Marketing Strategy: Customer Creation, Branding Decisions (Essay Sample)

Marketing Strategy
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Marketing Strategy
Many firms are disillusioned in the global market sales due to the saturation of the old markets and founding of new ones. The big question is how these firms are going to customize their products and services in order to meet the new markets demands. What are the customers’ needs? With the stiff competition in the market most companies think that the venture of marketing analysis is not worth the effort (Levitt, 2006). In this essay is the review on various companies such as Saxonville Sausage and Aqualisa their branding, strategies they used, decision making, segmentation among others and how these strategies have helped these firms thrive in a stiff market and be able to launch new products as well as promote their brands.
Question 1
Customer creation and keeping
Levitte says that the main purpose of a firm is to create and keep a customer. This is a very vital and weighty statement in marketing. Every organization is dependent on customers and the success of the firm would be based on how successful it is in making new customers as well as maintaining them. There is a common slogan that says a happy customer comes back with another customer. If a company knows the strategy of referral, the customer base will be stable hence steady growth of the company. This is simply means that firms should seek to understand the needs of consumers. This is because consumers will buy commodities or pay for services that they need. What they purchase is valued in terms of how effective or help it will be to solve their needs. When firms understand the needs of their customers then they stand in a better position to create new customers and keep them. The worth the consumers get from the products and services offered by a particular company will make them come back for some more and eventually refer someone else.
There are numerous ways that companies use to create new customers and sustain them. One of these ways is customer satisfaction. Happy customers will always want to come back. They might also share their experience with the friends who would want to visit the business. The other strategy is branding and launching of new products and services. When releasing a new product or service is a better platform to attract new customers as well as maintaining the old ones. This gives more options and varieties for the customers. Therefore, they would not want to turn elsewhere. Branding is also important in customer maintenance. Most customers would prefer branded products that make the feel at home and that they can identify with easily. Therefore it is important for every company that seeks to create new customers and keep them to check on some of these strategies.
Question 2
Product and Branding decisions
Product and branding decisions can become complicated. In most cases companies end up experiencing negative effects which might be a result of poor brand management. There are major decisions included in product development and branding such as brand development, name selection, sponsorship, and positioning. It is therefore important to understand what branding is all about. It is the organization’s promise to the consumers to deliver a particular bundle of features, services, experiences and benefits consistently. However, it is easier when perceived as the consumers’ perceptions about particular products from a certain company. It is evident therefore that all the marketing, product development and branding strategies are directed towards the consumers.
At positioning strategy a company may use product attributes which basically are about eh features of the products. For example, if it’s a car company, they might talk about fancy colors, big engines and performance. However this is the least level of positioning simply because other market players can copy the attributes hence taking away the uniqueness of the product. Te other attribute is the benefits for example, the car company may go beyond the physical description of the car and express something like lifestyle, comfort and easy comfortable transportation. Further, the strongest firms exceed the position and benefit strategies and go for values and beliefs. This engages consumers emotionally to a deeper level of interaction. Most of these brands have become the "cool brands" by properly managing to maintain the feelings of excitement, surprise and passion to the consumers and the environment surrounding the brand and or the product.
Name selection is another complex decision in branding. Though it might be very obvious it plays a major role as it is the base of the brand or the product. Therefore, in order to have the name of the product revealing to most of the customers there is need to do an analysis of the product in terms of the target market, benefits and proposed market strategies. With such information then it becomes easy to develop a name for the brand. Name selection is partly art, science and intensely instinct. A good name would at least feature the following; easy to pronounce, distinctive, easy to translate into other languages, portrays something about the brand and product qualities and benefits. It is worth noting that when selecting a name for a product or a brand it should allow company’s expansion in future. This is to say that the name should not be too rigid but a name that can cover other products, services and future developments of the brand.
Brand sponsorship is another strategy that is important in product development and branding decisions. There are four options for sponsorship available for manufacturers. One, there is the option of manufacturer’s brand. Here the brand is under their name and it is also known as the national brand. It can be supplied all over the nation. Second, the manufacturer may opt to sell the brand to resellers who rename the product giving it the private brand. This allows consumers to go for the locally branded products than the nationally expensive brand names due to cost factors. Third, the manufacturer can opt for licensed brand. Other companies license symbols or names that have been created by other manufacturers previously. For example, children product sellers sell items with movie character names. Finally, co-brands are formed when two companies merge. It involves selling of established brand names on the same product.
Finally, branding decisions include development. In this level the company may have four options which include; new brands, multi-brands, brand extension and line extensions. Line extension simply involves extending the already existing brands to new sizes, color, forms, and ingredients. Though there is risk of losing the brands’ meaning, it is the most low-risk means of introducing new products and brands. The best example is when a company such as coca-cola introduces a new flavor into the market. Then there is the brand extension development strategy. It also assumes the already existing brand name but introduces a new product category to combine with the existing name. this is more of an advantage as the new product gains acceptance and recognition faster. This would save the company substantial advertisement costs. Multi-brands is another means of marketing strategy for global companies. This involves marketing and selling more than two products under the same brand name. The best examples are the Unilever and Procter and Gamble. The best thing with this strategy is that it provides consumers with a wide range of products from a trusted brand McKenna, Rogis, 1991). Finally, there is the new brand marketing strategy. This is much necessary when the already existing name brand is waning. It is also appropriate when a company needs to enter a new product category matching none of the existing ones. It is evident that the four discussed branding decisions all relate. In order to ensure a strong brand these four major strategies must be in line with the other. With this in mind we are able to analyze how some companies are able to apply some of these strategies successfully in managing the potential risk of strategic research marketing. Saxonville sausage and Aqualisa are two companies that have been affected by marketing strategies and somehow have managed the risk while launching their new products.
Saxonville Sausage
Saxonville Sausage has been experiencing lag in sales especially on the bratwurst. Bratwurst is the company’s main product contributing 70% of the revenue. Other products such as breakfast sausage are reregistering zero percentage contribution to the company’s revenue. Therefore the company has to do something to improve its position in the sausage top market brands. Bratwurst and breakfast sausages are sold throughout the nation. However, the company is not well represented in the Northeastern due to limited distribution. The company therefore seeks to reposition Italian sausage products since it was the only product that was able to register growth in sales while others decreased.
Saxonville Sausage under the leadership of Ann was able to apply the marketing strategies of differentiation and positioning. The company decided to single out the Italian sausage from the other products. This was in efforts to make the product outstand. In this strategy there was the decision to give the product a new name. This is to lure the customers of a new product. The other thing the company did was to carry out a target focus group. These products would be given to focus groups and their opinions would be use to determine the most preferable product and single it out. This is to be followed by massive advertisement through all platforms. This is to create awareness to the consumers just before the launching of the new product.
Aqualisa
The company is reputed in t...