Marketing Management - Phenomenon of Online Communities of Consumers - Assignment Example

Marketing Management - Phenomenon of Online Communities of Consumers In the modern world, internet applications influence every aspect of human life. Business organizations have seen these applications as opportunities for unleashing new marketing channels for the promotion of their goods and services. Through online community business organizations have a chance of communicating to the consumers through electronic word-of-mouth. This can come in the form of online discussion forums, blogs, online social networks, and review sites. Online communities enable consumers to get information about the goods or services that they are planning to buy not only for the producers, but also from the general public, people they know and those who are total strangers (Kozinets, De Valck, Wojnicki & Wilner 2010, p. 74). Some of these people who have previously used the product or service in question can give important information that might be useful for decision makings. In online communities the quality of information that is availed to consumers is very essential. Despite the fact that online communities can be important to consumers because of the fact that they get the information from fellow consumer, the marketing department of certain products and services usually have very little say about the quality of information that is communicated to consumers. This can be said to be a weakening factor to marketing departments globally (Cheung, Lee & Rabjohn 2008, p. 232). As days go by, the power of giving information that influence decision making on products and services is gradually moving from the hands of marketing departments to the hands of consumers. Given the fact that online consumer communities influence the choice of consumers of on which products or services to consume, marketers should be cautious of this shift of power. By this awareness they should at making greater use of online consumer communities to affect the consumption of their products and services (Clarke & Flaherty 2005, p. 88). One thing that they should have in mind is that whenever targeting online communities of consumer, they should take into consideration the fact that the effectiveness of the use of these communities always differs by culture (Hennig‐Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh & Gremler 2004, p. 44). For instance, a research that was carried out in the difference in the use of online consumer communities between individualism communities and communism communities, it was discovered that they were more effective in the communist countries. It is undeniable that the shift of power for product promotion is shifting from the hands of marketers to the hands of consumers especially in the online consumer communities. The best thing for a marker to do is find ways through which they can know the consumer opinion on their products and try to influence them (Ha & Perks 2005, p. 448). Q2: product life-cycle The stages that a product usually goes through immediately, it is introduced into the market are known as the product life-cycle. Product life-cycle usually has four stages, namely: the introduction stage; the growth stage; the maturity stage; and the decline stage (Lawrence & Klimberg 2010, p. 99). During the introduction stage the product is always marketed with the aim of creating awareness of the product. At this stage, the number of products in the market is always minimal. Just like inn typical cases, in the cases of iPhone, this stage was characterized by non profits. Once the products get to growth stage there is always an increase in sales volumes and profit. At maturity stage profits are maximized with maximum market capital. At the final stage there is always a decrease in profit. This is the stage when most companies decide to withdraw products from the market (Niemann 2009, p. 103). Looking at iPhone 4 and 4S, products by Apple someone will notice that they both went through the above stages. The only difference though is that iPhone 4S was a little more successful. Unlike iPhone 4 which was completely phased off after the introduction of iPhone 4S, iPhone 4S continued to dominate the market even after the introduction of iPhone 5. For iPhone 4S the maturity stage was longer than that of iPhone 4. The introduction stage for 4S was relatively shorter because of the fact that iPhone was already in existence which implies that it was not a completely new product. As for iPad and iPad 2 their introduction process took a little longer while they decline stage came sooner than expected (SäÄKsvuori & Immonen 2008, p. 111). The product life-cycle for technology products is different from that of other products. The product life cycle of technological products is always more concern with the time and cost of developing technology. Looking at the product life-cycle model it can be said that there are a number of things that just don’t add up. The model does not take into consideration the unpredictability of the behaviour of the product when they introduced to the market (Stark 2007, p. 124). This can be attributed to the constant change in factors that affect the lifespan of a product once it is introduced to the market. There is a possibility that a product might not behave in the same manner that the model suggest. For instance, there are products that do not go past the introduction stage while there are some that have been in the market for decades without getting to the decline stage (Stark 2011, p. 87). Q3: Changes in the Micro and Macro environment affect the markets Micro business environment refers to factors that are close to a business organization and those that can have a direct impact on the operation of a business. They factors can also affect how a business carries out its marketing activities. The micro business environment is inclusive of consumers, completion, the general public, media, consumers, suppliers, members of staff, and stakeholders. Inn marketing, these factors determines the effectiveness of a marketing strategy over others (Richardson & Gosnay 2011, p. 87). Macro business environment refers to the external factors that can be of influence to a business organization’s decision making process. They can also affect the strategies and performance of a business organization. These factors include: economic factors, demographic factors, political factors, social factors, and legal factors (Strydom 2004, p. 123). These factors can equally affect a company’s marketing endeavours. With a review of the marketing strategy adopted by Starbucks Corporation someone can evidently see the business environment factors that influence the company’s marketing activities. Looking at their marketing strategy, the consumer’s needs are what commonly come to surface. The company is well known globally for the production of high quality coffee and this is one of the strengths that the company boasts about (Raju & Prabhakara Rao 2008, p. 115). The need to maintain high quality is always as a result of the demands of consumers for the high quality products and services. In the United States of America, Starbucks is known for having a number of outlets over a relatively small geographical area. This is a strategy used to make sure that they counter competition in the given geographical area. By doing this they make sure that their product is more accessible as compared to those produced by their competitors (Groucutt, Forsyth & Leadley 2004, p. 117). They have extensively used this strategy and in some instances used it in, facing out new entrants into the market. Looking at the global activities carried out by Starbucks globally, there are differences in the way coffee houses from different parts of the world a handled in terms of marketing. This is because of the demographic, social, political, and economic differences over these places (Cant 2006, p. 92). Due to the difference in these factors, a single marketing strategy could not be used for all the coffee houses that are owned by Starbucks Corporation. This difference even explains why coffee houses in different countries are run under different management. Q4: The role of marketing communications within the context of a corporate social responsibility strategy of a business Marketing communication, commonly known as marcoms refers to all messages or media that a business organization put in place to communicate with the market. Marketing communication can include activities such as branding, advertising, packaging, public relation activities, online accessibility, print media, sponsorship, and sales presentation. This is always aimed at influencing the market’s opinions on the services or products that are produced by the business organization (Bronn & Vrioni 2001, p. 218). Corporate Social Responsibility refers to corporate initiatives to carry out an assessment and take responsibility of a business organization’s effect on its environment and social welfare. This term refers to the activities that a company might involve in that go beyond what environmental regulators expect of them. In this line companies should always make sure that they use the assets that are at their disposal in a way that it will not affect the environment of society negatively (Stewart 2011, p. 62). Their activities should be of importance to their employees, their customers, and the community at large. In business operations, marketing communications can always be used as a way of communication a company’s Corporate Social Responsibility to the public. However, a business organization should make sure that whatever they communicate to the market through market communication are in accordance to their activities and their Corporate Social Responsibility. Failure to do so might lead to undesirable consequences (Hopkins 2011, p. 286). When a business’ marketing communication and its Corporate Social Responsibility are not synchronized, it risks losing the trust of the general public. With such attitudes towards a business organization, consumers are likely to shy away from buying are consuming their products or services. The primary purpose of carrying out marketing activities is to have some balance between creation of new value for consumers and making profit from the business activities that the company is involved in. In order to achieve this, business organizations all over the world have adopted a marketing philosophy commonly known as market orientation (Singh 2011, p. 37). Market orientation refers to the identification and understanding of what prefer in terms of needs and wants. This should always be followed by effective and efficient delivery of the same. This was discovered to be a more effective (Labbai 2007, p. 22) philosophy in comparison to product philosophy which very popular before its introduction. Product philosophy focusses on improving the efficiency relating to product production that eventually led to affordable prices. However, this approach was at sometimes ineffective when the product produced was contrary to what consumers needed or wanted. Q5: Ethical position of not-for-profit organizations, such as charities, that use commercial marketing techniques to raise funds Sometime it is always good for non-profitable organizations engage in income generating activities. This is always in the bid to reduce the dependence on contributions. Sometime contributions can highly fluctuate leaving charitable organizations with nowhere to get funding so that they would carry out their daily activities (Macedo & Pinho 2006, p. 543). By engaging in income generating activities, charitable organizations will be able to make sure that their activities do not come to a standstill because some donors are not willing to continue with their donations (Kirk & Beth Nolan 2010, p. 482). With the involvement in income generating activities they will also have to market the products or services that they are offering to the public. The need for marketing of their product and services will be because they will have to create awareness of their goods or services to the public. There is no way that the public will consume their products without being aware of whether these products exist or not. Some non-profit organizations might opt for commercial ways of promoting their product or services while others will stick to amateur not-for-profit in doing the same (Besel, Williams & Klak 2011, p. 55). There is always a difference in using these approaches. A non-profit charity organization can choose to use their charity activities to market their products or services. In such situations they are always aiming at making their potential customer pay for their goods or services with the knowledge that they will be indirectly involved in the charitable activities that the organization is usually involved in. This kind of marketing can be appealing to people who are in a way attracted to the kind of charitable activities that the organization is usually involved in (Bowman 2011, p. 48). Therefore, they will be buying these products or services knowing that they are in a way contributing to charity. Using the charitable activities in promoting their commercial involvement might prove to be ineffective in convincing customers who are more inclined to the quality of the product or service rather than the producer. This will mean that the organization will have to do their production such as the quality will be of high standards in order to compete with the other products or services in the market (Vázquez, Álvarez & Santos 2002, p. 1024). 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