Marketing Mix and Digital Information Services

The given assignment is about applying marketing strategies and mix to digital information services (DIS) from the perspectives of Nigerian university libraries. It involves a practical guide to data mining for business and industry, as well as introducing knowledge-collector agents in marketing decisions with a knowledge management approach. The assignment also references various books and journals on marketing research, competitive intelligence information, and relationship marketing.

Introduction To
Marketing

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is the social process that help an organisations and individual to
acquire they want and need through exchanging and creating value for others. In order
to understand the importance of marketing, coca coal is selected which in American
company that deals in beverage industry. The report shows the detail analysis and
evaluation of company its marketplace and strategies, need to Ansoff Matrix to
recommend strategies and new innovative marketing campaign with defined objective
and outcome.
TASK 1
INTRODUCTION
Marketing is defined as an effective process that help a company to increase
sales, gain competitive advantage, build strong global image and maintain long term
financial sustainability. Marketing manager are responsible to perform various functions
like, analysing of market, producing product as per the needs and demand of customer,
fixing of selling price so that company can achieved its future goal.
Coca-coal company is one of the leading American corporation with its
headquarter in Atlanta, Georgia US which manufacture beverages concentrates and
syrups. The best product of company is Coca cola soft drink and also produces various
other product such as Diet Coke, Coca-cola Zero, Fanta, sprite, Minute Maid etc. In this
report, Marketing strategy of respective company with the extended marketing mix have
been discussed.
MARKETING STRATEGY – “COCA COLA”
Marketing strategy are the plans and programs which an organization adopts for
the purpose of promoting as well as selling its products or services. It is the
organizational game plan in which all strategies are combined to turn the customers
towards the products or services which they provides. Coca Cola has adopted
marketing strategy of segmentation, targeting and positioning. The description is as
follows:
 Market Segmentation: It means to divide the market into various small
segments which have homogeneous characteristics of needs, tastes,
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preferences and demand. The selected organization divides market by
considering geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioural factors.
Cola cola segments its customers on the basis of age, gender, life style, climate
and social class. It provides products in different sizes and taste considering the
demands of its customers (Needham and Smith, 2015).
 Market Targeting: In this, an organization selects the segments and focuses to
target them through different ways. The company adopts differentiated marketing
strategies to target segment and define effecting marketing mix for the selected
ones. Coca Cola targets its customers through different advertisements and
produces different products for different segments. The major segment which
they targets includes people of age group between 10-28 years.
 Market positioning: It means to create an attractive image of an organization's
brand in customers mind. The selected organization has already established its
image in customers mind by adopting competitive positioning strategy by
delivering its products in much better ways than other competitors deliver.
Extended Marketing Mix- “Coca- Cola”
Marketing mix refers to the set of tools, actions and techniques used by any
organization to promote its brand and its products in the competitive market. The
elements of marketing mix are product, price, place, promotion, physical evidence,
process and people. All such elements helps in formulation of correct marketing
strategy and implementing them with correct tactics. The elements of marketing mix
used by Coca Cola are as follows:
 People: People are the human factor which are responsible for changing the
customers perception towards any product or services. The main target of Coca
Cola is to attract the large number of youngster thus they produced various
strategies to increase sales (Moradi, Aghaie and Hosseini, 2013).
 Processes: Process includes systematic procedures under which products and
services are provided to the customers. Coca Cola sees process as not only
where and how the business is done but also to add value to develop
relationships to provide interactive experiences to its customers (Millette and
et.al,. 2011).
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 Physical Evidences: Physical evidences are the physical proofs which helps
the customers to evaluate and rely on the product before they buy. Coca Cola
displays all the attributes on its products which helps in evaluation of all the
details of the organization such as quality, speed of delivery, hygiene and
transparency of processes. Such organization leaves a long lasting impact on
its customers by designing and implementing various tangible evidences
(McEachern and Carrigan, 2012).
 Current Product portfolio: Product portfolio comprises all the products or
services which are offered by any organization in the market. It comprises
various different product categories, different product line along with individual
products which an organization has to offer for its customers. Here in, Coca
Cola makes portfolio of products or services as wide variety of products or
services are offered in the market as it helps in financial planning and analysing
its return on investments. Some of the products offered by Coca Cola in the
market are Coca Cola Zero Sugar, Diet Coke, Minute Maid and many more. The
minute maid is a ready to drink flavoured juice product. Coca Cola Zero sugar is
a zero calorie, sugar free soft drink. Diet Coke includes artificial sweeteners
(Malhotra, 2015.).
 Pricing Strategies: Price is the amount which a product or services is worth of.
Good pricing strategies determines the price point which helps in maximizing
the profits on selling the products or services. Coca Cola adopts different pricing
strategies considering geographic segments, customers demand as well as
competitors price (Lim, 2016).
 Retail Distribution: Retail distribution includes channels of distribution which
provides goods to the consumers in small quantities. Different organization uses
different retail distribution strategies which helps in reducing the cost of transfer
as well as benefits the organization as a whole. Coca Cola applies various retail
distribution strategies to sell its products through intensive distribution where
products are provided to many retailers for further sale along with selective
distribution where products are provided to selected number of retailers for re
sale purpose (Hall, 2014).
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 Brand image: Brand image is the perception of any product in the customers
mind. Every organization formulates various strategies to create an impression
in the target customers mind to achieve a competitive advantage over others.
The selected organization adopts various strategies such as brand
development, brand positioning and brand sponsorship to build an unique
identity of its products in the customers mind (Glynn and Woodside, 2012).
Recommendations:
From the above description it can be recommended that Coca Cola should
involve various people for taking various decisions in order to satisfy the demands of its
consumers. The selected organization should make changes in various procedures to
provide quick services to its consumers as well should provide all the necessary details
on the packaging of the products as physical evidence (Desbordes, 2012).
CONCLUSION
Coca Cola should make the portfolio in attractive manner of all its products and
services offered to the potential customers in order to achieve advantages in
competition level in the marketplace. Such organization should use penetration and
skimming pricing strategies to achieve more profits as well as should engage various
small retailers and distributors in the distribution channels to provide quick products to
its customers at distant places. Coca Cola should invest more in formulation and
implementation of various strategies of branding to change its customers perception
(Conley and et. al., 2011).
TASK 2
Introduction
Ansoff matrix is a marketing tool used to study various elements affecting the
growth of the business. It helps the organization to strategic their products properly for
the achievement of higher returns. It is used to assess the opportunities and developing
schemes to gain competitive advantage. Companies like Coca Cola incorporated these
strategies to guide business and taking appropriate actions in order to increase
organisation's growth prospects. The module is mainly based on prediction thus certain
disadvantages are also associated with this. Organisation can face huge loses if this
tool does not work in real world (Coallier, 2012). The four key growth strategies of this
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framework are Market penetration, Product development, Market development and
Diversification. Coca Cola developed it's business with the help of this tool. It is a well
known brand that deals in manufacturing and sales of soft drinks. Main competitors of
this company are Red bull, Pepsico, Dr pepper snappers etc. Let's study how this
organisation used growth strategy under four particular sections.
Market Penetration- According to this strategy, the firm wants to achieve high
growth share with it's existing product line (Christopher Payne and Ballantyne, 2013).
When the competition is high, this strategy is used by brands. To increase customer
base it either cut prices or improves distribution channels. Coca Cola penetrated it's
market by investing in marketing. It also took initiatives to improve it's distribution
network. They made deals with supermarkets, bars, malls, restaurants and various
others. There is a known fact is that this company spends huge amount in promotional
techniques to generate higher profits.
Market development- This strategy is adopted when a firm wants to enter into a
new markets. Instead of creating differentiated products which is much more expensive,
companies find it more beneficial to expand it's base globally with existing products after
acquiring present. Companies entered into international countries are known as Multi
national companies (Ahlemeyer-Stubbe and Coleman, 2014.). Every country has it's
own set of rules regulations, customs, religions which are important to consider before
entering into their market because organisation uses these elements to tell a story in
their advertisement so that customers can relates to the new brand. Coca cola has
developed a niche for itself even at the international level. After successfully acquiring
US it has entered in UK and various other countries. It operate in more than 100
countries. Coca cola focuses on occasion, brand packaging, price and channel to
develop in foreign areas. Instead of believing in providing large quantity they provided
best quality of product.
Product development- This strategy is related to introducing new products in
the market. Through this strategy the company can get the attention back from it's
customers which it has lost after a point of time. Customer can become more exited
about different features that company is launching (Choi Murray and Kwan, 2011).
Extensive promotions are done when new products are introduced as well as when
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product reached it's saturation point. The customers are made aware about it's
existence through such techniques. This strategy requires huge investments in research
and development also. Coca cola keep on introducing wide variety soft drinks. It
included Diet coke, Fanta, sprite, Powerade, Georgia and various other name in it's
brand. Development of such items shows that this organisation is committed towards
building innovative products and providing maximum satisfaction to customers. The
company is planning to introduced new protein rich soft drink “Healthy latte”.
Diversification- According to this strategy business can be diversified
completely by creating new products and launching them into the existing as well as
new market. It is a very risky strategy, companies having financial advantage should
use this. R&D teams collect deep information and try to track customers changing
requirements and wants. They develop distinctive characteristic accordingly.
Incorporating such different features so that consumers can be satisfied is a difficult
task. Coca Cola has used such methods. It added new taste and low calorie features.
It's Diet coke became highly popular after it's launch which comes in variety of flavours
like lemon, vanilla, splenda etc. The main focus of this brand has always been on non
alcoholic drinks, but now this has changed. It has entered into Japan with drink named
Chu-hi marketed as beer substitute for women (Abideen and Latif, 2011).
Recommendation
Coca cola should focus mainly on it's Product development strategy because it
has already successfully used market penetration, market development. Due to the
consistent changes in business environment and customer's ever changing demands
they can only be satisfied if company keeps providing them different things to look
forward to. Regular consumption of coca cola products can cause diabetes, high blood
pressure, obesity and heart problems. As children are also part of it's target audience
therefore it becomes obligation on part of company to detect such issues and
addressing them.
Conclusion
Today Coca cola is the highest seller of soft drinks in the beverage industry. Due
to it's presence in different market and having net worth of $41.6 billion. It is concluded
from the above information that the brand operates various countries. Company is
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selling large range of soft drinks to customers and has increased profits and market
share with effective pricing strategy and by establishing efficient distribution network. It
has worked on it's limitations as well. In order to create a positive image for the brand it
has adopted measures for safety of consumers as well as protection of planet.
Changing packaging structure. Adding renewable material for the recycling of bottles
and introducing low calories drinks to deal with heath issues of customers.
TASK 3
INTRODUCTION
In present business scenario marketing is consider to be an systematic approach
that support management in communicating, promoting various product and services
that are produced by company. Marketing manager of Coco cola company makes a
campaign that help them to increase sales and produce more profitability in upcoming
future (Bulley and et.al,. 2014). Campaigns is defined as the global business magazines
that cover advertisement, media, and commercial creativity that help to make product
popular in market. In this section, outline of marketing companion of respective
company is discussed. Implementation of plans and it support to improve the current
marketing strategy of Coca Cola has been discussed.
Marketing Campaigns: In business case, the systematic set of action that assist
to advance and sale variety of product market is defined as marketing campaigns
(Arsel, Eräranta and Moisander, 2015). The main important of campaign to Coca Cola is
to promote a good with mixed media sources which include digital platform, radio and
television. In present time it has been ascertained that business firm operating in highly
dynamic environment need to make strong marketing campaigns and utilise important
resources so that sales can be increased and powerful brand awareness can be
created at international level. The main outline of this campaign is to launch new
energy and protein rich soft drink “Healthy Latte” in existing market and in other
part of world. Thus it very essential to have a powerful and an impressive marketing
campaign that support to promote product. In generic, promotional plan is also referred
as a valuable marketing and promotional instrument which support business entity
willing to launch totally fresh product and hope to spread out market range into new
section or demographics. When administrator of Coca cola are planning for a
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promotional campaign, then they keep in mind that a booming campaign would
complete every following specify objective. All-important course to be precede while
creating valuable campaign are as follows:
Define the Goals:
It is the main step that is related to defining of predefined goals and objective of
company within a specific period of time. Under this stage, management of an
organisation used to perform all necessary activities and applies strategies to fix a
suitable plan that will be beneficial for them to reach definite goals. They try to
determine what all can be done to make and move business forwards and develop
specific objective on their finding. Management of Coca Cola is willing to launch new
product line that is protein drink, so it is important to set specific goals. Company set a
definite goals to sale 1 billion units within a half year in existing market. The main outline
for creating a strong and effective marketing campaigns is to achieve the desired
objective of company that is promote child care product into dynamic market and
increase sales in approaching time (Alice, 2013).
Set a budgets:
This is the second most important step which makes an campaigns more
effective and impressive is to set a meaningful budgets that help to perform different
activities so that set targets can be achieved. As coca cola is launching new product
“Healthy Latte”, therefore it is crucial for the management to set a budgets. It is
observed that budgets must be big enough so that manufacturing process and
promotion can be done so that important message can be delivered to large number of
customer in order to maintain huge profit. Marketing budgets for respective company is
described below:
GBP
Total budget 500000
Activities Budget allotted
Manufacturing overheads
Material: 150000
Labour: 100000
Direct email marketing 20000
Social media 35000
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Print advertising 70000
Online advertising 40000
Public relations 40000
Event marketing 30000
TV/Radio 15000
From the above table the total estimated budget allotted to the management for
marketing campaigns is 500000 GBP. Company uses 250000 GBP as their
manufacturing overheads as it that raw material used must of good quality and manager
must hire professional labour so that pro0duced goods could be of good quality.
Manager allot rest of the amount in other promotional activities such as 20000 direct
email marketing, 35000 GBP for social media as the target audience are mainly of age
group 25-35 years as they spend more time on cell phone and other social websites.
70000 GBP is allotted for print advertising and 40000 of amount is reserved for online
add as it is one of the most convenient source of spreading news. Company allot
40000 GBP for public relation and 30000 GBP on event marketing so that Drinks can be
familiar to people those are not part of social world. It is observed that 15000 GBP is
allotted for TV and Radios as they can reach to the rural areas.
Determine the Target audience:
It is very crucial for companies to analyse the market trend, customer
preferences and their actual desire in order to maximise sales within a specific period.
As it is assumed that without knowing about their essential customer company will not
be able to achieve its set targets. As soft drinks are mainly preferred by youth and they
also wants new and innovative things. Thus Coca Coal mainly targets youngster of UK
and launch protein drink for physic lover that will be beneficial for them to increase
sales. Company also identify the average income of their consumer and how much they
willing to pay for that product. It is also essential for management to properly examine
the needs of people living in different region of UK so that actual production can be
done as per requirement. It is very important factor for the organisation to target right
segment because company prepare their promotional activities according to their
audience. Knowing about their customer and their spending power useful for large
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organisation so that they can easily analyses either the new product will survive in
market or it will be defeated by other protein drink available in market.
Selection of proper Media sources:
This is also one of the most effective step, that support companies to promote its
product and bring it to the knowledge to target customer. It is very important for the
Coca Cola company to select a best media source for the promotion campaign and it
will depend upon the targeted audience. Best promotional strategies is to promote their
product by using various media to target new customers and retain existing consumers.
Management focus to promote “Healthy Latte ” through help of social media and by
publishing T.V and newspaper advertisement. This is because nowadays almost every
youth are spending most of their time of social website. They develop promotional
videos that are being sent as through whats app, Facebook etc. to large number of
youngster. Company also published add in newspaper and develop attractive hoarding
so that people get the knowledge about new product.
Developing Messaging:
This step is related to developing a script that makes an effective message which
will influence people and make them buy the specific product. It is basically related to
development of messaging that is delivered to the target audience and make them
attracted towards product. Message must be valuable enough that speak about their
interest, needs and experience so that they come and buy product. As company is
planning to launch and promote new Protein product so it is essentials for manager to
create effective tag lines which will be short, impressive, unique. For Coca cola
manager develop tag line “The coke Side of Life” that is effective enough to make
customer buy their drink.
Measure outcome:
The last step is related to related to measuring of result company has obtained
during a specific time frame against set standard. Manager of Coca Cola use to
compute the sales so that it will support to ascertain either company had gained
success in achieving predefined objectives that were outlined in step one. Management
of respective company use to check and determine which factors are able to create
more awareness about commodity to target customer. They are also able to ascertain
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that which sectors are delivering more sales to company and which are needed to be
conceder more to improve profit and makes brand more popular among people. At last
manager of Coca coal need to makes changes in order to improve result expansion or
child care product in market.
The above discussed marketing campaign will be helpful for promoting and
launching new product in existing market. As well as it will also support Coca cola to
improve its current marketing strategies, as they product development aid company to
expand its business and broad its market. Company will segment new customer
according to the behaviour those are more health conscious and target new customer to
make increase in sales of “Healthy Latte”. Coca Cola will also be beneficial with this
new campaigns as it will help to position its product in market by applying competitive
positioning.
Recommendation
From the above discussion it has been recommended that:
 They should develop more product portfolio in an attractive manner such as
protein drink “Healthy Latte” so that they can they can attain more market share.
 Company should use equivalent as well as skimming pricing strategies that
support to increase sales.
 Company must also increase their distribution channels in those areas in where
demand is high so that outline goals of campaign are attained.
 Coca coal must use attractive strategies for branding newly developed product
and also expend on the marketing and advertising of products that will increase
sales.
Conclusion
It has been concluded that marketing is one of the most crucial element for an
organisation that support to increase brand image and gain profitability. Marketing
campaign are helpful in order to launch and promote new product in market.
CONCLUSION
In the last it has been concluded that, marketing is an impressive manner that
help an organisation to expand business, enhance sales and increase sales. With the
help of extended marketing mix manager are able to analysis market conditions,
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develop strategies and target customer to achieve higher growth in future. Marketing
mix assist a company to provide appropriate and accurate information of current market
condition that help to expand business at global level. It is more effective and beneficial
element for an organisation to introduce their product in marketplace and to target
consumer.
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REFERENCES
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business and industry. John Wiley & Sons.
Alice, A., 2013. Application of marketing strategies and mix to digital information
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Arsel, Z., Eräranta, K. and Moisander, J., 2015. Introduction: theorising gender and
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Bulley, C. A. and et.al,. 2014. Competitive intelligence information: A key business
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Choi, H. C., Murray, I. and Kwan, K., 2011. Activity-based segmentation of Canadian
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Hall, C. M., 2014. Tourism and social marketing. Routledge.
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