Significance Of Marketing Research In Developing Effective Marketing Strategies

The role of marketing research in creating marketing objectives

Marketing research is a vital element in a marketing plan as it has its significant role in framing the marketing strategies and marketing objectives. Market research is the initial step in the overall marketing process by the means of which the companies get knowledge of the market, Industrial Competition, Customers and the various other factors. The data gathered is analysed and help in developing the specific marketing objectives and marketing strategies. One of the examples that show the significance of marketing research in developing marketing strategies is of Coca Cola (Accenture, 2016). The company has global recognition and enhanced visibility. The reason behind the huge success of the company is its effective market research activities. At the time of developing a marketing plan for expanding in various rural and small regions, the company performed extensive marketing research. After the in-depth research of those regions and rural markets, it was analysed that the buying power or the spending capability of the individuals of those regions is very squat and they cannot afford high price beverages and soft drinks (Kumar, 2016). Thus, the company started supplying the soft drinks in small bottles that cost very less and is easily affordable by the individuals. Thus, by the initiative of Coca Cola of supplying the soft drinks in small amount at affordable prices made the company as the market leader by having an extensive customer base all across the world (Kashyap, 2016). Therefore, the example of Coca Cola demonstrates that effective and appropriate market research helps the companies in formulating potential marketing strategies and objectives which results in better and improved results of the marketing plan and process. Thus, it is recommended that the companies must perform effective marketing research so that the future planning of the marketing strategies and tactics can be more successful and competent (Kanagal, 2015).

In the market even the bigger brands also face huge market competition because of the various external factors. And to overcome the market competition, companies are required to change their marketing strategies. One of the examples is of Cadbury Dairy milk. The product has huge market but presently in the cookies and biscuits also other companies are serving chocolates that affect the market of Dairy milk (Livemint, 2017). After analysing this impact and market competition, the company has served the customers with Dairy milk Silk Ore that contains substances of Oreo biscuit. This product of Cadbury gets huge success and greater market share. Majorly the children as well as the youngsters came as the key target markets for the product (fnbnews, 2017). Several new customer bases were formed with the production of this new product and change in strategies. Thus, it shows that the make competition and the external factor have direct impact on the products (fmtmagazine, 2017). But the companies are required to change the marketing objectives as well as the marketing strategies to sustain the market competition and remain competitive as well as to maintain the market share of the product. There are several other external factors also that impact the product such as the prices of the competitive products, the new flavours in the existing competitive products etc. (economictimes, 2017).Thus, it became necessary and essential for the companies to modify the marketing objectives and the strategies as per the changing trends of the industry as well as by having an in-depth analysis of the market competition and the strategic moves of the competitors (Yadav, 2017).

Importance of changing marketing strategies to overcome market competition

PESTEL analysis is one of the highly required analyses to be performed by the companies before offering any new product or service or before expanding a business in any overseas region as all the PESTEL factors have a great and in-depth impact upon the business operations and sustainability of the company. One of the examples that show the impact of these factors is of Walmart. The company entered the markets of Germany with its innovative and fresh products and service but because of the absence of appropriate environmental analysis, the PESTEL factors had a great impact on the business operations. From the political perspective, the companies were required to follow all the regulation and laws that have business operations in Germany (Conaty, 2016). Walmart was accused for violating and disobeying the regulations related to the market competition. The company sold its products on very squat prices but this was against the antitrust legislation of Germany as well as it also violate the other laws that have led negative impact upon the legal factors such as it does not disclosed its financial data. From the perspective of social factors, Walmart faced cultural; mismatches. Walmart acquired two other companies i.e. Wertkauf and Interspar to enter in Germany but because of no proper analysis of the cultural factor, it becomes difficult to integrate with these companies and with their specific cultures (Assignmentbox, 2011). From the economic point, the company offered very low wages to the employees and this made challenging for the company to have skilled and competent workforce. From technological aspect, Germany is extremely high as it takes use of RFID and other IT systems such as technological logistics applications. But Walmart lacked all such technological innovations (Aklamanu, 2015). From the environmental aspect, the government and other environmental authorities pay high attention on the environmental sustainability but there business operations of Walmart were also found to be hazardous for the environment. Thus, the inappropriate PESTEL analysis or absence of PESTEL analysis results in failure of the business operations (Conaty, 2016).

SWOT analysis is one of the key factors that support the organisations in achieving efficient results of marketing plan. The importance of SWOT analysis can be demonstrated by the example of a renowned fast food chain McDonalds. When McDonalds plan to enter India after its first failure it has performed an in-depth SWOT analysis. Firstly the company analysed its strengths and it found that it has a renowned name and brand visibility which will help it n having successful business expansion, next strength of McDonalds was its extended range of products and low cots price (Telang and Deshpande, 2016). This ensured that it will work in India. Secondly, McDonalds analysed its weaknesses and it found that it has weaknesses such as people avoid eating food products that contains beef as well as any new brand need much time to establish in another nation. Thus, it worked on it and removed beef from all its products as well as it promoted its products at a very high level so that people can fascinate and become the potential customers (Kasliwal, n.d.). Thirdly, McDonalds analysed its opportunities and in the analysis it found that in the Indian market there are extensive opportunities for the company to grow and establish as there are no other such fast food and burger chains. Thus, the company attained the first mover advantage. And last, McDonalds analysed its threats, and in the analysis it found that there are threat related to domestic competition from local restaurants as well as environment related threats (Forbes, 2017). Once the organisation analyse these threats, it take several measures to overcome those such as keeping the prices low as well as having business operations with high environmental sustainability. Thus, the SWOT analysis played a major role in the success of McDonalds in India (Franchisedirect, 2017).

PESTEL analysis and its impact on international business operations

STP is one of the key factors that help companies in attaining success. Apple is a significant example of having effective segmentation, targeting and positioning. The IPhone 6 and IPhone 7 are those products of the company that have high market share by the mean of STP. The company segmented the market in various class based upon the life style and their income statement. The people who possess a high and luxurious life style as well as have high income and buying power are targeted among the various segments distributed on the basis of income and life style. And targeting this customer segment gives a direct benefit to the company of having potential customers (Castro, 2016). The company also targets the youngsters who have high fascination towards the expensive and branded gadgets and also possess the capacity to buy these phones. For the positioning of the products to attract the targeted customers of the company, Apple position itself by the means of price and quality.  It offers its products by the point of difference as the products positioned as the one who have these mobiles reflects high class and standard as well as high status. From the price and quality aspects of positioning, its shows that the products of Apple are extremely high in quality as well as it offers value to customers against the amount they have spent in purchasing those products (JAING, 2016). With such efficient STP analysis, the company attained huge market share and customer base and it also supported the effective execution of the marketing plan of the products of Apple. Thus, it can be said that STP plays a vital role in attaining advantages of the industrial trends.

The markets are full of examples of successful brand management and failed brand management; it involves success of any new product or failure of any new product. One of the key examples of the failed brand management is of Apple in regards with its IPhone 6S. The brand lost its market share, revenues and customers because of the failure of the IPhone 6S (Hruska, 2016). The primary reasons behind the failure were that it does not able to fulfil the enhanced expectations of the customers from 6S after launching the IPhone 6 (Ladage, 2014). There were several issues that came across such as bad timing, overpriced, issues related to screen bending and the limited utility of its one of the innovative features i.e. the 3D touch. Thus, all such things resulted in failure of the new products in the market (Goldman, 2016). Another example is of a successful brand management of one of the new and fresh brand in the electronic industry i.e. Oppo. The company has made its huge presence in almost all the markets. It has captured huge market share with its effective brand management (Soo, 2017). The company has taken use of renowned brand ambassadors as well as has offered various innovative features that can satisfy a consumer. Thus, the efficient products, huge promotions, great quality and increased brand visibility have offered Oppo a strong market share and customer base which demonstrates the huge success of the company and its products (Pardiwala, 2017). The company had remained successful in fetching the market share from the existing players such as Samsung (Regidi, 2017). Thus, it can be said that effective understanding of the internal as well as external factors have resulted in successful brand management and development of the new product in the market.  

References

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