Social Media Impact on Business Transformation

This assignment presents a research framework focusing on the influence of social media on business transformation. It examines various aspects like consumer happiness in relationship marketing, data mining for content marketing on Facebook, and the shift towards positive marketing strategies. The framework draws upon academic literature and real-world examples to understand how businesses can leverage social media for growth and success.

INTRODUCTION TO
MARKETING

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Marketing techniques used in Titan airlines and Emirates airlines.......................................1
P2 Limitation and constraints of marketing................................................................................2
TASK 2 ........................................................................................................................................3
P3 Uses of marketing research for developing marketing plan by Apple...................................3
P4 Use of marketing research in marketing planning.................................................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................5
P5 How and why groups of customers are targeted....................................................................5
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................6
P6 Marketing mix for a new products and services....................................................................6
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is a management process through which goods and services move from
concept to the customer. It is very essential for a company because it helps in achieving the
desired result or outcome (Nulsen, Faria and Roussos, 2014). This project is based on Apple and
British Red cross which deals in aviation sector and provides best services to customers. This
project will explain about the marketing techniques and on what basis ,customers are selected for
new products or services and how marketing mix are developed for new products or services.
TASK 1
P1 Marketing techniques used in Titan airlines and Emirates airlines
There are many types of marketing techniques that are used by company which are as
follows-
Strategy Of Apple company- It uses the following marketing strategy-
 Ansoff 's matrix-
◦ Diversification- Diversification is the most risky growth strategy because the
business is going to capture new products that they have little or no knowledge.
◦ Product Development- Product development is very suitable for business who wants
to remain competitive in the market by differentiating their products.
◦ Market Development- Market development is where a business tries to find to
market its present products into a new market. It could be geographically, new type of
distribution or not similar pricing policies to draw different type of customers.
◦ Market Penetration- Market penetration is where a business concentrates on selling
their present products into the present market. It is less risky.
British Red Cross relationship marketing- The process of bringing the buyers and
sellers together ,forming a strong intact bond is known as relationship marketing Organisation
can do this by two forms-
 Lifetime Customers - lifetime customer is someone who remains a loyal to the brand
and for British Red Cross it is essential that they know details of each of their customers,
so if they need to update their customers with any forthcoming events or need help to
raise funding then they could use their personal details to inform them (Gopaldas, 2015).
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strong intact relationship between the two and inexpensive procedure to attract potential
customers.
 Gaining Information- It is when a business keeps a track on who purchases their
product from their business. In this case, British Red Cross use their website to track who
donates for whatever the cause so this will benefit the company because if they see a
regular customer sponsoring they may send an email thanking them (Belanche, Casaló
and Guinalíu, 2013).
P2 Limitation and constraints of marketing
There are many limitation and legal constraints of marketing ,some of them are as
follows-
 Sale of Goods Act- It affects a business marketing activities because it means that any
type of advertising should define their products exactly. For example- most anti-bacterial
products advertise that their products can kill germs 99.9%. If it wrong statement then
customers can sue on them.
 Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading 2008- This enables all the businesses’
customers to have the fair kind of treatment from businesses that the customers deal
with. For example, there are maybe some businesses that do not treat their customers
such as there is no proper accommodation from the businesses’ staffs when you asked for
help.
 Consumer Credit Act- The Consumer Credit Act is applied to all businesses that offer
services or products or businesses that loan financial help to consumers. The Consumer
Credit Act obliges all businesses to provide daily updates on their account such as annual
statements. For example, If Apple or British Redcross will provide personal information
of the customers then it will be illegal.
 Data Protection Act- The Data Protection Act protects customers’ information that is
held by businesses from being misused by companies. For example, the customer’s
information that are being held by companies should be obtained by businesses lawfully
because if a customer’s information is obtained illegally they can be taken to court for illegal
obtaining of that information (Lerman and Shefrin, 2015).
 The Advertising Standards Authority- This Authority is an independent organisation
that targets at ensuring that advertisements display the right description and image of a
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product. The business complies with the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion
and Direct Marketing which requires that:
◦ All advertisements are not false.
◦ Abide by all legal laws.
◦ Create an even footing for advertisers (Tomše and Snoj, 2014).
TASK 2
P3 Uses of marketing research for developing marketing plan by Apple
Marketing research helps a business to make decisions by understanding the changing of
the markets that it sells products in. For example Apple that wanted to promote their products
would want to know their target audience, what people want to know about the cereal, and what
makes their products stand out from others, they may also want to know the best way for them to
distribute the product. Through this company can know very well about their
competitors ,customers etc. There are two types of research which are as follows-
Qualitative and quantitative research- Research can be qualitative, quantitative or
both. Qualitative research involves an opinion being expressed in a non-numerical method, the
research is subjective and allows companies to delve deeper into these opinions to understand
them better. Quantitative research is usually objective and is involves numbers and can establish
relationships and causation, quantitative research is a lot quicker to understand because all the
research is measurable and sticks to the intended purpose of the research.
Apple company's market research-
Apple company are market orientated meaning that they develop products based on the
needs and wants of the market. It carry out market research so they can plan ahead, meaning they
can look into what products they should developing to fill future needs. Carry out market
research also means that it can attempt to strengthen their product range to ensure that they beat
competition (Aral, Dellarocas and Godes, 2013).
In conclusion, Primary and Secondary research will both help Apple's marketing plans,
because they can collect information that will be useful for the growth of the business. Through
primary and secondary research, Apple company can find out what customers think or feel about
their products and services. They can also find out about reliable information about their
competitors, such as their prices which may benefit it’s marketing objectives. Primary and
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secondary research will assist it in becoming more successful thus increasing sales, and the
amount of customers (Forouzandeh, Soltanpanah and Sheikhahmadi, 2014).
P4 Use of marketing research in marketing planning
Marketing research is helpful in developing marketing planning. It have three elements
which are as follows-
 SWOT analysis
 PESTLE analysis
 SMART objectives
SWOT analysis of Apple- Through this, company can identify their strengths,
weaknesses etc. It is useful in internal analysis of the company.
Strengths-
 Market leadership for a range of products and services
 Strong brand image and a brand value of USD 154.1 billion
 Solid financial position of the business
 Sophisticated supply-chain infrastructure
 High profit margin
Weaknesses-
 Higher prices than competition
 Decline in total sales due to decreasing sales of iPhones.
 Narrow product range
 Incompatibility of Apple products and services with other products and services for
users (Berg, 2014).
 No major improvements in latest product versions.
Opportunities-
 Further increasing concentration on services business segment.
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 Product diversification
 Formation of strategic partnership
 Increasing compatibility of products (Pike and Page, 2014).
Threats-
 Loss of innovativeness.
 Intensifying competition from China and India.
 Reputation damaged due to tax scandal.
 Further increase of manufacturing cost.
Apple company have SMART objective that helps in achieving competitive advantages
over the competitors. SMART objective are as follows-
 S [specific]- Objective should be specific so that everyone can do work accordingly.
 M [Measurable]- Aims should be measurable in monetary terms.A [Achievable]- it
should be achievable that can be completed with in specific time of period.
 R [realistic]- It should be real
 T [Time bound]- Every objective should be fulfilled with in specific period of time.
TASK 3
P5 How and why groups of customers are targeted
The main reason why organisations target a particular group of customers is to make
profit, but there are a lot of other reasons why organisations choose to target customers.
Apple is a very big organisation; therefore it will have a large target audience. It have
many products lines like iPad ,iPhones etc. they can choose to target customers, consumers and
businesses. For example, Apple company have high price of products then their target audience
will mainly be a high class society because they know that low class of people might not be able
to afford this product. In this situation, high class are the customers because they are the actual
ones using the product (Louviere and et.al., 2013).
Market segmentation is an idea of how the market is made up of different groups
(segments) of people (Proctor, 2014) . It divide the market from heterogeneous market to
homogeneous market. It can segment it's target market on the following basis-
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 Demographic-Based on age, gender, ethnicity, education,occupation, income and family
etc.
 Psycho graphic- Based on Values, attitudes and lifestyle.
 Behavioural Segmentation: based on usage rate and patterns, price sensitivity, brand
loyalty.
 Geographic – Urban areas ,cities etc.
Apple segments their market geographically, demographically, psycho graphically, and
socio-culturally. People gets more pleasure while using it's products and services because of the
quality of the it's offers or services.
British Red cross segments their market geographically, socio-culturally and
demographically to ensure they can entice as many families as the can. It segments its market
socio-culturally by ensuring that it offers deals for lower income families and different hotel
options which have different prices. Demographically Transport For London focuses on families
that generally have children aged 4-12, also outside of the school holidays. It's main target
market is poor people and needy or wound people who needs some help from others.
TASK 4
P6 Marketing mix for a new products and services
Marketing mix consist of the 4ps which are price, promotion, place and product. These
are the ideas to consider when marketing a product (Sheth and Sisodia, 2015).
 Product-
The product is the iPhone 7s because it’s a new product and also because its uniqueness.
Like features and design of it. These are the factors that helps in determining the quality of the
product, because if the features and design are nice, then it may attract customers. Therefore this
will give them an advantage over their competitors, and also customers will be interested in the
product because they may like the idea of unlocking their phone using their fingerprint. Also, the
phone is of high quality and value, so they may feel a sense of uniqueness when the purchase the
product. For identifying needs, market research is conducted.
 Price-
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The price of the iPhone is pretty high, however the prices varies depending on many giga
bytes you want on your phone. Company should decide the prices according to the target market
what they can afford for taking the products and services (Tomše and Snoj, 2014).
 Promotion-
Promotion is all about how a business will raise awareness of its product. During the
release of the iPhone 7s, apple advertised it on television letting people know how good it is and
what makes it different from the other phones. They would have to use expensive type of
advertising because they are a global business with high profit figures. It also uses direct
marketing, text messages ,email etc.
 Place-
Place can be defined where customers go to purchase the product or service. In apple
case, they have provided apple stores in the United Kingdom. People can walk into the apple
store and purchase any apple products and also they can test out products in the apple store.
Also, apple makes their products available to purchase on their websites. Customers will find this
satisfactory because it makes it flexible for them (Aral, Dellarocas and Godes, 2013).
CONCLUSION
From the above study it is concluded that while offering new products and services,
company should select the target that it want to capture. It can divide the market on the basis of
demographic ,geographic etc. If company is going to develop marketing planning then it should
do analysis by which it will be able to know about it's strengths ,weaknesses etc.
REFERENCES
Books and journals
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Aral, S., Dellarocas, C. and Godes, D., 2013. Introduction to the special issue—social media and
business transformation: a framework for research. Information Systems Research.
24(1). pp.3-13.
Belanche, D., Casaló, L.V. and Guinalíu, M., 2013. The role of consumer happiness in
relationship marketing. Journal of Relationship Marketing. 12(2). pp.79-94.
Berg, B., 2014. Introduction. In Retail Branding and Store Loyalty (pp. 1-26). Springer
Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
Forouzandeh, S., Soltanpanah, H. and Sheikhahmadi, A., 2014. Content marketing through data
mining on Facebook social network. Webology. 11(1). p.1.
Gopaldas, A., 2015. Creating firm, customer, and societal value: Toward a theory of positive
marketing. Journal of Business Research. 68(12). pp.2446-2451.
Grönroos, C., 1994. From marketing mix to relationship marketing: towards a paradigm shift in
marketing. Management decision. 32(2). pp.4-20.
Kotler, P., 1982. Marketing for nonprofit organizations.
Lerman, D. and Shefrin, H., 2015. Positive marketing: introduction to the special section.
Journal of Business Research. 68(12). pp.2443-2445.
Louviere, J. and et.al., 2013. An introduction to the application of (case 1) best–worst scaling in
marketing research. International Journal of Research in Marketing. 30(3). pp.292-303.
Nulsen, R.O., Faria, A.J. and Roussos, D.S., 2014. The use of decision support systems with a
marketing simulation: The future is now. Developments in Business Simulation and
Experiential Learning. 21.
Pike, S. and Page, S.J., 2014. Destination Marketing Organizations and destination marketing: A
narrative analysis of the literature. Tourism Management. 41. pp.202-227.
Proctor, T., 2014. Strategic marketing: an introduction. Routledge.
Sheth, J.N. and Sisodia, R.S., 2015. Does marketing need reform?: Fresh perspectives on the
future. Routledge.
Tomše, D. and Snoj, B., 2014. Marketing communication on social networks: Solution in the
times of crisis. Marketing. 45(2). pp.131-138.
Winston, W.J., 1995. Preface and Introduction. Journal of Customer Service in Marketing &
Management. 1(3). pp.1-6.
Online
The Four Ps of Marketing. 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.purelybranded.com/insights/the-four-ps-of-marketing/>. [Accessed on 6th
june 2017].
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