To Tweet or Not to Tweet - Essay Example

To Tweet or not to Tweet 6 February Betterbrekkie manager Betterbrekkie marketing manager Re: managing a twitter presence for betterbrekkie breakfast cereal bar product Overview Having reviewed the organization marketing situation, it is clear that the product is brand new among it intended clients. Developing and managing a twitter presence for the product will help popularize the products and other products line an immense deal. As a result, breakfast cereal bar should have a twitter presence as part of the marketing mix. Current issues The current situation is that the product in question is yet to be launched. As such, the issue at hand is that the product is unknown to the market. This necessitates for massive campaign to make clients aware of the product. Since cereal bar is a new product being introduced into a flooded market, the company requires identifying the specific market niche that will value the new offering adequately to buy it in the long term. Betterbrekkie can specialize in a particular group of customers first and then enlarge the market niche as time goes by. This will give the business an opportunity to identify market trends in order to make adjustments appropriately. Additionally, the company needs to define a value proposition in terms that are compelling and meaningful to the identified niche. Once this is accomplished, the company can develop the go-to-market entity indispensable to sustain early adopters of its products (QDI Strategies Inc., nd, para 2; Voets, 2010, p 10). Another issue is that the company expects the product to have a 20 percent market share during the first year of its launch. This calls for a lot of effort, support and dedication for the marketing team and the entire organization to help achieve this market share. One way to increase market share is through share of preference achieved through pricing, product and promotional changes. The company can also use the share of voice market driver, which entails increasing promotional and advertising expenditures. The company can also use the aspect of distribution to increase market share by ensuring it has an intensive distribution channels (Reidenbach, 2009, p 41). For the new product to attain a market share of 20 percent in a mature market, the organization must give attention to growth strategies that are proven to offer marketing initiatives. These strategies are; increasing demand for the product and digging out the whole value for a product. Increasing demand is challenging, putting in mind that while the organization is struggling to drive growth in a fresh market, the competitors may be searching for new channels to augment their market share in the same market. In order to improve the value of the product a business is offering; the product has to offer new benefits. A market growth strategy that is needs-based necessitates that betterbrekkie company move from the selling tradition to collaborative learning. Betterbrekkie must work with customers in order to establish their unmet needs, and then generate inventive alternatives to such needs (Business sense, 2012, para 2, QDI Strategies Inc., nd, para 1). By so doing, the company will be on its way to enhance the value of the breakfast cereal bar and eventually increasing the market share. Another issue of concern is how to segment the market. This entails a critical analysis of the market in order to come up with a segmentation strategy that can boost the company’s odds of success. Segmentation has massive pay-offs when embraced in strategy development, market and product planning and sales targeting. Every segmentation level enhances the customers’ insight. Segmentation is a concept that companies use to define their markets, as well as their product development. Market segmentation gives companies results in three sets of decisions. These are; structural segmentation, which defines the market opportunity that a company has. The second decision is needs based segmentation, which establishes the clients’ needs to drive product and service development. Thirdly is the sales effectiveness segmentation that focuses on identifying the customers who are most apt to purchase the product (Voets. 2010, p 16; QDI Strategies Inc., nd, para 3). Another aspect arising from the situation is that there is intense competition resulting from existing market players. This makes it complex for the new product to achieve the 20 percent market share once it is launched. However, Betterbrekkie Company can change its marketing mix variables (price, product, promotion and place) so as to cope with the competition. The company can offer its product at relatively lower price than the competitors. However, this will only increase sales if cereal bar product’s demand is price elastic. The features of the product can be improved from time to time to offer more value to customers. New channels of distribution may be added, as well as increasing advertisement and promotional expenditures to increase market share and keep up with competition (Business sense, 2012, para 4; Lamb, Hair and Carl, 2011, p 490). Advantages of developing and managing a twitter presence Twitter is speedily becoming one of the powerful and principal online community and a marketing tool for businesses. As a firm with a new product, twitter will profoundly yield the following advantages to the betterbrekkie products line. Twitter will help the company communicate with the customers across the globe. Twitter is a powerful tool of communication for obtaining feedback from clients. When the business posts news regarding its products, customers will always offer feedback. The comments from the account will tell the direction the company is headed, especially on the new product. If the customers will find it appealing, they will say it and if they do not like the product, they will express their opinions. If the feedback highlights some weaknesses on a certain brand, the company will be in a position to make the necessary improvements (Treadaway and Smith, 2010, p 172; Dzhingarov, 2012, para 1). If the company keeps a running search on its business name on twitter, the management will be in a position to establish what customers and prospective customers are conversing; whether positive or negative regarding its products. The management will be aware of how the products are perceived and then make decisions if it wishes to respond. The company can gain more insight with regards to its products by engaging in conversations. For instance, the marketing manager can ask questions to the company’s twitter followers. Allan; the director of corporate communications of the CME Group in Chicago says that customer’s feedback is the most valuable benefit of having a twitter presence (Gillin and Schwartzman, 2010, p 22) Another advantage of managing a twitter account for betterbrekkie product line is learning from other players in the industry. Twitter offers a company an excellent platform to find out what other organizations in the same industry are doing. Further, betterbrekkie can also engage in the conversation of what is going on in the industry. This will offer insights to the company on what changes and trends the industry is going through. By having a twitter account, betterbrekkie can follow industry and learn several aspects of how they operate and other new practices that it can embrace. Developing and managing a twitter account is also beneficial for promotion purposes. New products, product improvements and product development are valuable topics to tweet about. Betterbrekkie can use its twitter account to make customers aware of the various offers and promotion such as when it is offering happy hours. Developing and maintaining a twitter account is easy as it will integrate and optimize the linkage between other social media accounts that the company runs. Twitter feed offers the most up-to-date about the offerings; by sharing this information across all the company media accounts like Facebook and LinkedIn, the company saves time whilst keeping its accounts updated to avoid stagnation. Any page connected to the company’s twitter feed automatically updates once the twitter account is updated. This speedily spreads promotion and marketing information with the least strain on the company’s time and other resources (Culbertson, 2011, para 3). In addition, betterbrekkie can use twitter as a customer service tool and thus enhance its reputation. Several companies are starting to embrace twitter as a tool for customer service, and are enthusiastic and all set to respond to clients concerns. Whole Foods Company embraced twitter as its primary tool for customer service to answer to customers with queries regarding products availability at various food stores, diet information and holiday hours (Liebowitz, 2011, p 65). Betterbrekkie can also benefit from twitter by setting up niche accounts as one of the innovative aspects. This could entail having an account for each of its products, for example an account for the new product breakfast cereal bar @betterbrekkie. This will enable betterbrekkie company target niche clients of different food categories. On its part, JetBlue corporation uses twitter to give information to customers on flight delays (Fitton, Gruen and Leslie 2010, p 227). The company seeks for feedback on proposed route changes, where it benefits by getting the client’s point of view even on a short notice. As a result, the corporation enjoys a positive image as a customer friendly institution resulting from its interaction with clients on social media. Betterbrekkie can also obtain recommendations from its twitter followers. The followers can provide information to the company especially on the nature of products. Other suggestions are when the company is looking for a reliable office holder, as the twitter network will be helpful in staffing for the position. The firm can even get a manager from among the twitter following (Bell, 2009 p 323). Demerits of developing and managing a twitter presence Though twitter may be helpful for popularizing a company’s products, there are several shortcomings that come along with it. Nejati asserts that twitter and micro-blogging arenas are under-researched, and that industry views on twitter may not be helpful. The reason is that twitter is still in its infancy (Nejati and Nejati, 2011, p 300), and that there is an enormous untapped potential and unknown mistake as well. Nejati further notes that mishandling of twitter and other social media may have significant unconstructive impacts, which could yield irreparable or valuable damage. Other failure situations include abusive tweets, which justify the inappropriateness of twitter as a marketing tool. Another shortcoming of twitter that is contrary to the common belief is that twitter is not free. When twitter is used a marketing researching tool, there are several requirements for management. These are; time and commitment to build up relationships, finance, people and management buy-in. These requirements may be easy for leading organizations like Dell and IBM, but complex for small and medium enterprises to abide by. By 2010, only seventeen percent of UK firms were using twitter as a marketing tool, and few were persuaded of its tactical feasibility. This implies that twitter should not be the sole marketing tool for a company. Recommendations Following the several benefits that arise from technology, researching the market is easier and cost effective, especially using social media. Recent data indicates that there are about 15.5 UK adults on Twitter; therefore, tapping into their lifestyle is a few clacks of a mouse away. By following posts and tweets, one can unearth what is trending and what is the consumers’ perspective on a certain product. Twitter will also enable the company to establish areas in which its competitors have presence, the kind of comments they receive, as well as the opportunities they miss. The company can thus come up with a graph of any noticeable trends and start building its market tactics around them. This will also help the firm predict future trends in the market. The recommendation is therefore to develop and manage a twitter presence for the company’s product line. Another recommendation is to have the company promote its products through traditional channels like in newspapers, radios and televisions to cater for the market niche unreachable by twitter. Some customers in the selected market niche may not have access to twitter due to technological challenges. As such, traditional media can compliment twitter in order to reach all intended market niche. The two recommendations can be implemented together at the time of launching the product on March to ensure the product receives the intended publicity. Bibliography: Bell, G. (2009) Building Social Web Applications.USA: OReilly Media. Business sense. (2012) How to Get Ahead Of Your Competitors. Accessed on 21 January 2013 from: http://www.nw-businesssense.com/topics-and-briefings/sep-12-how-to-increase- your-market-share.html. Culbertson, J. (2011) Tips to Taking Full Advantage of Twitter’s Features. Accessed on 21 January 21, 2013 from: https://community.dynamics.com/b/lookingglassmarketing/archive/2011/03/29/tips-to- taking- full-advantage-of-twitter-s-features.aspx. Developaweb. (2012) Benefits of Having a Twitter Account for Your Business, accessed on 21 January 2013 from: http://www.developaweb.com/benefits-of-having-a-twitter-account- for-your-business/. Dzhingarov, B. (2012) CRM benefits of having a twitter account. Accessed on 21 January 2013 from: http://www.business2community.com/twitter/crm-benefits-of-having-a- twitter-account-0303273. Fitton, L Gruen, M and Poston, L. (2010). Twitter For Dummies. NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Gillin, P and Schwartzman, E. (2010) Social Marketing to the Business Customer: Listen to Your B2B Market, Generate Major Account Leads, and Build Client Relationships. NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Lamb, W., Hair, F and Carl, M. (2011) Essentials of Marketing. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. 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