Strategies

Hashtags

Customers have a powerful input when it comes to how companies market. With the Internet being a
sounding board for most consumers, they are able to give their immediate feedback and opinion on
products and services. In many cases, trends are the popular thing within social media. Social media
sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and most recently Instagram have caught on to the hash tag frenzy.
A hashtag is a word or phrase that has a pound sign in front of it and conveys a topic.

Marketers have caught on to the trends and have used the popularity of social media to their advantage.
Company marketing teams are creating their own hashtags and trending initiatives to spread the word
about their products and services. Customers and followers are influenced by companies to use
hashtags so that certain topics may trend throughout social media mediums. In a way, companies have
included their customers to their marketing team because customers help spread the word.

Trust

With the Internet creating an environment for consumers to express their opinions, companies have
had to be mindful and strategic about how they reach their consumers. Companies have to approach
their target market with the goal of gaining their trust. Trust can be gained in several ways, such as
transparency, consistency, and integrity. Once trust is accomplished, consumers are more likely to be
advocates for the products and services. Customers will begin to tell their friends about their
experience as well as followers on social media.

Incentives and Large Sales

Marketers also use incentives and large sales to reach customers. In most cases, for these purposes,
marketers have customers separated into categories, for loyal and discount customers.

The business following the market orientation model realize that delivering superior customer value
through latest innovation & technology, tailored their product & services as their customers wants and
indirectly generating the long-term profits margins. For example: During the price and technology war
between Nokia and Samsung, both business houses produce the mobile phones and who compete in
the same market with same group of customers. But, during the technology changes and customers
want changes Nokia could not sustain in the competition which overcome by the Samsung with its
customer focuses market orientation with its latest technology & innovation. Customers are very loyal
to the Samsung brand and there is very less chance of customer shifting which finally makes the
Samsung as top business with positive profit margin rates.

Every day, they are hit with such a barrage of advertisements that only the most integrated and
consistent brands stand out as memorable.

Centers around a strong, focused brand image

Communicates through a clear, consistent voice

Maintains a consistent look and feel across all media

Utilizes traditional and digital media to promote the brand

Instead, a marketing team must work behind-the-scenes to devise a compelling, unified voice for a
brand, and transition it appropriately into every aspect of the brands persona, from advertising to
physical presence and customer service.

In the market orientation business strategy, integrated marketing into business aimed at unifying
different marketing methods in to the business. The marketing methods like mass marketing, one-to-
one marketing, direct marketing, ambush marketing and viral marketing. The main objective is to
complement and emphasize the market impact of each method and to employ the market data
generated by these efforts for product development, pricing, placing, promotion and customer service.
Before producing any product, different marketing campaigns used to organize to generate curiosity
in the customers about the product:- about their preference and taste, their wants and what they mostly
care before purchasing any products. By understanding the needs and wants of the product, the
company will produces the product with giving more emphasis on customer service. For example:
GoPro an action camera company which initiated different theme campaigns to connect with its
target audience in meaningful way. By using the brand related sponsorship, endorsement, outdoor
campaigns & ads, heavy website and social media promotion, GoPro integrates all their marketing
efforts with plenty of engaging content from customers themselves.

It is the process & planning of the organization where the top level of management involves in
generating the different ideas for the direction and activities to boost up of their business development.
In general, Strategic vision as market orientation includes in a document or statement so all level of
managers can share the same vision for the organization and make decision according to the shared
principles and the organization mission. In order to be successful in the market the top management
of the organization should have clear plan of action and shared strategic vision for the long-term
profitability.

A vision statement can be as simple as a single sentence or can span a short paragraph. Regardless of
the individual details and nuances, all effective vision statements define the core ideals that give a
business shape and direction. These statements also provide a powerful way to motivate and guide
employees, said Addam Marcotte, vice president of operations and organization development, with
executive coaching and organizational change firm FMG Leading.

In todays business environment, competition is order of the day. The International or global
environment consists of all those factor that operate at the transactional, cross-cultural and across the
border level which have an impact on the business of an organization. Before the complexity of
environmental analysis started, traced back to post-second world war period, then it was characterized
as essential political in nature with little in common with the interests of business and industry. The
classification of the general environment into sectors after this period brings more light and exposes
most of the business owner into real business. These then help most of organization to cope with it
complexity, to compete the various difference factor that influence the operation of business in a
particular area. A companys marketing system must operate within the framework of forces which
constitute the systems environment, the major environmental forces are external variables which are
not easily control or manipulate by the executives in a firm. Any business that is not aware of its
environment is bound to run into some crises that will definitely arise from the increasing complexity
of the environment in which such business operates.

The major objective of this study is to critically examine the effects of strategic environmental
scanning on organization performance and to establish clear position about the result of company that
adopts continuous environmental scanning and the company that merely operate with it. Organizations
can use environmental scanning to determine whether or not to enter new market and also to know the
present situation or condition of its environment. Its purpose is to identify strategic factors- external
and internal elements that will determine the future of the organization. The simplest way to conduct
environmental scanning is through PEST Analysis. PEST is the acronym used for describing the
Political, Economical, Social-Cultural, and Technological factors that affect the organization. The
external environments consist of variables opportunities and threats that are outside the organization
and not typically within the short-run control of the top management. The management of any
organization has little or no influence on the external environment. Most managers feel that in today's
turbulent business environment the best scanning style is continuous scanning using PEST analysis
because this allows the firm to act quickly, take advantage of opportunities before competitors do and
respond to environmental threats before significant damage is done, this will allow the organization to
survive, sustain the environment hardship. As a way of managing organization strategies, the managers
have to keep abreast of everything about his environment (internal and external) for the purpose of
achieving the organization goals and objectives. It is the fundamental decision about the future
direction of an organization, its purpose, its resources and how it interacts with the world in which it
operates (the environment of the organization).

For any business to grow and prosper, managers of the business must be able to anticipate, recognize
and deal with change in the internal and external environment. Change is a certainty, and for this
reason business managers must actively engage in a process that identifies change and modifies
business activity to take best advantage of change. That process is strategic planning. The internal
environment is very much associated with the human resource of the business or organisation, and the
manner in which people undertake work in accordance with the mission of the organisation.

Political Factors
These are all about how and to what degree a government intervenes in the
economy. This can include government policy, political stability or instability in
overseas markets, foreign trade policy, tax policy, labour law, environmental law,
trade restrictions and so on.

It is clear from the list above that political factors often have an impact on
organisations and how they do business. Organisations need to be able to respond
to the current and anticipated future legislation, and adjust their marketing policy
accordingly.
Economic Factors
Economic factors have a significant impact on how an organisation does business
and also how profitable they are. Factors include economic growth, interest rates,
exchange rates, inflation, disposable income of consumers and businesses and so
on.

These factors can be further broken down into macro-economical and micro-
economical factors. Macro-economical factors deal with the management of
demand in any given economy. Governments use interest rate control, taxation
policy and government expenditure as their main mechanisms they use for this.

Micro-economic factors are all about the way people spend their incomes. This
has a large impact on B2C organisations in particular.

Social Factors
Also known as socio-cultural factors, are the areas that involve the shared belief
and attitudes of the population. These factors include population growth, age
distribution, health consciousness, career attitudes and so on. These factors are
of particular interest as they have a direct effect on how marketers understand
customers and what drives them.

Technological Factors
We all know how fast the technological landscape changes and how this impacts
the way we market our products. Technological factors affect marketing and the
management thereof in three distinct ways:

New ways of producing goods and services

New ways of distributing goods and services

New ways of communicating with target markets

Environmental Factors
These factors have only really come to the forefront in the last fifteen years or so.
They have become important due to the increasing scarcity of raw materials,
polution targets, doing business as an ethical and sustainable company, carbon
footprint targets set by governments (this is a good example were one factor could
be classes as political and environmental at the same time). These are just some
of the issues marketers are facing within this factor. More and more consumers
are demanding that the products they buy are sourced ethically, and if possible
from a sustainable source.
Legal Factors
Legal factors include - health and safety, equal opportunities, advertising
standards, consumer rights and laws, product labelling and product safety. It is
clear that companies need to know what is and what is not legal in order to trade
successfully. If an organisation trades globally this becomes a very tricky area to
get right as each country has its own set of rules and regulations.
Some companies really understand customer service. They know how to hire for it, train for it and
deliver it. Other companies claim to give customer service, but in reality, they are grounded in an
operations mentality with rules and policies that allow for little flexibility, preventing them from being
anything more than just average or satisfactory. Here are a few observations of the differences between
customer-focused companies versus operations-focused companies:

Empowerment: A customer-focused company empowers employees to make decisions that are for
the benefit of the customer. They have guidelines versus rules and take the approach that if it isnt
illegal, immoral, wont cost the company money (although sometimes thats still okay), and wont
harm the companys reputation, then consider doing it to take care of the customer. The operations-
focused company requires a managers approval for anything that is outside of their policies or typical
way of doing business.

Hiring: A customer-focused company hires people who fit the culture, which means they have the
personalities and core-values that align with the companys vision and mission. Certain jobs may
require skill, but skill alone wont get the applicant hired. An operations-focused company will hire
for skill, filling a position with technical strengths. The applicants personality may or may not fit with
the corporate culture.

Training: A customer-focused company spends time and money training for soft skills such as
relationship building and customer service. The company recognizes that it takes both, technical and
soft skills, to break away from being average. The operations-focused company spends most of their
training dollars and time on technical skills and product knowledge.

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Leadership: The leaders of a customer-focused company set the vision and mission of the culture,
and then they lead by example. The leaders of an operations-focused company sets the vision and
mission of the culture, but sometimes will have the Do as I say, not as I do approach. Sometimes
their behavior is incongruent with what they want to achieve, often leaving the employees confused
and less than motivated.

People First: The customer-focused company knows the importance of putting people first
specifically employees. They develop a culture of happy, engaged and fulfilled employees that deliver
a better customer experience. Customers like this and continue to come back. An operations-focused
company develops a culture focused on systems, procedures and the bottom line. While this is
important to any companys success, they miss the culture part of the equation.
Customer Service: The customer-focused company looks at customer service as a philosophy to be
embraced by every employee of the company, recognizing that there are both external and internal
customers. The operations-focused company sees customer service as a department.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Some marketers will try to convince you that one marketing strategy is better than the other. Our
stance on the matter: theres room for both. In fact, one strategy can even contain elements of both
strategies.

In the end, choosing which side your brand should lean towards depends largely on your business
model, marketing objectives and target audience.

There are several elements to consider when you are developing your marketing strategy.

Segmentation

Your existing and potential customers fall into particular groups or segments, characterized by their
'needs'. Identifying these groups and their needs through market research and market reports, and then
addressing those needs more successfully than your competitors, should be one of the key elements of
your marketing strategy.

Targeting and positioning

You should aim to sell to the market segments that will be most profitable for your business. It is
important that your product offering meets the needs of your chosen target market.

You should create a marketing strategy that makes the most of your strengths and matches them to the
needs of the customers you want to target. For example, if a particular group of customers is looking
for quality first and foremost, then any marketing activity aimed at them should draw attention to the
high quality of your products or service.

Promotional tactics

Once you have created your marketing strategy, you must then decide which marketing activity or
activities will ensure your target market know about the products or services you offer, and why they
meet their needs.
There are many ways to achieve this - such as various forms of advertising, exhibitions, public
relations, digital marketing and an effective 'point of sale' strategy if you rely on others to actually sell
your products. But try to limit your activities to those methods you think will work best with your
target market, to avoid spreading your budget too thinly.

Monitoring and evaluation

Monitoring and evaluating how effective your strategy has been is a key element, yet often overlooked.
This control element not only helps you see how your strategy is performing in practice, it can also
help inform your future marketing strategy.

A simple approach is to ask each new customer how they heard about your business. Deeper analysis
can come from questionnaires, focus groups and examining customers online behaviour.

How can organizations become more customer-oriented/customer-driven/customer-focused?

Ask what the customer wants. Get inside their head. Primary and secondary marketing research is vital
here. Collecting data through various methods will provide you with essential information about what
people expect from you, and how you can fulfill their expectations. Apart from some of the traditional
ways businesses collect such data, keep an eye out on Facebook comments, online forums where your
customers hang-out (such as Reddit), and/or run keywords relevant to your business through Google
to see what results pop-up (look on industry/market-specific blogs, for instance).

Give your customer what they want. Sell them what they want to buy. Strive to provide them with the
best value. Value is benefits minus cost. This is what people look at when determining whether they
would want to do business with your organization or not.

Ensure that your customers get easy access to each and every single one of your products and services
at all times. Whether you decide to do this yourself, or through a partner/service provider is your call.

Deliver on your promises! If you set a certain level of expectation, you need to be able to deliver on
it. If you break any promise that youve made, it is clear that you dont value your customers priorities.
This can understandably be quite damaging to your reputation. It is also why it is essential to set
realistic goals, so that you set realistic expectations in the first place.

Acknowledge your customers for the business that they give you, for buying from you, for using your
products and service year-in and year-out. Thank them through various different methods from a
simple thank you message over social media. Speak with your customers and clients, respond to
them, talk with them, and get to know them.

Reward your customers from time to time. You can do this through various different avenues
discounts, sales or rebates, running promos, throwing a party, running a contest (with a valuable prize)
and so on. Give something back to your clients. Be as creative with this as you can, think outside the
box!
Allow customers and clients to easily leave you feedback, and/or get in touch with you through various
different methods phone, email, website, from within the smartphone app (if applicable), or through
an online forum. Dell, for instance, has a forum dedicated to support. Not only is this forum excellent
in providing support to people via crowdsourcing, it is also an immense knowledge-base for Dell to
monitor what their customers are saying about the company and its products.

Make sure that being customer-oriented is not part of your organizations strategy, it is an
organizational culture! This requires teaching and training the right behavior, and rewarding it within
the organization behavior ensures that everyone under your organizations umbrella is focused
providing customers the solutions that they need.

Adapt and change with time. Your customers and their needs, wants, and requirements are changing
all the time. So should your products, services and your solutions.

It can mean that your brand is one of the first ones recalled when a relevant prompt is used
who would I call to discuss listing my house? It could mean that individuals would be willing
to pay a premium price for your brands offering. In the case of a real estate transaction,
individuals would pay a standard commission and feel as if they received a valuable high-
quality service from a well-known and trusted brand. It could mean that when someone asks
for a referral, your brand is the first one that is recommended to others. All of these are positive
responses to the brand a readily recognizable brand, a brand that is recalled quickly and easily
when needed, one that individuals are willing to pay a premium price to acquire, and a brand
that is recommended to others. These are all characteristics of a high equity brand. You create
these associations in everything you do advertising messages, logos, names used, segments
served, etc. If you use a statement in your advertising that you are the Team to Trust you
hope that trust will become a brand association. If you serve a specific segment, then that
segment is likely to become associated with your brand. Everything you do in terms of
marketing and actions creates brand associations.

Basic Branding Elements:

Brand Name Slogans Logo Symbols/Pictures Marketing Messages Markets Served Traditionally, your
branding elements are the most noticeable features associated with the brand itself the brand name,
slogans, logo, and symbols or pictures used on product offerings and contained in any Keller Center
Research Report is a Trademark owned by Baylor University. But, it is important to know that
branding elements extend to the content of the marketing message itself and even your positioning
within the marketplace. Every aspect of these elements creates your brand image. It is important that
this image is relevant to your customer, clear in what it stands for, and offers some point of
differentiation from your competition.

Companys main aim is to generate more profit or revenue. There are several factors which affects

the companies to generate more profits. Companies produce product and services to sell. Customer

purchases those product and services which are beneficial to them. Customers buys product &
services for the first time and if the company can generate trust in the customer minds then the

customer will be loyal to that brand for longer period of time. Nowadays, companies are customer

focused and customer oriented. Traditionally, companies used to be product oriented, they used to

believe, what they produce the customers will buy those products. Firstly, they produce huge

number of products and they push sells the product to the market. Those companies cannot

generate the customer awareness about their products & brands. At that time, customers were not

loyal to any kind of products which was ultimately negative sign for the companies although they

are making profits by push sellings. Among the top 10 companies only 2-3 can sustain in the

competitive market. But the business scenario is different than traditional one. Apple as a number

one product oriented company is also shifting to customer oriented company because they have

being noticed that how the Samsung is growing and becoming their competitor in the same market

with similar product. Marketing department of every organization is shifting towards customer

relation department as well as chief marketing officer position is changed to chief customer

relationship officer. Customers are valuable to any business organization. They cannot want to

lose their customers to any other competitors products. So, Most of the business companies are

shifting their marketing teams to customer relationship team.

Where the department of their company or team is customer centric and tries to hold the customers

to their brand or products. Every business organization has their own set of organizational culture

where they follows on. So, they all have individual department for performing their core

organizational functions. In traditional business model following organization, marketing

department role is to distribute and sell the product & services to the customers by following the

push sell mechanism where they doesnt care about the customer wants and preferences. But in

modern business model following organization which have marketing department whose main

function is to create customer awareness and understand the customer wants & preferences. The
department is responsible for customer relationship management too. As the customers are king

for every business organization. They cannot lose their customers to any other competitors in a

common market. Therefore, many business organization are shifting their marketing department

& chief marketing officer (CMO) to customer relationship department & Customer Relationship

Manager (CRM).