will do well at the end if the firm concentrates on consumers and its aim is to meet the customer needs rather that the products the firm sells to the customers. Many financial organizations thought that Virgin would be a threat when it entered United Kingdom market in the middle 1990s since it allowed postal strike of the workers and introduction of products that caused a lot of competition in the market. Virgin aim was to do away with monopoly of firms and products thus many thought that virgin was a threat to the existing business. The introduction of virgin in United Kingdom led to transformation of many companies for example a firm like Samsung where industrial working culture has been introduced and efficiencies in the productivity of brands. Organization based threat that capitalism was going to collapse and thus the main idea was to have community ownership of property. According to Branson’s, the introduction of virgin in united kingdom is an ingredient that will lead to success since without competition the customers need will not be achieved rather one will just concentrate only on the financial basis of the firm. Virgin companies in United Kingdom do operate independently and the company has to pay tax and reporting regulations must be considered. Though the aim was to introduce and operate companies independently, most of the companies in United Kingdom are operated jointly. Thatcher (1970) encourages capitalism as the mode of investing where the customers need is achieved and competition will exist since monopoly will not exist. Thatcher (1970) was not up to personal wealth, but the aim was to make the customers to be the considered whenever a company like Toyota is producing different types of brands. Some of the brands that are associated with Virgin markets are Virgin blue airlines, Virgin mobile, Virgin rail among many others. Virgin company is successful up to date since virgin stands for quality products, innovation, fun, and sense of competition in the market. Quality services that meet the customer needs are the key issues that are considered most. Employee’s empowerment is another factor that is important to Virgin companies and this makes the company to allow collective bargaining for the employees. Virgin companies still monitor customer’s feedback since virgin will concentrate more on customer reactions thus trying to improve the customer experience either by upgrading the quality of the brands or even using innovation to satisfy the customer needs. Virgin companies must go in hard with competitors to know what is in the market at the moment and try to come up with creativeness and change their brands thus introducing high quality products than that of competitors. Research on whether the customer is badly served must be done since the aim is to satisfy the customer. Virgin companies reward the employees and ready to venture in risky areas as long as the customers are going to be satisfied. Question C The technique of perceptual mapping is used by marketers to show the perception of customers to the product due to the competition in the market. Perceptual mapping occurs in two dimensions to the consumers and this is based on the conservative and affordability of the products. For example, a firm like Toyota will produce different brands to the consumers which have slight difference in their model with competitors and the product will be of affordable price thus making the product to be sported by the customer as the product of choice. Toyota has the capability of producing different types of brands due to creativity and change in the firm thus being innovative and the idea of perceptual mapping will be successful to the firm since the concept looks for an area where the map is free from competitors. Since Toyota has large market share of various competing products in product line, this will result to high sales volume in the market. Companies that are introducing new brands in the market must look for high density as ideal points for the product due to the competition that exist between the firm and rivals. For example, when Toyota Company produce a new brand in the market, the company first take the brand to high density ideal point and then offers the brand at affordable price to try and get the customers thus making the brand to be accepted in the market. This will be successful when one places both ideal points and competing products on the same map. Perceptual mapping considers the market segments since a company like Toyota will have to consider both the high income earners and low income earners and those who are middle income earners. This is the reason why the firm comes with different brands in the market targeting all possible market segments that can fit to each and every consumer. Perceptual mapping considers two dimensions of consumers the affordability and sportiness or conservative and this shows that the customers will either choose the affordability of the brand or the new model in the market thus the ratio of the customers differs. This indicates that the customer will either go for effectiveness of the product in the market and the other segment of the customer will be based on gentleness of the product. The first step that is considered in perceptual mapping is recognition of the problem so as to try and change the product to fit customers. The second step one must consider is the amount of information about the product due to competition. Perceptual mapping is only achieved when marketers carry a detailed study concerning the research, and this must be implemented when the information come from the consumers directly and not from the management. Toyota Company uses perceptual mapping to find a space where the customer’s desires have not been met and thus using the ideal point’s maps to discover the points. The next step is price elasticity. Price elasticity must be considered due to the customer choice, this is because when Toyota lowers the prices of brand, it will increase the sales and when the prices are high only one market segment for those who are high income earners will buy the products. Price elasticity influences the choice of the customer together with perceptual mapping. Another step is purchase outlet which must be considered in perceptual mapping whether one is going to the retailer or online buying. Question D Individual customers and organizational customers purchase products in order to address their daily needs. An organization that is aimed at attaining high sales and strong positive relationship must identify the differences that exist between the two types of consumers. George (2011) argues that by clearly identifying the purchasing patterns of individuals and organizational customers, an organization will put in place effective marketing techniques to capture their attention. While individuals may buy a brand for their own consumption, organization may purchase similar brand for reselling. In this regard, I agree with the statement that the buying process of individual customers and organizational customers is so different that a separate toolkit is required to market to organizations. One of the key aspects that support my agreement is that in most cases, organizations are keen to earn a profit from a product that they purchase from another company. On the other hand, an individual consumers purchase goods for personal use. This implies that an organization may use discounted prices as one of the major marketing avenue when dealing with the organizational consumers in order to allow them make profits. On the other hand, individual consumers may be attracted to a product by extensive promotional activities such as gifts and use of banners during advertisement. In the case of organizational consumers, they purchase products in larger volumes while individual consumers purchase only the quantity that meets their needs. Thus, an organization should adopt a production strategy that will make the organizational consumers acquire their products at the right quantity. Both the consumer and organizations purchase items so that their goals will be met. The reason why goods are purchased by organizations is to resell to the consumers while the consumers will buy in small quantity since the aim is for personal consumption. The reason why an organization buys goods in bulky is due to consumer demands and the need for manufacture materials. Consumers are driven by their own needs and wants and this why they prefer to buy in small quantity. Individual consumers normally purchase goods due to different reasons than organizations since if the organization has to purchase goods, they do so in most cases only for specific purposes while an individual consumer purchase having in mind that he or she has more freedom of using the product in the way he or she deems fit. For example when a consumer purchase a set of cups he or she can use the products for drinking any type of beverage while an organization can limit the same products to a particular use. Similarly, in the case of individual consumers and one can choose according to the budget while organizations will not only consider budget but the people who are going to use their products. Individual consumers have a significant level of independence while making purchasing decisions. On the other hand, in the case of organizational consumers, the managers, directors and CEOS must be involved in the entire process. This implies that, the suppliers must embark on marketing their products putting into consideration the needs of the management team. References George W. (2011). Purchasing Handbook: Standard Reference Book on Purchasing Policies, Practices, Procedures. London: Sage. Tharcher, M. (1970). Royal Mail Privatization: The Prospect of the Queens Head Juxtaposed With Virgin Ought to Offend all Who Care About her Dignity. London: London Press. Read More