CMU202 Marketing Communications Proof Reading Services

CMU202 Marketing Communications Proof Reading Services

1.0 Introduction:

Marketing communication can be defined as the fundamental parameter and the complex factor of a company’s marketing strategy. Marketing communication is the strategy and attribute which is used by a company to communicate in the market and its consumer. In the following project, the marketing communication strategy of Apple is stated (Lindgreen et al.2012). Being a very popular electronic devices company, Apple faces a lot of competitions in the market. In this era of digitization, the electronic devices companies must use innovative and effective marketing strategies to cope up with the market standards. The strategy of Apple depends on various factors like innovation, the financial position and excellent data access management which can be stated as the advantages of Apple. Besides that, it has some disadvantages also in the marketing field, such as an ineffective use of cloud, and changing management which affects the marketing procedures (Baroto et al.,2012).

2.0 Company Background:

Apple is a brand which was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Wozniak but if there was no third founder then it would not become such popular. The third founder was Ronald Wayne. Ronald Wayne was the person for whom Apple became famous for its products, as in the iPhone, iPad or iMac (Teece, 2012). Slowly the development started with the new innovations. The first application of the iOS platform was ‘Visicalc’. It was a visualized calculator in that time. Later came the iMac, which included the color graphics and thus the brand started becoming famous in time.

3.0 IMC objectives:

Integrated marketing communications in an organization is considered to be the most effective marketing approach to cope up with the changing market (Teece, 2012). To keep a consistent and coordinated marketing communication, several objectives needs to be maintained by the Apple, which are as follows,

Brand awareness:It is one of the most important and common objectives to maintain the standards. Prior to selling the products, an organization should create brand awareness in its target markets. This is to let the people know about the brand. For instance, brand awareness objectives help the organization to understand the market because of their consumer strength(Lindgreen et al.2012).

Favorable Attitude:Once an organization is done with the brand awareness objective successfully, the next it needs to look directly at its major objective of attitude handling. Favorable attitude is needed in the marketing campaigns only to persuade the customers. The objective can be examined by conducting a general attitude towards the brand, pre and post  marketing campaign. This is an important objective as it states the customers’ intentions as well.

The loyalty to the brand:Successful brands try to maintain the loyal relationships with its core customers. As a matter of fact, most of the famous and well-instituted company set its IMC objectives only to maintain the brand loyalty. The strategy for this is to increase the customer database. In this category, most of the brands hope that the customer database would increase by 20% within a month.

Sales Objectives:All the above-mentioned objectives are mainly referred to the communication objectives, or can be said as long term goals. Sales objective mostly referred to as the short-term revenue. Sales objectives are actually simple when measured as it totally depends on the time-frame.

The market of smartphones and smart devices are increasing as per the era of modernization. Apple is an electronic device manufacture company and the best in the market standards. The mentioned objectives are the vital strategies which Apple implements to reach this stage. Nowadays, the only IMC objective which is maintained by Apple is brand loyalty. This is to gain further business from its core customers (Teece, 2012).

4.0 Market Segmentation:

Marketing segmentation of an organization is customer oriented. The segmentation is conducted to find out the specific group of people or a targeted group of customers. In this project, the segmentation of Apple’s market is conducted. Apple has a lot of strategies to implement the target markets. Following the project, the effective ways are discussed (Lindgreen et al.2012).

4.1 Demographic Segmentation:Demographic segmentation is dependent on the attributes such as; family size, gender, age, education, religion, occupation, race, and nationality. Customers can be divided into various groups to achieve the target market accordingly.

4.2 Geographic Segmentation:This segmentation totally requires different criterions. According to the name of the type, the marketing segmentation strategy depends on the region and density (Teece, 2012).

4.3 Psychographic Segmentation:The psychographic segmentation is another kind as it requires the customer’s social class and mostly depends on their lifestyles.

4.4 Behavioral Segmentation:Behavioral segmentation is one type of strategy which depends on the customer’s individualism, as in the characteristics of loyalty, benefits sought, personality and user status.

The table below will give a proper idea about the marketing segmentation of Apple:

Table 1: the marketing segmentation of Apple

5.0 Targeting strategy:

The targeting strategy consists of the evaluation of the attractiveness of each segment and priority-wise choosing of a target place. To achieve the target segment there are mainly two types of attributes which can be used, those are,

1.The first step would be to develop the measures of segment attractiveness by which the targeted place can be chosen depending on the profit potential. 

2.The second step would be selecting the attractive segment. The second stage would depend on the business capabilitieswhich can measure the profit loss variables.

6.0 Positioning strategy:

Positioning strategy mainly varies with the customer variations as well as the product variations. Apple is an electronic manufacturing company, which create innovative products and targets the students using the targeting strategy. On the actual basis, it can be said that Apple positioning statement depends as the Apple computers offer, greatest personal computing effect to the targeted students and educators. Where the targets are the students, the point of difference is the innovations in hardware products. Hence, the vital part in positioning comes with the frame of reference which is the offer that Apple gives the best personal computing experience. The product development symmetrically varies with the positioning strategy (Teece, 2012).

Creative strategy:

The creative strategy consists of artistic tactics which attract the customers more. This category contains several steps, which can be listed as;

Communicating from the inside out:To reach out to the targeted customers, the Apple made new strategies like developing their products and adding new features in their services. The factual hope for this strategy is that the core consumers spread the word and bring new consumers in the market state (Baroto et al.,2012).

Reaching out to the early adaptors:Reaching out to the adaptors means, targeting technically strong customers. The new technicalities are the innovations or creations in the products. Rather than depending on the old customers, the designers of Apple thought of undertaking the students and young society (Ngo et al.,2012).

Simultaneously understanding the requirements of the buyers:Along with the development of the products and services, the organization needs to understand the needs of the consumers. Being productively and innovatively different is another one of the strategies. It is implemented to make the market stronger when needed (Teece, 2012).

8.0 Media Strategy:

Media is such a platform which can help promote any organization and pull it up to the market standards. It is a fact that Apple does not use the media as their promotional source. Once a product is launched, the promotion is visualized once and that program continues for several months (Ngo et al.,2012).

8.1 Media planning:Media planning is another one of the strategies which Apple uses for their marketing of products and services. Planning a press conference to visually promote the products is the key fundamental in this category (Baroto et al.,2012).

8.2 Traditional media:The part traditional media includes the use of newspapers and magazines and journals. Apple targets the best newspaper companies for the promotions. Besides, magazines launch pictures of the new products and services of Apple.

8.3 Internet: TheInternet is another source, Apple mainly use Apple.com as the internet source for their marketing purpose. iStore is another source which consists the services of the organization and reaches out to the public through the internet.

8.4 Digital media:Digitalmedia as in online retailers and social networking sites are another source of the organization to market their products and services. Mainly Apple uses on-line channels which consist, online store, retail store, direct sales force and third-party whole seller. The retail shop is nothing but the Apple.inc which is used to provide the services. The Apple.inc consist iStore which is placed mainly on the major cities that the mass consumers can be reached (Baroto et al.,2012).

8.5 Media scheduling:Media scheduling is no strategy, where the organization chooses different media sources to promote their product and services. It can contain conducting press conference or a seminar about the products and the price of the products and the services (Rubalcaba et al.,2012).

9.0 Budget:

As per the news, it is a fact that Apple suddenly stopped disclosing their spending on the ads and promotions. Where ads and promotions are some effective marketing strategy for the organization. Although it was not disclosed by the company, the fact was in 2015, Apple spent 1.8 billion dollars on marketing tactics which are 50% more than the previous year. The budget depends on the activities conducted by the company which consists conducting conferences, seminars, webinars and On-line ads.

10.0 Evaluation and control:

Implementation, evaluation, and control are the main three legs of the marketing tool. These three are the most necessary things which are needed for the successful completion of marketing strategies.

Evaluation:Evaluation step includes the assessment of the strategies. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis is done in the evaluation step. Quantifiable parameters are much-needed factors in the marketing strategic implementation (Rubalcaba et al.,2012).

Control:Controlling is the final step which determines the quality of the marketing schemes. This is to bring out the possible outcomes of the schemes. When and where to control one strategy can be determined from the evaluation and will be controlled in the controlling process (Teece, 2012).

Conclusion:

Like all other organizations, Apple also makes new strategies and integrates them with the already implemented ones only to exploit more customer aspects. Depending on the market environment, there may be different perspectives taken by the company but the assessment only determines which is required to be implemented and which is not. Before implementation, an assumption can be made about which strategy would make the brand stronger and which strategy needs to be corrected. Evaluation and controlling are the main parameters for the certain purpose. Critical evaluation determines the weaknesses and controlling and implementing overcome those weaknesses.

References:

Books:

Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E. (2012). Strategic management cases: competitiveness and globalization. Cengage Learning.

Solomon, M., Russell-Bennett, R., & Previte, J. (2012). Consumer behavior. Pearson Higher Education AU.

Website:

Dudovskiy, J. (2017). Apple Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning - Research Methodology. Research Methodology. Retrieved 3 April 2017, from http://research-methodology.net/apple-segmentation-targeting-and-positioning/

Journals:

Vivek, S. D., Beatty, S. E., & Morgan, R. M. (2012). Customer engagement: Exploring customer relationships beyond purchase. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 20(2), 122-146.

Lindgreen, A., Hingley, M. K., Grant, D. B., & Morgan, R. E. (2012). Value in business and industrial marketing: Past, present, and future. Industrial Marketing Management, 41(1), 207-214.

Stremersch, S., & Tellis, G. J. (2002). Strategic bundling of products and prices: A new synthesis for marketing. Journal of Marketing, 66(1), 55-72.

Mangram, M. E. (2012). The globalization of Tesla Motors: a strategic marketing plan analysis. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 20(4), 289-312.

Ngo, L. V., & O'Cass, A. (2012). In search of innovation and customer?related performance superiority: The role of market orientation, marketing capability, and innovation capability interactions. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 29(5), 861-877.

Rubalcaba, L., Michel, S., Sundbo, J., Brown, S. W., & Reynoso, J. (2012). Shaping, organizing, and rethinking service innovation: a multidimensional framework. Journal of Service Management, 23(5), 696-715.

Teece, D. J. (2012). Dynamic capabilities: Routines versus entrepreneurial action. Journal of Management Studies, 49(8), 1395-1401.

Baroto, M. B., Abdullah, M. M. B., & Wan, H. L. (2012). Hybrid strategy: a new strategy for competitive advantage. International Journal of Business and Management, 7(20), 120.

Easingwood, C., & Koustelos, A. (2000). Marketing high technology: preparation, targeting, positioning, execution. Business Horizons, 43(3), 27-34.

Smith, K. G., Grimm, C. M., Chen, M. J., & Gannon, M. J. (1989). Predictors of response time to competitive strategic actions: Preliminary theory and evidence. Journal of Business Research, 18(3), 245-258.