Todays business world has became much competitive that requires continuous and visible effort to get and retain customers. Companies are increasing focus on sales and marketing. Marketing is fairly easy process which comprises of five steps
Step 1: Understand market client, strength and weakness
Step 2: Develop Marketing Strategy
Step 3: Develop Marketing Plan
Step 4: Implement Marketing Plan
Step 5: Monitor Plan Implementation
“Although five steps are very much clear, many companies confused when it comes to developing effective strategy”, says Kevin Clancy, Chairman & CEO of Copernicus Marketing Consulting and Research. He furthers add, “An effective strategy should address the customer”. Strategy is set of actions/plans that help to achieve targeted goal. In other word strategy is anything that takes to win. So what is marketing strategy? Marketing strategy is combination of following:
- Targeting—to whom are you going to market your products and services?
- Positioning—how are you going to differentiate yourself from competitors?
- Product/Service Attributes—what attributes/features will the product/service have?
- Marketing Communications—how are you going to reach the target and with what message?
- Pricing—what price will you charge the target?
- Distribution—what channels will you use to sell the product or service?
- Customer Service—how will you manage additional customer needs?
Among all, Targeting and Positioning are important. If those two elements are taken care, other will come along.
Targeting is to focus particular segment of market. Many marketers believe focusing on set of costumers helps to gain success faster. It will be much easier and cost-effective to develop marketing mix and communicate with customers once target is identified. Success of target depends how effectively market is segmented. Different sets of parameters can be used to segment market, such as:
- Category involvement: how important purchases in this category are to the buyer?
- Product preference motivators: what characteristics are most motivating?
- Product purchasing patterns: how frequently do they buy?
- Media habits: what do buyers watch, read, listen to?
- Sociographics: how strong is their ethnic affiliation and religiosity?
- Demographics: what is their income, age, and level of education?
- Psychographics: what are their lifestyle attitudes?
For example, when Ncell (formally MeroMobile) launched in Nepal, they segment market based on demographic. They found that large chunk of youth, especially college level population is re not using NTC service. That’s why they decided to target youth segment. They run many campaign such as rock concert, street festivals targeting youth where they distributed free SIM. They also ran special offer for SLC pass-out students. Ncell become successful, and now, they claim #1 carrier in Nepal, having 7 million subscriptions.
Once target market is defined, marketer has to create product position. Positioning is to create distinct image in customer’s mind for a category of product or service. Some examples of position are:
- Coke – Authentic, real, original
- Pepsi – For youthful, hip generation
- Nike – shoe for serious sport
- Google – Leader in Web Search
Kevin Clancy said that positioning is difficult task as it is associated with value proposition. Marketer should develop clear, beautiful message and deliver it to consumers. Message is one sentence or two, even a word/phrase that should describe products or services offered and differentiate from others’. However the claim should be supported by continuous activities in long-run. Strong positioning supported by activities always creates a powerful brand. Ncell claimed that they have clear network. People perceive Ncell network as reliable. Ncell has been able to differentiate it from NTC by positioning itself as superior network quality. Now NTC users also subscribe Ncell services for backup purpose.
When target group is identified, marketers also have to find out what attributes and benefits of products/service do matter to the group. It is not easy to figure out these attributes and benefits. However there’s helpful tool that can be used to uncover them such as category scan, exploratory research, personality research, social values and emotional exploration. These attributes and benefits are what differentiate from competitors. Ncell cleverly identified frustration of NTC users about poor network and capitalize on this.
Marketers should take rigorous steps to develop marketing strategy. They should take into consideration various aspects such as need, interest, behaviors, and motivating attributes of customers. Targeting and position are two important elements of marketing strategy. Targeting is where marketers want to sale products or services whereas positioning is what customer buy. This is because target group of customers find better value in products/services.
Note: Part of AIM work.
