Development of Marketing Objectives: Colgate-Palmolive Company - Case Study Example

MARKETING OBJECTIVES By Location Marketing objectives Introduction Marketing is very essential for organisations that want to increase their awareness about services and products and also themselves. Regardless of the amount of profit a company gains, developing and establishing clear objectives helps in implementing a successful marketing plan. This essay aids in highlighting the sound objectives, strategies, and tactics that will enable Colgate-Palmolive Company stay ahead of its competitors. The company is looking forward to investigate strategies that will increase its market share. Proposed below are the objectives that will enable the company to increase its competitive power. Marketing objectives Objective #1. Increase sales volume by 2% One of the key objectives that the company should focus on to increase its profits is increasing sales volume and driving business. For marketing to be profitable, a company should have a good investment return. This means that the sales volume should be higher than the marketing cost and be specific. The company is planning to increase its sales volume by 2 percent by the end of 2016. Objective #2. Improve product awareness The company is also planning to improve its product awareness. Improving product awareness will also increase the company’s sales volume. The company should increase its product awareness for it to stay ahead of its key rivals like Unilever and Procter & Gamble. It is not easy to maintain a place in the public mind, and Colgate-Palmolive Company should direct its marketing efforts on maintaining distinction in the public. The company should concentrate on running ads on televisions to remind the public about its brand instead of promoting its goods and services.This will make the company’s brand become widely known around the world. Objective #4. Increase its competitive advantage The company should ensure that it is among the top three leading brands within the industry. This will be achieved by establishing the company’s awareness within the industry. Growth strategies The common objective of marketing is achieving growth. There are many ways in which Colgate-Palmolive can grow. Colgate-Palmolive should expand internally for it to grow significantly. This is referred to as organic growth. The company should use the following Ansoff’s matrix to analyse the growth strategies that it may use. This Ansoff’s matrix suggests three growth strategies for Colgate-Palmolive: Market penetration- This strategy entails that Colgate-Palmolive should sell its already established product by reducing prices and increasing promotion. The company should start using other marketing routes such as online selling. Colgate is among the products whose prices are very sensitive. Setting higher prices for the product will result in customers relying on alternative products from the company’s competitors such as Unilever. Therefore, in order to increase the sales volume, there is the need of the company paying special attention to its pricing strategies. Colgate is the expensive toothpaste in our supermarkets compared to brands from other companies and this makes many people rely on the cheap brands since they all serve the same function. Therefore, reducing the Colgate’s price can relatively increase the company’s sales volume. Raising the brand’s price will only increase the company’s revenues with the sales remaining constant or decreasing. Market development-The company should take its existing product to other markets especially in countries where it has not penetrated. The larger the population the company can attract to promote its products the more sales it will have. The company’s marketing management should focus on strategies that will increase the customer population, such as reducing the products’ prices and increasing their quality and quantity. Such strategies will highly aid in the company developing new relationships thus increasing its sales. Diversification- diversification means producing new products and distribute them into the market. For instance, for Colgate-Palmolive to grow, it should start producing toothpaste that is medicated to cure most of the dental diseases that affect many people nowadays. since Colgate-Palmolive Company is a mature company, it is now its time to add new services and products in order exponential firm’s growth and development. Since the company has broadly saturated its marketplace, it should come up with new products that the customers buy and the company does not offer. The company should also try to replace some of its old products and come up with new brands or new brands’ name.Although this can decrease the sales volume, there is a possibility of the sales increasing in the long run (Babu 2007, p. 67). Increasing the company’s revenues and sales are different but related goals and each objective requires implementation of its own strategy. Though the tactics used to obtain each objective may be different, it is good to compliment them all. Colgate-Palmolive Company marketing team should have an understanding of the relationship of both sales and revenues and learn how to balance company need in order to increase the two. This helps in increasing both profits and market efficiency (Babu 2007, p. 56). Sales is a term used to refer to the amount of units of the products the company sells. The strategies that Colgate-Palmolive Company should use to increase its sales and revenues include; increasing the company’s marketing, reviewing the company’s pricing strategies, expanding distribution channels, diversifying the company’s offerings, and developing relationships. Increasing marketing- the obvious method that the company should use to increase its sales is boosting its marketing. However, quantity does not mean that you are selling quality products. Therefore, the marketing team should ensure that it carries out careful planning, monitoring results, and test-marketing in order to maximize the company’s sales. The marketing team should also conduct market research to find out the type of messages that attracts the target audience of Colgate. The company should also budget more on existing sales increment strategies like promotion and ads in order to take away a large market share from its competitors. This will also be accomplished by incorporating some ways to screen marketing communications like use of electronic codes, coupons, and website traffic statistics. Expanding distribution channel- changing where the company sales its product can significantly increase its sales without changing the company’s pricing and marketing. The marketing team should carefully study the impacts of making use of distributors, wholesalers, outside sales representatives, and retailers to determine how each affects the company’s sales volume. In some situations, the new channels will require strong marketing support. Diversifying the company’s offerings- Developing new relationships- For a low involvement product like Colgate, it is not easy to create tactics, which will increase the brand awareness. One of the possible strategies is attracting targeted populations that have a general tendency of being involved in the buying of Colgate. For instance, the old people who have teeth that have special needs than those of younger people, might highly buy Colgate to meet their needs. There is, for instance, a higher rate of middle-aged women who have a problem of lack of calcium. Colgate since it has a higher percentage of calcium, should be introduced to this population. There is also the likeliness of these two target groups will be willing to pay for any set price due to the product’s additional feature. Another possibility of increasing Colgate’s brand awareness is connecting the brand with a critical contemporary issue. For instance, many countries are highly concerned about their environment well-being. In order to reduce environmental population caused by disposal of products packets, Colgate Company could benefit from introducing its product without package. This environmental aspect, which is very important in many countries could be promoted using television advertisements and placing signs at the shopping centre shelves about the environmental awareness of the company. Integrating teeth experts in the product, the dentist, is another significant strategy that can be used by the company’s marketing team to improve its brand awareness. On the one hand, a dentist’s representative can be used to introduce the toothpaste on television advertisements and make announcements that consumers who attend the medical treatment will be given free toothpaste samples. Then the company should inform the dentist about the benefits of using Colgate and provided with the free samples. These strategies if implemented appropriately will improve the brand awareness at a faster rate. The future brand management strategy for Colgate may include the following actions and steps. In order to maintain the brand image in the market, the company requires implementation of the continuous growth system and upgradation (Babu 2007, p. 78). Therefore, in order to improve brand management, the company should put emphasis on development projects and research. The Colgate’s brand strategy should aim at reaching the consuming and ring customers of rural areas with introduction of Ayurvedic oral care substances. In order to reinforce the company’s brand awareness in urban areas, the company should launch oral care substances specifically to aid in targeting urban rich consumers and the youth. The company should aim at introducing special oral care substances to enable it to focus on functional advantages. The company can launch various oral care substances for different groups according to age. The company should also plan to change its packaging techniques depending on price points. In a way this strategy will establish new pricing criterion. The company should also aim at strengthening its promotion network. This will be accomplish through campaign programs and undertaking advertising techniques with the aim of reaching its consumers based on income classes. Market targeting and positioning The target audience of the company is all age groups belonging to both middle and upper class.The Colgate’s brand strategy aims at reaching the consuming and ring customers in rural areas. As mentioned above, the company emphasizes on targeting both old and middle-aged women in the market. This is differentiated market targeting because the old people have teeth that have special needs and there is also increased rate of lack of teeth calcium among middle-aged women. It is differentiated because the company creates marketing campaigns to appeal these two groups. Therefore, there is likeliness of these two target groups be willing to pay for any set price due to the product’s additional feature.On the other hand, market position refers to the process in which marketers create brand’s identity or image in minds of target customers (Rao & Krishna 2005, p. 45). The Colgate’s marketing team have been for a long time trying to sustain the company’s image through hard work and tough competition. Strategies like an advertisement and media are responsible for creating the company’s image in the eyes and minds of both the customers and competitors. Selection of competitive advantage In any organisation, price competition is important because it helps in attracting a large population of customers. The less a company’s prices its products, the larger the population of customers it gains. However, in order to avoid it in a competitive rivalry, avoiding price competition is important and this is what Colgate-Palmolive Company should observe. The company should not place its competition on price, but it should focus on management strategies that can best leverage its products. Colgate-Palmolive should implement different strategies when marketing its products in order to achieve a competitive advantage. This differentiation and different product segmentation will set an advantage for the company. Moreover, the company should use healthy communication with its competitors in order to positively contribute to the competition. In addition, the company should not take competition personally, but as a matter of both professional work and business. Colgate-Palmolive Company will have a competitive edge not only because of the above mentioned facts, but also because of its ability to manage the entire process of the company’s operation and business. Additionally, quality financial management as well as a diversified course of operations will bring to the company enormous stakeholders and customers. Toothpaste and toothbrush producers have invested a lot in producing health care products to enable their consumers brush comfortably, frequently, and properly. Due to the current increased rate of dental diseases, consumers have changed their brushing habits and most of them are currently preferring quality and not quantity. Since consumers are currently highly concerned about their dental health, the toothpaste and toothbrush companies are implementing strategies to help them acquire an optimal health by providing various types of toothpastes. In order to do this Colgate-Palmolive Company should highly focus on the needs of the customers to acquire a competitive advantage. For this reason, the company should make numerous aesthetic and functional changes to its product(Rao & Krishna 2005, p. 64). For instance, the company should emphasize on its current strategy of manufacturing toothbrushes with indicators to tell customers when to buy another one. Lowering the product prices, increasing its quality, and making aesthetic and functional changes will grand the company a competitive advantage thus staying ahead of its key rivals. Marketing mix Programme-4P’s Product-Colgate should introduce a broad range of products in the market with clear positioning. In oral care, the company should focus on its four identified categories, which include economy, premium, popular, and freshness and focus on products within these categories which can give results.The Colgate-Palmolive Company should ensure that their products are completely different and unique from the products provided by the company’s competitors. The strategy will be to differentiate the company’s product packaging and design in order to make the toothpaste stand out in the market. Price- The company should use competition pricing strategy. in order for the company to increase its sales volume, it should sell its products at a fair price that will be affordable to all classes. Even if the quality of the toothpaste is higher than that of other companies, the price set should be based on the prices set by other companies. This pricing strategy is known as competition pricingwhereby, the price set must be compared to that of the competitors.This pricing tactic will aid in positioning the product as a mainstream instead of positioning it as a niche product. The price of a product says a lot about its quality (Peterson 2005, p. 34). Place- Colgate should further strengthen its distribution channels. The company should also try its best to to improve and enhance the availability of its products in different types of retail channels and as many areas as possible. The company should plan a foray into many villages in the coming years. Place refers to the location where consumers can buy a product. The most important aspect of marketing is determining how the product moves from the producer to the buyer(Peterson 2005, p. 42). Most companies use a distribution channel to transport the products to the consumers. Distribution channel may involve manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, and retailers.The distribution channel that Colgate-Palmolive use is through plastic surgeons, dentists, grocery stores, drug stores, department stores, and large retail stores. This will make the product be available to all markets, including rural and semi-urban markets. Promotion- This paper suggests that Colgate-Palmolive Company should advertise its products through the use of social media, magazine ads, radio ads placed in dental offices, commercial ads, sides of buses, and billboards. Advertisement will be used to advertise and promote the newly produced products as well as reminding consumers about the existing ones, and also promoting the company’s image. The paper also suggests that Colgate-Palmolive Company should offer debates and special coupons through other products and also offer food substances. In addition, the company can highly benefit from in-store displays. The most significant promotional activities that the company should rely on are; FM radio to attract urban population, Media, Televisions, and promotions in rural areas (Rao & Krishna 2005, p. 87). This is known as a pull strategy whereby, the company will promote its product to the target market increasing its denand so that the retailers will have to stock it in bulk. Strategies used by Colgate-Palmolive Colgate-Palmolive use three main marketing strategies which are; product differentiation, porter generic strategies, and market dominance. Market dominance- With no doubt, Colgate is the leading in the industry of oral care. The main strategy that enables the company to be the market leader is that it ensures that it meets all the needs of their customers. Apart from this, massive advertising campaigns should be used to develop brand awareness in the market especially children. Porter generic strategies- Colgate-polmolive attains its competitive advantage through market segmentation and product differentiation strategies. The Colgate has a long line of product that enables it to satisfy the needs of its segmented target market. Product differentiation- Colgate-Polmolive Company uses product differentiation strategy that can be evidenced from the fact that when a customer asks for a red color toothpaste a shopkeeper will definitely offer him or her colgate. This product differentiation impact makes the company’s product different from that of its competitors and offering extra quality to its customers. For instance, the company has recently launched colgate herbal dedicated to a certain group of people. Conclusion To sum it up, the Colgate-Palmolive Company is a very consumer oriented firm that is currently operating a large market share of more than hundred countries. The company provides numerous employees’ oriented programs as well as managing its business operations quite well. The manner in which the company has already established its operations in global market, it still has a higher chance of remaining competitive in the market for many years. In order for the company to secure its position in the market, it should implement all the above mentioned marketing strategies. The company should still keep on producing quality products and sell them at fair prices in order to retain its customers. If the company will implement all the above discussed marketing strategies, then there is no doubt of the company remaining competitive and leading on the market for the coming decades. The objectives and tactics discussed in this paper if implemented appropriately, will be of great benefit to the company. Even if the company sells its products at a bit higher prices compared to other products in the market, the strategies discussed above will enlighten consumers to realize that what matters when purchasing products like Colgate is quality not quantity. The company has grown and will keep on growing as well as taking away a large market share from its competitors. Bibliography Babu, GR 2007, Portfolio management: including security analysis, New Delhi, Cocnept Pub. Co. Peterson, RA 2005, Relationship marketing and the consumer,Journal of the academy of marketing science, 23(4), 278-281. Rao, VSP, & Krishna, HV 2005,Management: Text and Cases, New Delhi, Excel Books. Read More