Essay On Marketing Strategies

This report consists of two sections. It starts defining market ideas and structures then proceeds with assignment task and analyses marketing strategies being used by Sensodyne, a very well positioned brand globally in health care market. Definition of marketing In a very simple way, marketing can be defined as Having a good knowledge of customers needs and wants Providing customers with what they require Gaining customer trust and satisfaction Improving the product futures over years Kotler sees marketing as an ongoing process of exchanging products and value between individuals and groups in order to satisfy their needs or wants (2009:6).

Importance of Marketing

Assume a company is providing a highest quality of a product ever. It focuses on all operational and functional departments except marketing. Company will not achieve success because there in no way of communication between its “high quality product” and the market therefore customers looking for the same product would prefer buying what they have already heard of through advertisement. In this case there won’t be any sufficient demand for the company product hence no profit. For example DHL is one of the successful carrier companies in international express and logistics.

DHL doesn’t hold much of a market share in the United States because there is no marketing was done in that part of the world. United Parcel Service and Federal Express are the best in the United States logistic market because of their focus on this respective market. Kotler simply explain the importance of marketing as “Financial success depends on marketing ability”. (2009:4) Market Segmentation In a brief, Customers have different types of common requirement depending on: Where they are? (Geographic Segment) What situation they have? (Demographic Segment) How they live ? (Psychological Segment)

And how they respond towards a product (?Behavioural Segment) Segmentation is to identify these common different requirements in a market and specify them. Walley refers to segmentation as break down of the whole market into individual and specified group of customers who share similar demands. (2010:73) Source :(Walley. , 2010:74) Market Targeting Considering which product or service organisation has to offer and identifying which segment is profitable for the organisation, the next step would be how to target this chosen segment. University of southern California defines targeting as selecting which particular segment to serve.

Five basis of marketing target selections are:

1. Single segment concentration
2. Multi segment coverage
3. Market specialisation
4. Product specialisation
5. Full market coverage (Mass marketing) (Kotler et al. , 2009:220)

Market Positioning Positioning can be referred to as an art of distinguishing organisation differentiation from its competitors in customers mind. It is about how an organisation wants to be seen in a market by its customers.

Market share of a product (a brand) is in direct relation of how successful its organisation (or who is marketing it) is to build up a unique image in public’s mind. Good positioning techniques like a carving knife, carves the name of a brand in customers mind. Most of the people have adopted certain well positioned brands into their everyday life without even realizing it.

The below are examples of brand names that adopted by public as common words and the product they present:

• Pampers (adopted as diapers)
• Kleenex (Adopted as tissue)
• Tide (adopted as detergent)
• Surf (adopted as detergent)
• Nescafe (adopted as coffee with sugar and milk)
• Coke (Adopted as Soda)
• Aspirin (adopted as pain killer)
• Xerox (adopted as photocopy).

There are different positioning strategies for an organisation to chose:

1. Positioning by product features / unique attributes
2. Positioning by benefits
3. Positioning by usage and use time
4. Positioning by users
5. Positioning by competitors/ against competition
6. Positioning by corporate identity
7. Positioning by brand endorsement
8. Product class positioning
9. Price quality positioning
10. Points of Differences
11. Brand word began as a way to differentiate a person’s cattle from another using hot iron stamp.

Basically point of difference is about pointing out the primary benefits of a brand that totally fulfils consumer’s wants and needs which competitors do not have. Examples are:

• IKEA (affordable design)
• Michelin (performance)
• Nike (performance)
• Federal Express (guaranteed overnight delivery)
• Lexus (quality)
• Bosch (quality)
• Points of Parity (POP)

Being unique is not a must to compete in a market. If brand (product) doesn’t have any uniqueness to offer, it may point out its similarity or to other brands. There are two basic form of parity points:

1. Category points of parity
2. Competitive points of parity(Kotler 2009:285)

Points of parity versus points of difference:

Points of parity on particular attribute or benefit requires positive feedback from customers believing that, the brand is good enough on that attribute or benefit. A brand does not necessary have to be positioned as equal to competitor therefore there would be an acceptable tolerance on point or parity. In terms of point of difference, consumers should be convinced of the uniqueness attributes of a brand. (Kotler 2009:285)

Differentiation

Differentiation is a process in which company tries to gain differences between their products and those offered by competitors.

Differentiation can be made based on: Form Customization Futures (Kotler et al. , 2009:313) There are three ways to gain competitor advantage:

1. Cost leader ship: gaining advantage on competitors by offering lowest possible price available in the market.
2. Superior quality: attracting customers to buy company products because if it’s high quality regardless of the higher price comparing to its competitors.
3. Product or service differences: customer needs or wants are subject to change. Companies offering a product or service might be losing their customers if there won’t be any changes over years on their product.

Category Membership

Practically customers are looking for a product based on two aspects. High quality products which are usually expensive, or products with standard quality but reasonable price. When customers see a new brand, they try to compare this new brand with a brand they already know. Taking Lenova Net book as an example, customers are comparing this brand with Dell, LG or Samsung to see if it is belong to the same class or level. Lenova marketing team needs to concentrate working on strengthen of its category membership before stating its point of difference.