An Integrated Marketing Strategy for Xiaomi Brand - Essay Example

FINAL PAPER An Integrated Marketing Strategy for Xiaomi brand Overview/Executive Summary of the marketing strategy Xiaomi is a new China-based company, which has become number one in the smartphone market in China. The company sells its products in Asian markets, including India and Indonesia. However, Xiaomi has a potential to grow its business internationally. In order to grow this potential there was set a marketing communication objective – to build the overall image of the Xiaomi brand in the international arena, with a focus made on teenagers in Russia. In order to achieve this goal there was developed an integrated marketing communication plan comprised of both traditional and digital marketing campaigns. Traditional marketing tools proposed for Xiaomi brand included Public Relations campaign and Customer Social Relationships; Internet marketing campaign included online promotion and e-mailing campaigns. Introduction Xiaomi is a China-based company, which manufactures smartphones. The company is relatively new, as it was established in 2010 (Loehnis, 2014). However, despite its “young age”, Xiaomi is already recognized to be one of the most exciting and fast-growing start-ups in China. Within a three-year period of its existence, the company has sold more than 20 million phones a year, and expanded its business into Asian markets, including Indian and Indonesian markets (Loehnis, 2014; Cook, 2015). Despite its great potential and high quality but affordable smartphones the company has not yet entered non-Asian markets (Cook, 2015). The aim of this paper is to develop an integrated marketing strategy for a Chinese company Xiaomi in order to build the overall image of the company in the international arena, with a specific focus on the Russian market (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). This strategy will utilize a combination of both traditional and digital marketing tools. Description of the products and desired brand image The company is the fastest growing smartphone vendor in China (Xiaomi prefers WOM to advertising, 2014). The company offers a great balance of quality and price of its products, making smartphones available and affordable for greater number of people (Cook, 2015). Due to these characteristics, the company is perceived to be “a hero for a generation of young Chinese” (Loehnis, 2014, n.p.). Thus, the company’s brand image should reflect the high quality of its smartphones but on the other hand reinforce the affordability factor as well. Combination of these two aspects makes the brand especially attractive in contrast to such giants as Apple, Samsung, Nokia, and BlackBerry (Loehnis, 2014). The target market, including buyer motivations, demographics, and psychographics The company’s target market is youth market living in Russia. Consumers of both sexes aged between 12-18 years old comprise the major demographic target audience of Xiaomi products. This specific category of people is willing to pay lower prices for Android smartphones but also to have a high quality modern device (Cook, 2015). In terms of psychographics, this target market share similar attitudes, values, and lifestyles as other teenagers in Europe or in the UK. They are tech-savvy; they spend a lot of time in social networks, listen to music and video, play games, etc. This target audience wants to have cool smartphone as Apple, but it has limited budgets. The overall marketing strategy, including positioning strategy versus competitors Xiaomi is relatively new company, which has not yet developed a prominent positioning strategy in the industry. The company’s management believes that quality of products and innovations is the most effective driver of sales growth than advertising (Warc.com, 2014). Therefore, the company’s major marketing tool employed is the Word-of-Mouth power. Its slogan “Just for Fans” reinforces company’s focus on its consumers. Instead of making a product and deciding how to sell it, Xiaomi communicates with its customers and asks them what they want (Loehnis, 2014, n.p.). Care about customer is a pillar of the company’s positioning strategy. The major ingredients of the company’s success are consumer-led product development, smart e-commerce-led distribution, strong structural and emotional bounds via selling accessories, clever business model with low pricing, and low marketing costs and scarcity (Loehnis, 2014). Apple, Samsung, and other smartphone players, on the contrary, heavily invest into their marketing and positioning campaigns in order to differentiate their brands from competitors (Loehnis, 2014). Xiaomi should position itself as a brand, which offers cool devices for young generation, but at lower price. Thus, the company will differentiate itself from major competitors. Promotions and advertising campaign As it has been already mentioned the company does not invest much in promotions or advertising campaigns. In promoting its brand, the company relies heavily on word-of-mouth advertising (Warc.com, 2014). However, in January 2015 the company has launched a new advertisement for the Mi Note (Klienman, 2015). In this video a group of scientists are trying to “fix” the new new iPhone’s protruding rear camera with a frying pan (Klienman, 2015). After several strikes, the device magically transforms into the Mi Note with a 13-megapixel rear camera (Kleinman, 2015). Now, the company can do a similar video, but with a participation of schoolchildren on the physics lesson (instead of scientists). In order to launch this video, the company should utilize the official channel on YouTube and other social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Public Relations campaign Public relations can be defined as the activity and function of supporting a positive organizational, brand, or company image in the eyes of public (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). In order to achieve set marketing objective to develop the overall image of the Xiaomi in global scales, it is vital to launch an effective Public Relations campaign. Public relations and publicity is an important tool for marketers and advertisers as it enables them to provide positive communications for a firm or business (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). With a use of PR, Xiaomi will be able to appeal to a number of different audiences and to generate an endorsement from media (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). As Xiaomi is a relatively new but successful business, PR activity will help it to tell its story to the wider public. In its PR activity, Xiaomi should focus on reputation management activity. The company risks to gain negative perception in non-Asian markets as its products could be viewed as copies of Apple’s products. The company should overcome a challenge of negative reputation by launching an international PR campaign. Tactics proposed for PR activity include press releases, interviews of top managers and feature articles in well-known technology journals and magazines, and participation in mobile technology exhibitions (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). Internet marketing campaign With the development of Information Technology consumers continuously increase their time spent in online environment. This tendency has offered many great opportunities for companies willing to adopt cost-effective, and targeted marketing approach (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). Xiaomi being a leader in mobile technology industry should definitely utilize Internet as a platform for its marketing campaign. The company should focus on promoting its brand, online stores and website through social media and Search Engine Optimization tools. As the company is targeting young consumers who spend a lot of time in social networking websites, Xiaomi has a great potential to use this platforms for promoting its brand. For example, the company can launch some kind of contest and competitions launch videos, post new photos, etc. in order to engage its target audience. In addition, the company can use e-mailing marketing promotions for informing potential customers about news, special offers, and new products. Customer Relationship Management Many companies have in-house databases that are part of their customer relationship management (CRM) strategy (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). Xiaomi implementing CRM will be better able to identify, acquire, retain, and nurture profitable customers by focusing on building relationships (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). Xiaomi needs to integrate data in order to have a single customer view across products, channels, and business functions (Wilson, 2012). The company should implement database marketing. Database marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses databases of consumer information to create relevant marketing materials (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). Conclusion Xiaomi is a new China-based company, which has become number one in the smartphone market in China. The company sells its products in Asian markets, but is looking for expansion to the Russian market as it has a great potential for company’s international business expansion. Having balanced high quality and relatively low price of the smartphone products, Xiaomi is targeting young generation, which wants to have modern Android smartphones but have limited budgets for purchase. In order to promote its high quality but affordable smartphones to the youth living in Russia, the company needs to implement an integrated marketing communication plan comprised of both traditional and digital marketing campaigns. Traditional marketing tools proposed for Xiaomi brand included: YouTube advertising campaign, Public Relations campaign and Customer Social Relationships campaign. As the target audience spends a lot of time online in social networking, listening to music, watching videos, and playing games online, it is critical for success of the company to utilize Internet for marketing promotions and advertising. The company needs to ensure presence in social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, vkontakte, and YouTube via launching some contests and other creative concepts. References: Cook, J. (2015). Chinese Smartphone Giant Xiaomi Wont Be Coming To The West For A Few Years. Business Insider. Retrieved 6 February 2015, from http://www.businessinsider.com/xiaomi-us-europe-market-arrival-2015-1 Kleinman, J. (2015). Xiaomi Smacks the iPhone 6 Plus With a Frying Pan in New Ad. TechnoBuffalo. Retrieved 6 February 2015, from http://www.technobuffalo.com/2015/01/21/mi-note-pro-vs-iphone-6-plus-commercial/ Loehnis, B. (2014). The last word from the East: The secrets of the fastest billion-dollar company. Admap. Ogden, J. R., & Ogden, D. T. (2014). Integrated marketing communications: Advertising, public relations, and more. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Xiaomi prefers WOM to advertising (2014). Warc.com. Retrieved 6 February 2015, from http://www.warc.com/Content/News/N33708_Xiaomi_prefers_WOM_to_advertising_.content?PUB=Warc%20News&CID=N33708&ID=35e222f1-120f-4012-a498-9a5efdb33626&q=xiaomi&qr= Wilson, H. (2012). Customer Relationship Management. Warc Best Practice: May 2012. Retrieved 6 February 2015, from http://www.warc.com/Content/ContentViewer.aspx?MasterContentRef=c89b3cc1-372d-4d40-b2de-7b0b4a283ace&q=Customer+Relationship+Management&CID=A96824&PUB=BESTPRAC Read More