Marketing Management and Planning - Term Paper Example

Marketing Management and Planning Name Institution Executive Summary This report is based on a marketing plan for Samsung Limited that is necessary to address the issues facing the company. One issue facing the company is lack of online presence that has limited its potential to reach large customer base. In addition, Samsung has been faced with reputation challenge that has threatened to destroy its image due to recall of its smartphones. To boost competitive advantage, the company should achieve some objectives in the period of 12 months. It should increase sales by 20% through online sales; it should establish social media campaigns to reach more customers and should improve the quality of its products to rebuild its reputation. Samsung can achieve these objectives by repositioning itself through restructuring its marketing mix. For instance, the company should expand its on-line market by using new marketing media such as Facebook and Twitter. Also, in various smartphone models, the company should adopt competitive pricing in order to beat its competitors. Making these changes will ensure the company resolve its issue and regain its competitiveness. Contents Contents 3 1.Introduction 4 2.Marketing Objectives 4 2.1 Current Situation 4 2.2 Objectives 5 3.Target Marketing and Positioning 6 3.1 Target Markets 6 3.2 Positioning 8 4.Marketing Mix Strategies 9 4.1 Product Strategy 10 4.2 Price strategy 10 4.3 Promotion Strategy 11 4.4 Distribution Strategy 11 5.0 Conclusion 12 References 13 Appendixes 14 Marketing Management and Planning 1. Introduction This report a continuation of the situational analysis of Samsung Electronics aimed at creating a marketing plan that would ensure the company addresses its major issues to enhance its competitiveness. The situational analysis identified some issues that need to be solved. First, Samsung has limited online presence and therefore needs to promote its brand using online tools such as social media and website. Second, the company is faced with reputation challenge that has threatened to destroy its image. Thus, it should look for ways to address this issue, for instance through quality improvement and implementation of corporate social responsibility initiative. This paper will first address the current situation facing Samsung and the marketing objectives for the new 12-month term marketing plan. Also, the report will identity the target segment relevant for the company and how it will position its products. It will eventually develop a marketing mix to reflect on the overall approach that Samsung should take to boost its competitive advantage. The paper will conclude by reporting how the marketing mix can be used by the company and how it will assist in eliminating the contemporary issues. 2. Marketing Objectives 2.1 Current Situation Samsung Electronics Limited is a major player in the information technology industry (Samsung, 2014). It operates as a mobile operating company having come up with innovative and competitive products such as Samsung Galaxy. The mobile industry is involving fast and is faced with intense competition from large players like Huawei and Apple. In order to survive, the Samsung should ensure it satisfies its customers (Chen and Ann, 2016). However, currently, the company was faced with two major issues that threatened to destroy its reputation. Samsung recalled about 51,000 Galaxy Note 7 mobile phones in 2016 as a result of battery explosion. The recall has affected the company financial since it requires billions of dollars to repair and replace the smartphones and mend its reputation (Samsung, 2014). This illustrates how it is important for the company to improve the quality of its products. In addition, compared to its competitors, Samsung lags behind in its online promotional strategies. Today, more and more people use social media to socialize and shop. Therefore, the company should take advantage of this by expanding its presence in the social media in order to stay ahead of its competitors (Mulhern, 2009). 2.2 Objectives In line with the issues facing Samsung, it is important to come up with objectives that can be achieve within a period of 12 months. The main objectives relevant for the company are as outlined below: Improvement and enhancement of total quality management and expanding its new product development initiative by streamlining its strategic models in order to cut down on the number of its model and focus on the main products. By doing this, Samsung will be able to focus on the primary products and concentrate more on quality (Rojas, 2000). This will enhance quality of its products and prevent future recalls. Since product quality is a vital criterion used by the customers to make purchasing decisions, Samsung will enhance product quality and increase sales by 25%. Establishing social media campaign and messaging and content sharing through Twitter and Facebook to increase customer engagement. This will increase audience by 30% and will enhance customer-company relationship. Social media presence will allow the company reach larger customer base (Mulhern, 2009). To increase its online sales by 20% of the overall sales by establishing an online store where customers can assess all its products and buy online. This objective will contribute to enhancing the company’s reputation since it will be able to communicate directly to the consumers and avoid future quality problems (Chen and Ann, 2016). Quality improvement should be the priority objective for the company since the reputation of the company is in jeophady after the recall inclident. Therefore, the most important objective for Samsung should be to improve the quality of its products to avoid such future inclidence. The second objective should be to establish social media campaign to create awereness and reach large customer base. The company lacks effective social media coverage and this would act as a stepping stone for attaining success. The next objective should be to establish an online store in order to create a direct relashionship with the customer and reduce distribution channel. 3. Target Marketing and Positioning 3.1 Target Markets The marketing plan for Samsung will also involve identifying potential market segments that the company should target (Knopfle, 2016). The company should target its customers by dividing them into segment and offering different products based on their preferences. Samsung has divided its segment into four variables; geographical, behavioural, psychographic and demographic. Figure 1: Basis of Samsung segmentation The major markets to be targeted by Samsung include young adults, college and graduates, upper middle class professionals, children and elderly people (Samsung, 2014). The Galaxy S-line is suitable for college and graduates since it has high internet speed, and it is multifunctional and portable. The Samsung Galaxy Note is suitable for upper middleclass professionals since it has business-friendly features and a big screen. Simple mobile phones such as Samsung Galaxy Y-line should target young children and the elderly since it is easy to handle and is cheaper compared to other products (Samsung, 2014). The main target group for Samsung will be young. The upper middle class professionals also constitute primary target segment. With differentiated strategy, the company offers different products that satisfy its target markets. Young people including teens and youths are the most elusive and valuable cusomters of smartphone companies. Young people are early adapters and their preferences are defined. They lead the way on mobile technology and most of them access the internet through their phones. More than 60% of the social media users are young people and access it though their phones. They are morelikely to usethier phones for different applications that adults and are influencers to their parents. They do not focus on price when purchasing mobile devices but on design,specificants, and features. Targeting this segment will gurantee high sales for Samsung. 3.2 Positioning The concept of product positioning may be founded upon the functions of the products, the experience and symbol it portrays. Due to Samsung’s superiority in the mobile market, the threat of competition is minimal (Knopfle, 2016). However, as a result of its damage reputation, the company has faced fierce competition from Apple. Through innovation and technology, the company has established their point of parity. The features, performance and specifications, durability and design are crucial elements of its parity. Currently, the positioning of Samsung is to beat its competitors in the mobile and smartphone industry (Samsung, 2014). To do this, the company decided to be more customer-focussed to establish a strong brand image. It mainly focuses on making its mobile phones with the best designs and features than its competitors. Figure 2: Positioning map focussing on features, design, durability and performance. The diagram above shows that Samsung positions its brand depending on design and features of its products. Product repositioning is required to address the current issues facing the quality of its products. The company should shift its position vertically towards performance and features. The repositioning will be achieved through improvement of its total quality management (Bieger and Lasser, 2002). This will allow the company to work on improving the quality of its products. 4. Marketing Mix Strategies The following marketing mix is tailored to Samsung’s primary target audience. It will ensure that the company reposition its product and regain back its reputation. The new marketing mix involves the changes that need to be done to enhance its marketing strategy. It will focus on product, price, promotion and distribution. 4.1 Product Strategy Samsung products were initially considered of high quality but its image was destroyed after the battery for its Galaxy Note 7 exploded. In addition to offering mobile phones with supporting features, it should focus on improving their quality. The company has been focused on offering products based on design and features. Samsung can improve its products by cutting back on the number of models and coming up with a new model that focuses on features and specifications appreciated by young people (Samsung, 2014). For instance, the new smartphone should be water resistant, ultra power saving, should take good picturesand should have high internet connectivity. Basically, the new product should focus on the features that young people appreciate (Passikoff, 2006). However, in doing so, Samsung should ensure the product is of high quality to prevent future recalls. 4.2 Price strategy Currently, Samsung uses different pricing strategy for its different products. The price for its smartphones is in the same price range as its competitors. Samsung should tailor its pricing strategy in order to have a competitive edge. For instance, the company should adopt competitive price strategy for its new smartphone (Mulhern, 2009). The mobileindustry is faced with intense competition from companies such as Appleand Nokia. With its reputation on the edge, the company should use competitive pricing for the new product line. Competitive pricing strategy involves setting prices of products in accordance to what the competitors are charging (Mulhern, 2009). This strategy is often used on products that have stayed in the market for a long time with equilibrium sale. Samsung has three options; it can set price below the competitors, slightly above the competitors or at the level of competitors. For the new products that target the young people, the company should set prices below the competitors to appeal to the mass market (Mulhern, 2009). 4.3 Promotion Strategy Samsung should make huge changes to its promotional strategies in order to appeal to its target segment. Young people are active users of social media pages such as Facebook,Twitter and Instagram. To attract their attention, Samsung should come up with social media campaign targeting young people. From the situational analysis done before, it is clear that the company invested more on advertising, personal selling and sales promotion (Samsung, 2014). Samsung has limited presence in the social media. Therefore, to improve its promotional activities and increase its sale, the company should expand its on-line market by using new marketing media such as Facebook and Twitter (Cole, 2015). The launching of the new product should be done through Facebook and Twitter. The company can first launch creative teaser campaigns to show a sneakpic of what’s coming up. It should also create social media challenges with a promise of rewards and incentives to the winners.This will generate buzz and engage the target audience. Samsung should ensure it remains consistent and engage with the fans irrespective of time. Such a campaign in the socil media will result in successful product launch (Cole, 2015). 4.4 Distribution Strategy Samsung uses three distribution channels: sales office, retailers and mobile operators. The use of these channels leads to power loss for Samsung (Samsung, 2014). The use of retailers leads to the loss of the message conveyed to the end users. Therefore, Samsung should come up with other ways of delivering products to the consumers. For instance, the company can us direct distribution by eliminating the intermediaries. Direct distribution involves selling items directly to the end users without any help from retailers or wholesalers. Direct distribution can take place through online stores (Pondent, 2014). The mobile operator can establish an online network where customers can access its new products. Samsung should not disregard other distribution networks but should use online stores as complementary channels to the existing ones. Having a hybrid channel will enhance Samsung’s access to customers and will increase its control over distribution (Pondent, 2014). 5.0 Conclusion To sum up, to solve the issues facing the company, Samsung will need to implement the above marketing plan. The recommended objectives will assist the company to boost its competitive advantage and regain its reputation. Samsung will need to regain its reputation through improving the quality of its products and adopting social media marketing. Its promotional initiatives should also include large web presence. There are number of changes the company should undertake to improve its marketing mix and accomplish its objectives. First, it should implement online stores as a distribution media for its products and should implement hybrid marketing channels. It should cut back on the number of models developed to enhance its quality. Third, Samsung should adopt competitive pricing strategy especially for products that are not doing well in the market. The company should implement this marketing plan as soon as possible to ensure it accomplishes its objectives in time. References Bieger, T., & Lässer, C. (2002). Market Segmentation by Motivation: The Case of Switzerland. Journal of Travel Research, 41(1): 68-76.. Chen, C. M., & Ann, B. Y. (2016). Efficiencies vs. importance-performance analysis for the leading smartphone brands of Apple, Samsung and HTC. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 27(3-4): 227-249. Cole, G. (2015). The value of social media. Strategic Direction, 31(1): 3-5. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/sd-10-2014-0152 Knöpfle, G. (2016). Samsung Electronics and the Global Market. The History and the Competitive Advantage. Mulhern, F. (2009), “Integrated Marketing Communications: From Media Channels to Digital Connectivity.” Journal of Marketing Communications, 15(2–3): 85–101. Passikoff, R. (2006). Predicting market success new ways to measure customer loyalty and engage consumers with your brand. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons. Pondent C.S. (2014). Explanation of Hybrid Marketing Channels. eHow. Retrievedfrom http://www.ehow.com/facts_7571447_explanation-hybrid-marketingchannels.html Rojas, R. R. (2000). "A review of models for measuring organizational effectiveness among for profit and nonprofit organizations." Nonprofit management & Leadership, 11(1): 97-104. Samsung. (2014). 2014 SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS ANNUAL REPORT. Retrieved from Priem, Richard L. (2007), “A Consumer Perspective on Value Creation,” Academy of Management Review, 32 (1): 219–35. Appendixes Appendix 1: Social Media Marketing Process Appendix 2: Marketing Mix Example Structure Read More