Marketing Segmentation and Marketing Strategy - Coursework Example

?Marketing Plan for a Mobile Application Business Plan Table of Contents 5. MARKETING PLAN 3 5 Marketing Segmentation 3 5.2 Competitor Analysis 4 5.3 Buyer Behavior 6 5.4 Size of Target Market 7 5.5 Marketing Strategy 7 References 9 5. MARKETING PLAN Most of the time management applications (apps) focus on ascertaining and managing the time spent on projects that are related to work, professional purpose or at office. The time management apps available in the market are concerned about managing the official functions and fitting them in the schedule. However, considering the present lifestyle of the people, who spend their time in late night parties, take many coffee breaks, and handle extensive stress, time management plays an important role even outside their professional life. There is extensive requirement of a holistic time management applications in the market, which Personal Time Manager would be able to fulfill. It would be able to assist people to plan out their official and personal activities (Blythe, 2009). Apart from managing the office projects, the time management apps would be also helpful in tracking progress and reminding the user, whether his/ her daily goals are met or not. A single app capable of managing, tracking and reminding every detail would be surely a unique selling proposition (USP) for the company. Moreover, this app would be able to grab the customer base of those apps which do not have multiple usages. This section would be including a comprehensive analysis of the marketing plan for Personal Time Manager. Aspects like market segment, target customers, competitors, buyers, and strategies would be also included in the domain of this marketing plan. 5.1 Marketing Segmentation Market segmentation is a part of the marketing strategy which assists in segregating the consumers in homogeneous groups based on their needs, preferences, and other criteria. Though there are many products for which segmentation is not required because these are manufactured for the mass, but in this case the product or service is a paid time management application for Smartphone users, such as for customers using Iphone, Android based phones, Mac or iPad. Segmenting the market would assist the company to choose and identify the segment that they want to target for their product or service. However, users of mobile applications can be segregated on the basis of their age, gender, income level, as well as usage (Brassington and Pettitt, 2007). The users or customers can be segregated on the basis of their income level, need for time management, and frequency of usage. Income level is considered because generally students do not prefer to buy apps for mobile phones. They rather download freeware from internet; while professional prefer to have paid services because they find them secure, original and convenient. Further, they also extensively require time management apps to fit in every function within scheduled time. The frequency of usage in such cases is high. Even companies buy such apps for their employees, and it is used consistently in the organizations for scheduling daily operational functions (Buono, and Savall, 2007). 5.2 Competitor Analysis The market of mobile applications is extremely competitive because there is abundant availability of mobile apps. Even when there are various freeware in the market, there is a wide user base for paid time management and productivity apps. In such a scenario, Personal time Manager will face difficulty in the market (Evans, Ahmad, and Foxall, 2009). Personal Time Manager would face competitors like Microsoft OneNote, SmartTime, Microsoft CloudOn, OmniFocus, SpringPad, Wunderlist 2, Google QuickOffice Pro HD, MediaFire, Astrid tasks, Google Docs, Evernote, Remember the Milk, Any. DO, Toggl Online Timer, TeamWeek, Spotify, Checklist Wrangler, Shopper, Remind You, Things, and many more (Mobi Thinking, 2013). Most of these applications assist the mobile users to keep track of their time, tasks, documents and online files, but none of them can claim to be absolutely an all-in-one app because they do not manage every task, documents, and time simultaneously. Applications like Microsoft OneNote are available to the users at $4.99, while Microsoft CloudOn is a free application (Mobi Thinking, 2013). Another significant issue is that there are various freeware in the market, which are offered by well-known companies are absolutely free in the market, such as Microsoft CloudOn, Wunderlist, Google Docs, Evernote, Remember the Milk, and Any. DO. However, brands like OmniFocus, QuickOffice Pro HD are costly, as they are sold for $19.99 (Evans, Ahmad, and Foxall, 2009). The highest revenues earning apps are by the social networking and communication apps companies. Business and productivity tools are fourth in the list, with approximate revenue of $2,782, while medical, maps and navigation; fitness apps generate greater revenue than this (Mobi Thinking, 2013). Now revenue also varies on the basis of usage in countries. Like it has been noticed that apps users are more in countries like USA, UK, Russia, and China (Mobi Thinking, 2013). Industries such as real-estate, telecom, banking and finance, retail, healthcare, etc are few who generate maximum revenue through mobile applications (Mobi Thinking, 2013). These few statistics are enough to indicate the significance of Personal Time Manager in the market and the level of competition it would have to face. It can be said that there is ample scope for good business, but competition is high. (Foxall, Goldsmith and Brown, 1998). 5.3 Buyer Behavior According to a report by Nielson, most of the apps developers focus only on the Smartphone users, while they ignore the feature phone users. It has been found that most of the apps users are generally from countries like Australia, Brazil, India, China, UK, USA, Russia, etc. However, the question is what portion of users would also go for paid apps because it has been noticed that mostly the users prefer to have freeware than paid services (Jobber, and Fay, 2006). However, the attitude of the buyers towards paid apps is changing, and this can be put forward with the help of information derived. It was found that around 80 percent of the customers agreed that they discard the free apps for paid apps when they have a bad user experience for their smartphone. The volume of data is increasing, and buyers are looking for secure apps to manage and save them. 71 percent of CMO’s in the companies are not prepared for the data explosion (Hindle, 2008). There are different segment of buyers or smartphone users in the market. The buyer behavior however, depends on which segment the marketer chooses for his/ her product because this will further assist in ascertaining the probable demand, and estimated revenue. There are users of freeware as well as of paid apps services. Demand is there for both paid and freeware, but the frequency of usage, and requirement would ascertain whether the customers are willing to have the app for their phone or not. Time management is such a significant issue for customers that they are opting for paid apps which can manage their time-table and fit in leisure and work together for them (Kotler, Armstrong and Wong, 2008). 5.4 Size of Target Market The target market for Personal Task Manager would be the companies and the business clients who can easily afford the app for their employees for completing projects on time. Even the working professionals would be targeted as prospect customers for this app. They are the ones who face most of the difficulties in managing professional and personal life. According to a report by Nielsen, there are around 1.2 million apps users around the world (Mobi Thinking, 2013). Most of the apps users are from Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America. It is estimated that by 2017, this market size would be of around 4.4 million users (Hein, 2013.). It has been found that there are around 6.8 billion mobile subscriptions around the world, of which 17 percent of the users opt for paid subscriptions or applications, which signifies that is a huge untapped market which Personal Time Manager can target. The target clients can be universities, and colleges, who can buy for their students, and teachers (Mobi Thinking, 2013). 5.5 Marketing Strategy As far as the marketing strategy for Personal Time Manager is concerned, the company should promote the all-in-one feature of the application. Professionals would want to have one application managing their whole routine rather than have various applications blocking most of the space in their Smartphone for doing the same job. This would unnecessary slow down the phone. The number of Smartphone users is increasing day by day, and even the students are using Smartphone. Managing time for studies and other activities would be easier for them if they have Personal Time Manager in their phones. The company needs to plan out a strong marketing and promotion framework for Personal Time Manager. This app has all the combined features of many apps present in the market. People would be willing to buy it instantly in order to reduce occupied space of various other apps for different activities. However, spreading awareness is important. Personal Time Manager can be put forward as a replacement of many apps which occupy large space in phones, make the operating system slow, and also invite malware and virus. In spite of stiff competition, there is ample scope and demand for an all-in-one time management tool or app like Personal Time Managers. All the company has to do is to eliminate the clutter and make its way in the market through creation of brand value and recognition. References Blythe, J., 2009. Essentials of marketing. 4th ed. New Jersey: Harlow Prentice Hall. Brassington F., and Pettitt, S., 2007. Essentials of marketing. 2nd ed. New Jersey: Harlow FT Prentice Hall. Buono, A. F., and Savall, H., 2007. Socio-economic interventions in organizations: The intervener-researcher and the SEAM approach to organizational analysis. New York: IAP. Evans, M. Ahmad, J., and Foxall, G., 2009. Consumer behaviour. 2nd ed. New Jersey: Chichester Wiley. Foxall, G. R., Goldsmith, R. E., and Brown, S., 1998. Consumer psychology for marketing. 2nd ed. London: International Thomson. Hein, R., 2013. 9 Top iPhone and iPad productivity and time management apps. Network World, [online] Available at: < http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2012/11/which-apps-make-money/> [Accessed 3 June 2013]. Hindle, T., 2008. Guide to management ideas and gurus. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Jobber, D., and Fay, J., 2006. Foundations of marketing. 2nd ed. London McGraw-Hill. Kotler, P, .Armstrong, G, and Wong, V., 2008. Principles of marketing. 5th, New York: Prentice Hall. Mobi Thinking, 2013. Global mobile statistics 2013 Section E: Mobile apps, app stores, pricing and failure rates. DotMobi, [online] Available at: < http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2012/11/which-apps-make-money/> [Accessed 3 June 2013]. Pappas, A., 2013. Which apps make money? Vision Mobile, [online] Available at: < http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2012/11/which-apps-make-money/> [Accessed 3 June 2013]. Read More