Marketing Communication Plans Free-Samples -Samples for Students

Questions: 1.Briefly describe the Industry Market for your Organisation2.Outline and examine the Major Market segments for your Organisation and identify your primary and secondary target Markets.3.Describe the nature of competition in your industry. Explain and analyse your organisations place in the market by Comparing and Contrasting its Strengths and Weaknesses to your main Competitor.4.Taking into Consideration the Primary Segment, their level of Involvement and the Competition, create a positioning map for the Market place. Answers: Introduction Marketing is the process in which various tools and techniques are employed by an organization to create awareness of its products and services among people in the market. Nowadays, marketing is essential for businesses because it directly supports in enhancing the volume of sales and profitability(Hannah, Parent, Pitt, Berthon, 2014). However, it can be critically argued that management of marketing practices is not an easy task for companies as they are required to invest vast ranges of efforts and resources. The current research is based on Apple Inc. which is an American based multinational technology company. The organization was established in 1976 and at present, it is considered as the leading brand in the world. This study explores industry market of Apple Inc. in Australia. Furthermore, the primary and secondary market segment of the brand is also highlighted in the present research. 1.Industry analysis and market trends In a market such as Australia, the company is operating with the name of Apple Pty and is headquartered in Sydney(IBIS World, 2016). The main products and services offered by the organization in Australia include softwares, mobile phones, consumer electronics, personal computers, and portable media devices. The brand has also established its retail stores in areas such as Western Australia, New South Wales, Canberra, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, etc. The industry in which Apple Inc. is operating is consumer electronic industry. It can be expressed that at present, the consumer electronic market of Australia is at declining stage. In addition to this, it has become very challenging for the organizations to maintain the interest of people within the industry(Kane, Palmer, Phillips, Kiron, Buckley, 2015). The demand for products and services offered by leading brands is declining, and these companies are facing issues regarding increasing their volume of sales and profitability in Australia(EuroMonitor International, 2016). In the consumer electronics industry of Australia, Apple Inc. is facing intense competition from the brands such as Samsung Electronics Australia Pty Ltd, Lenovo Pty Ltd, and Hewlett-Packard Australia Pty Ltd, etc. The Australian consumer electronic industry has reached stages such as maturity and saturation. It means that the competition among existing market players in the sector is highly intense. Further, it is now required by brands such as Apple, Samsung, and Lenovo to reduce the price of their products and services to attract more customers(Strauss, 2016). The industry is also getting affected by the Free Trade Agreement between China and Australia. It can be stated that the agreement has resulted in the price war as many Chinese products offering same features at low prices have entered the market. On the contrary, the internet retailing has continued to grow despite the fact that the overall growth rate of the industry is declining. To sustain in the marketplace, it is required by Apple Inc. to develop products and services which are highly innovative. The rationale behind this is that innovation will support the brand in carrying out differentiation. In addition to this, innovative products will also result in providing the competitive advantage to the selected business enterprise(Babin Zikmund, 2015). However, it can be critically argued that even on the stage of the intense competition, some companies have witnessed positive growth in the consumer electronic market of Australia. For example, brand such as Apple and Cannon has acquired adequate growth rate in the year 2016. On the other side of this, the tablet market in the country has experienced the decline in the demand and thus, sales and revenues of many companies have been affected by the same. The net sales of Apple Inc. have declined, but the brand can achieve adequate growth by selling ample volume of its expensive Smartphone(West, Ford, Ibrahim, 2015). The sales of brands such as Philips was almost constant in the industry and at the same time companies such as Sony corporation has managed to achieve 5% increase in its sales volume. Pestle analyses It can be expressed that the operations and business practices of companies in consumer electronic market are directly affected by macro environment factors existing in the country. At the time of carrying out its activities, a business such as Apple Inc. is influenced by political factors such as changing government policies and tax rates(Scott, 2015). At present, the political environment of Australia is stable and therefore, businesses can carry out a smooth flow of all their operations. Further, political agreements such as Free Trade Agreement between China and Australia have also positively affected the operations of Apple. In the first quarter of 2017, the economy has expanded by 0.3%, and in the year 2016, the economy has grown by 2.5% which is quite good(FocusEconomics, 2017). It can be expressed that adequate economic growth has somehow helped businesses in the consumer electronics industry to maintain their sales and profitability. However, social factors have adversely affected the demand for products and services offered by the companies. Nowadays, consumers in the industry are not much interested in buying the existing products offered by companies in Australia, and they want something new and innovative. The result of this is that many businesses are not able to attain the expected growth rate and at the same time the demand also declined. Macro environmental factors such as technology have positively affected the entire industry. The adaption of new and upgraded technology has helped businesses in the industry to serve customers with more innovative and satisfactory products(Blakeman, 2014). On the other hand, the organization's practices and policies are also affected by factors such as legal. It is required by companies to follow all the rules and regulations developed by Australia strictly. Furthermore, businesses are also restricted to make use of unfair practices and carry out war price within the industry. At the time of conducting operations in the industry, it is also required by organizations to ensure that activities do not adversely affect the environment. The government and other regulatory authorities are stringent and force businesses to adopt sustainable practices. The impact of this is that organization such as the Apple Inc. is required to carry out certain changes in its existing practices, and this has resulted in increasing the overall operational cost(Montgomerie Roscoe, 2013). 2.Major Market Segments (Stp) The market for businesses can be broadly classified into two broad categories which are business markets and consumers markets. Further, business markets consist of groups and persons who purchase products and services from companies with an objective to resale them or to produce other products(Chaston, 2015). On the other side of this, consumer markets consist of people and groups who purchase the goods, services for carrying out the ultimate consumption of the same. Market segmentation can be termed as the process of dividing the entire market into different subsets of the customer with similar demand, needs, and characteristics. Primary and secondary markets In the context of Apple Inc., it can be asserted that the brand has two different market segments which are primary and secondary. The major market segment includes individuals and parties which purchase the products and services for their end consumers. On the other hand, the secondary market segment of Apple Inc. includes retailers and persons who buy the goods and services from the company and resale the same to end users. The process of market segmentation is carried out by different segmentation variables(Parente Strausbaugh-Hutchinson, 2014). The key variable includes demographic, psychographic, behavioural and geographical variables. Here, Apple is using demographic variables for carrying out segmentation of its market in Australia. The company has divided its primary market by demographic variable which is income level. Further, it has targeted people who fall into the category of middle and higher income group. Individuals who seek for maintaining a luxurious lifestyle is m ainly aimed at the selected business enterprise. Working professionals and teenagers are also included in the target market for Apple, and the brand offers products such as I phone, Mac book, and tablets to these customers(Kumar, Townsend, Vorhies, 2015). The company has also carried out geographic segmentation of its market, and urban areas of the country are mainly targeted by Apple Inc. Regarding secondary target market, the brand focuses on targeting retail stores, shops operating at small, medium and large scale. These businesses buy products from Apple and resale them by keeping some profit margin. Involvement of primary market in organizations decision making It can be expressed that the primary market for Apple plays a crucial role in the overall decision making. In the present scenario, the competition among businesses operating in the consumer electronics industry of Australia has become highly intense. The result of this is that companies are required to carry out changes in their existing products and services offering at regular intervals. Apart from this, decisions regarding modifications in existing business strategy and marketing tactics are also required to be made by corporations. At the time of making decisions, it is necessary for Apple Inc. to understand the entire decision-making process of people in the country. The consumer buying decision process includes five major stages which are problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase and post purchase behaviour(Hao, Guo, Easley, 2015). All these steps are required to be taken into consideration by the organization during the process of decision making. For example, it is necessary to develop products and services by identifying the changing demand of people in the Australian market. In addition to this, the business is also required to carry out aggressive marketing of its products and services to ensure that Apples products are displayed at the top when an individual enters the stage of information search to satisfy the identified demand(Hennessy, Hennessy, Najjar, Najjar, 2017). At the time of evaluation of alternatives also, the company is required to make sure that its products are better regarding quality and durability in comparison with the products offered by other market players. Even in the stage such as post purchase behaviour, the organization needs to ensure that satisfactory after sale services are available to the customers. The rationale behind this is that such services will contribute to enhancing the degree of customer loyalty and repeat purchase. The primary market segment provides a lot in the overall decision-making process of the selected business. Apple Inc. carries out intense market research to identify the changing demand and need of people in the market(Newton Ojo, 2017). Based on the information collected through these investigations, the company makes decisions with regards to the development of new product or modification in the existing ones. In addition to this, the primary market segment of Apple also plays vital role in making decisions linked with the implementation of various marketing tools, techniques, and strategies. It can be asserted that decision linked with the development of marketing mix in Australia is also affected a lot by changing demand and needs of primary segment. Thus, the mentioned-above information indicates that there is the high degree of involvement of primary sector in the process of Apples decision making(Kopp Langenderfer, 2014). For example, the process of decision making is influenced by the views and feedback provided by the customer of Apple Inc. 3.Competition analysis At present, the competition within consumer electronic industry is highly intense, and this has created obstacles for companies regarding achieving higher sales and profitability. It can be stated that Apple Inc. is facing intense competition from brands such as Samsung in its mobile phone segment(Choi, Kim, Yoon, 2014). The main strength of Samsung is that it is considered as one of the most successful electronic manufacturers in the world. The brand operates with a diversified range of products which include Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), smart phones, mobile phones, television sets, etc. On the other side of this, the key strength of Apple Inc. is its advertisement and marketing capabilities. It has helped the brand to create more and more awareness among people in the market. Powerful and efficient ad practices have also supported Apple Inc. in getting the competitive advantage over other market players. A comparison between Apple and its competitor key strength and weakness is mentioned below as: Company Strength Weaknesses Apple Inc Advertisement capability Innovative products Meeting expectation of customers Dependency of few products Samsung Impressive research and design capabilities The most successful electronic manufacturer Ineffective marketing as compared to Apple Inc. Limited growth in market such as Europe and USA After carrying out the comparison between Apple Inc. and its key competitor, it can be stated that the biggest weakness of Apple lies in its dependency on few products. On the other hand, the weakness of Samsung is that its marketing practices are not as effective as Apple. This weakness has created various obstacles for Samsung regarding stealing the market share from Apple Inc(Gupta Prinzinger, 2013). The innovative products offered by Apple have also supported the company in getting the competitive advantage over other players operating in the market. On the contrary, an impressive research and design capability have helped the organization to attract more and more customers within the industry. 4.Positioning map highlights how a particular business enterprise has positioned itself in the marketplace as compared to key competitors. Figure 1Positioning Map - Apple Inc. From the positioning mentioned above map, it is clear that Apple Inc. has positioned itself as a brand which offers high quality of products and services at a great price. The company focuses a lot on areas such as innovation. Furthermore, it also believes that changing the lives of people in the society through its innovative products and services(Dalgic Leeuw, 2015). Apart from this, sufficient quality parameters have been set by the brand to ensure that individuals in the market are being delivered with the most prominent quality of products and services. The result of this is that even if the company has adopted a high price strategy, it has been the success in attracting a large number of customers(Newton Ojo, 2017). Samsung which is considered as the main competitor of Apple also falls in the same category where it is delivering high-quality products at high prices. The mentioned-above positioning map reflects that LG is offering low-quality products at low prices. Conclusion From the above carried out research report, it can be concluded that Apple Inc. has witnessed adequate growth in Australia market despite the declining consumer electronic industry. Furthermore, it can be inferred that factor such as political, economic and technological has supported Apple Inc. in its long term growth and development. On the other side of this, the figure of sales and profitability has been affected due to changing demand and needs of people in the Australian market. The primary market of Apple includes individuals and groups who buy apple for their consumption, and the secondary market includes individuals or parties who purchase Apples products for reselling purpose. It can be inferred that Apple has positioned itself as a brand which offers high quality of goods and services at high prices. Further, the company is facing intense competition from market players such as Samsung, and the high degree of competition has adversely affected the growth rate of Apple Inc. References Babin, B. J., Zikmund, W. G. (2015). Exploring marketing research. Boston: Cengage Learning. Blakeman, R. (2014). Integrated marketing communication: creative strategy from idea to implementation. . Maryland: Rowman Littlefield. Chaston, I. (2015). Entrepreneurial Marketing: Sustaining Growth in All Organisations. 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