Question

Your task is to develop a promotion strategy for the new iPad mini. For the product, respond to the following questions:
• What's the purpose of the promotion?
• What's your target market?
• What is the best way to reach that target market?
• What product features should you emphasize?
• How does your product differ from those of
competitors?
Then describe the elements that go into your promotion mix, and explain why you chose the promotional tools that you did.

Answer 1

To survive in the global and competitive business environment, it is essential for a companies to conduct extensive research so that they can develop a strong brand image from the initial stage as it leads to greater financial benefits for the company. The marketing plan of iPad is the topic where an effective marketing strategy is developed to ensure its success in the global competitive market where major plays such as Sony, Compaq and Dell have a significant impact upon strategies. The latest ipad is the revolutionary product which is a portable mini device used as a PC anywhere with its wide range of options and innovative design.

Marketing strategy will be focusing upon the product design, brand positioning, price and promotion of iPad in the global market. This will be linked to the research and analysis of the environmental forces and SWOT analysis to understand the company’s position. Market strategy will be incorporated with the generic business strategy which is towards growth and maintaining a strong position in the market through its innovative products. Company will use competitive marketing strategy for its iPad where two such strategies can be developed which are differentiation and Focus to make iPad a success in the global market. Marketing planning and strategies can become highly effective if the company focuses upon its strategic human resource management and make continuous efforts to redesign its marketing plan to survive successfully.

WHAT'S THE PURPOSE OF THE PROMOTION?

Business promoting is an active process which needs to be very closely scrutinized for obtaining the best results. You can utilize the manpower that you have to the fullest and come up with strategies to promote your business and let it flourish.

Promotional strategies and marketing go hand in hand. Marketing your brand or product will include different aspects of manufacturing, promoting and selling products to the customers. Promotion is a key element in putting across the benefits of your product or service to the customers. Well-designed marketing and promotional strategies ensure long-term success, bring in more customers and ensure profitability for businesses.

Role of Promotions

Promotion is the voice of your company which send out your brand’s message loud and clear to the audience. Various media platforms can be used to promote your company and brand. They include television, radio, shopping outlets, billboards, magazines, and social media.

Various promotional strategies can be used to promote and market your business depending on the goals, objectives and priorities of your company.

Without marketing promotions, your brand or service would not be able to garner the attention of pre-occupied customers.

Benefits

Promoting your brand will help you in many different ways:

• Increase brand awareness
• Provide appropriate information
• Increase Customer Traffic
• Build sales and profits

WHAT'S YOUR TARGET MARKET?

“Market segmentation referred as the process of segmenting market in to different homogenous group”. These groups react in different way towards different marketing mix variable. Every customer has their individual need and preference but it is impossible to fulfil everybody’s needs. So marketers group customer into homogenous clusters and segmentation is practical way to create a group. It is not possible for the marketers to segment their market through a single way. There are four different ways that marketers can segment their market: geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioural segmentation.

The company must utilize demographic and psychographic segmentation to reach their customer. Demographic segmentation is by age. The advertisement target for iPad was what is believe to be the most potential consumers that is commune about youth and they are from the age of 15 to 30 years. On the other hand psychographic segmentation is also implementing to meet young customer attitude towards their culture. In the Hip-Hop culture, there is a trend-setting impact on adolescents was utilized to its limit in the iPad advertisement”. The dark profiles are also listening to Hip-Hop music using a distinct white iPad and dancing in dynamic and random style. “The stark images of the iPad dancer have really burned themselves into your brain”. Therefore iPad specifically meets the psychological need of their targets that enable to achieve its penetration in the youth market.

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO REACH THAT TARGET MARKET?

Effective Ways to Reach Your Target Audience:

One of the biggest challenges that you face as a marketer is to reach your target audience effectively. In fact, the main goal of marketing is to convey the right message to the right people. And to do that right, you need to learn how to reach your target audience effectively.

If you market your product to the wrong set of people, you’ll end up wasting your time and money. You need to figure out a way to reach your target audience to market your products. Here are the steps you need to take to reach your target audience more effectively.

• Define Your Target Audience: To reach your target audience, you must first define your target audience. And, for this, you need to understand your customers.

You can do this by building a consumer persona. A customer or buyer persona is a generalized representation of how your ideal buyers would be like.

You list their demographic and psychographic attributes and preferences to gain a better understanding of your target audience.

Then you can market your brand and products only to those who are most likely to be genuinely interested in them. This means that there will be higher chances of getting leads and conversions. This will help you increase revenue by investing less.

• Create Useful and Relevant Content: The best way to reach your target audience is by providing them with useful and relevant content. Writing about topics that are of interest to your intended audience is a sure shot way of grabbing their attention.

The more targeted and relevant your content is, the easier it will be for you to reach your target audience and engage them.

Content marketing plays a major role in helping you generate leads and conversions. It can be implemented in various ways to get your desired results.

Here are some of the most common methods:

• Video marketing – Videos are highly engaging and interactive in nature. A good quality video can catch the attention of the viewer easily.
• Blog posts and articles – Written content may not work as well as videos and images, but it still helps you get the attention of your audience. Just make sure that you write about topics that are of interest to your target audience and are useful to them.
• Social media content – You can connect with your target audience through social media as well. Through a combination of images, videos, and text, you can engage and reach them more efficiently.

• Leverage Influencers: Influencer marketing has quickly become the go-to marketing style for digital marketers. You can utilize the power of social media influencers to reach your target audience more effectively. In this form of marketing, you partner with influencers to market your brand to their audiences.

Influencer marketing is a very effective marketing technique that can help you attain numerous marketing goals.

If you partner with relevant influencers from your niche, you can reach potential customers who might be interested in your brand or niche. This allows for qualified lead generation and helps you reach your target audience.

• Use Targeted Advertising: You can reach your target audience more effectively by using targeted advertising. Whether it is Google ads or social media ads, they all provide advanced targeting options to help you reach your target audience. You can target the ads based on demographics, location, and interests of your audience.

This will make sure that your ads are only displayed to those who are likely to show interest in your brand.

• Referral Marketing

Many businesses use a referral system to expand their reach and generate leads. A referral system can help you harness the power of your own customer base to expand your reach. You can give a referral code to your customers and incentivize them to share it with others. This way, you can reach your target audience quickly and with lower investment.

• Reach Your Target Audience on Social Media via Hashtags

With people spending more time on social media platforms, you can’t ignore the importance of them to reach your target audience. However, to target people who might be interested in your brand, you need to use hashtags.

Relevant, industry-specific hashtags can help you broaden the reach of your social media content. And, it will help make sure it’s displayed to people who might actually be interested in it.

WHAT PRODUCT FEATURES SHOULD YOU EMPHASIZE?

The uniqueness of a product or service can set it apart from the competition. Features can communicate the capability of a product or service. But features are only valuable if customers see those particular features as valuable. You want products or services with features which customers perceive as valuable benefits. By highlighting benefits in marketing and sales efforts, you’ll increase your sales and profits.

It’s important to remember that customers buy products and services because they want to solve a problem or meet a need. Consciously or unconsciously, your customers will always be asking the question, “What’s in it for me?” Your product and service offerings have to deliver solutions and satisfy needs, or they won’t be successful.

Given that benefits are ultimately more important to your customers than features, it is imperative that you understand the benefits your products and services provide, emphasize these benefits in your sales efforts, and update your products and services when new or additional benefits are desired by your customers.

Think about how automotive manufacturers advertise. To sell minivans, they don’t emphasize the layout of the vehicle or its carrying capacity. They show images of happy families loading their kids, sports equipment, and toys into the vehicle. They emphasize the benefits above and beyond the features.