Market segment groups based on brand loyalty status

Answer

Marketing

A set of institutions, activities, and creation processes delivering, communicating, and offering exchanges of value to partners, clients, customers, and the community define marketing. It involves activities undertaken by an organization in promoting the selling and buying of a service or product. Some of the activities are carried out by company affiliates such as product delivery to other businesses and consumers, selling, and advertising. Positive brand experience marketing creates immediate impacts on a brand, and building strong brands requires support from marketing. The following discussion elaborates on brand loyalty, product development, marketing tools, and hybrid channel of distribution. The marketing aim is to understand the customer so that the product fits him.

1. Identify the four market segment groups based on brand loyalty status and list what a company can learn from analyzing the degrees of brand loyalty.

Analyzation of brand loyalty in a company helps a company learn customer’s commitment and intentions in terms of brand associated unique values ( Vebrova et al., 2016). The four segments groups of marketing based on brand loyalty are hardcore loyal, split loyal, shifting loyal, and switchers. Hardcore loyal are consumers who always use the same brand, show a strong desire, and only buy one brand all the time. Split loyal consumers decide to purchase a product after comparing two to three brands and are loyal. Shifting loyal are consumers whose loyalty shifts from one brand to another when their satisfaction is not met using the previous product or due to other reasons. Switchers consumers buy any of the available products in the market is sold at a reasonable price, and do not care about any of the brands and show no loyalty.

2. Describe how a marketer can develop effective brand positioning. Provide one real-world example.

Today, companies are confronted with credible brand differentiation maintenance difficulties within fragmented and overcrowded markets. To achieve competitive superiority and imitate position in the consumers' mind, firms enter domain positioning. Brand positioning describes how a brand sits in the customers' minds and how it's different from competitors (Heinberg et al., 2019). To position your brand, a marketer needs to understand what consumers want, brand capabilities, and competitors positioning of their brand. After that, resonate with your consumers, deliver differently from competitors, and deliver within the company's capabilities. For example, when developing a new brand of mobile phone, you need to understand consumer requirements such as affordability, storage, and durability and come up with a product satisfying the need. Understand Apple, Samsung, and Huawei brand positioning as they are the major competitors. Deliver differently to fill the gap while satisfying the needs of the consumers like the way Oppo products have positioned.

3. Describe the valuable functions brands can perform for a firm, the function of brand tracking studies, and the meaning and function of a brand audit.

Establishing foot to your target audience and in the market is crucial to any firm. Branding is a strong identity that creates numerous advantages for your business. It gives a business its persona and characteristics, gives an image to consumes what you can offer, establishes the best choice among competitors, and a way of differentiating from the competition. A brand audit reviews the brand's effectiveness and a thorough examination of the current position in the market. An audit helps determine new developments, opportunities, weaknesses, improvements, and strengths of a brand. A brand audit also identifies the customer and its viewpoint regarding image, perception, attitude, and reputation to the brand in the market.

4. How can a marketer compete when it enters the growth phase of the product life cycle? Provide a real-world example.

During the growth phase, profits begin to accrue, product sales and revenue start to increase, and the public becomes more aware of it. Product offerings vary due to new competitors entrance to the market. More and more discussions among consumers increase dramatically, creating willingness and awareness of product trials. The degree of customer loyalty is limited, given that customers have no experience buying the product and are first-time consumers. As a result of this, the phase competition rivalry is aggressive. A growing company should increase promotions and communication, more product choices, price discounting, retailer incentives, sales promotion, and attractive offerings for loyalty and repurchases. A mobile phone product, for example, should offer data when a purchase is made, decrease price compared to market rates, and often communicate through advertising.

5. How can companies use packaging, labeling, warranties, and guarantees as marketing tools?

Product packaging engages potential customers, closes the sale, draws attention to a product, and explains the benefits. Tactile, written, and visual messaging elements of marketing achieve this. To enhance the buyer's confidence, reinforce guarantees that promise complete satisfaction or money back as this approach demonstrates customer service satisfaction and focus. Labels should look different, so customers are familiar with what they are looking for in the market.

6. Marketing Debate: Is Service Marketing Different from Product Marketing?

Service and product marketing are fundamentally different. Product marketing is about the place, price, product, and promotion, while service product is about the process, physical evidence, and people. Product marketing sells value, while service marketing sells relationship.

7. Think about the last new product you bought. How do you think its success will be affected by the five characteristics of an innovation: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, divisibility, and communicability?

The latest purchased product is a mobile phone. The mobile phone's relative advantage is that current improvement has better services, multiple functions in one tool, and increased productivity. The product assimilates with my life, thus easier ability to adapt seamlessly. It is simple to learn, and less time is used, therefore not complex. The ability to explore the product is recommendable, and communication is efficient.

8. Building upon the Marriott example, you are to scan the environment to find examples of a company whose pricing strategy is closely tied to its branding strategy.

Through pricing, brands send powerful messages, which influences the customer's side of how the brand is portrayed. The responses generated from pricing range from bargain thrill to price tag indignation that seems far too steep. For example, Apple products are known for their high prices, a branding strategy for their products thus dominating the market and gives a competitive advantage..

9. Identify a company that has successfully set up a value network, then compare and contrast the components of the value system to a competitor that does not have one.

A value network is a tool that helps design and explore the exchange of value and relations between different stakeholders and the company. It is also a series of duties, interactions, and actions used within a firm. It consists of an organization's positions, individuals, or a combination of both. The effectiveness of the network is determined by asset increase and benefits produced for the company. Walmart is an example of a company that uses a highly effective value network. The company uses individuals in and outside of the company to solve problems such as sustainable practices implementation. As a result, innovative approaches are created to solve packaging and waste problems compared to Best Buy services, service providers, and customer components of the value network.

10. Describe the hybrid channel of distribution. Do you think Internet sales will grow in the future or will customers demand hybrid distribution choices like free shipment to store sites (Wal-Mart) or a pickup store (IKEA)?

With the customer segments' proliferation and possibilities of the channel, many companies have adopted a hybrid distribution channel. The multiple channels of distribution occur when a firm reaches many customer segments by setting up several channels of marketing.Consumers search, get plenty of information and compare products they need economically and conveniently without weather, space and time restrictions ( Kuang et al., 2017). Technology development will not allow consumer demand for free shipment and store sites as internet sales will grow in the future, leaving no room for the channeling.

11. Answer the following relative to your shopping trip: Did you experience a dissonance between the service you received and their initial characterization of the store? In other words, did you receive "better” service than you initially expected to receive from a self or limited service retailer? Did you experience a "lack” of service from the store you perceived as "full service”? If either of these conditions occurred, postulate a causal relationship for the occurrence.

After a visit to a store, the experience was the same as the initial characterization, and the services were better. There was an experience of full service as opposed to a lack of service expected.

12. Visit three retailers of your own choosing and comment on how the store atmospherics affected you personally. Have a friend of the opposite sex visit the same retailers. Group the findings by sex. Why are there such differences? What can a store do to appeal to both sexes?

The goal of all retailers is to turn shoppers to customers, lure them, influence their buying decisions, and turn them to return customers. From the message, media, style of advertising to sales training, store layout, customer service, and product design, the policies are made for both sexes specifically. Gender differences reflect different decisions in purchasing. Men purchasing are more on habit rather than making decisions rationally. Companies know this characteristic; they intend to stimulate the need for a product compared to females who are more impulse buyers. Companies also color their stores' colors that do not gender biased and accommodating to both genders.

In conclusion, marketing requires a combined effort for it to succeed. Several requisites, such as brand positioning and value networking, are essential. Brand positioning describes how a brand sits in the customers' minds and how it's different from competitors. To position your brand, a marketer needs to understand what consumers want, brand capabilities, and competitors positioning of their brand. Service and product marketing are fundamentally different. Product marketing is about the place, price, product, and promotion, while service product is about the process, physical evidence, and people. The goal of all retailers is to turn shoppers to customers, lure them, influence their buying decisions, and turn them to return customers, which is the overall goal in marketing.