Market Segments and Digital Marketing Strategies of Vodafone

This report discusses Vodafone's market segments and digital marketing strategies, including email marketing, paid social media, and programmatic advertising. It also covers the latest positioning strategy of Vodafone and provides recommendations for email marketing and paid advertising. The report concludes with a reference list.

CONTEMPORARY MARKETING

Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
Issue statement:..........................................................................................................................3
2.0 Findings................................................................................................................................3
2.1 Market Segments targeted by Vodafone..............................................................................3
Positioning (Post Hutch)............................................................................................................3
Latest strategy of positioning.....................................................................................................4
2.2 Digital marketing tools.........................................................................................................4
Email Marketing.........................................................................................................................5
Paid social media........................................................................................................................5
Programmatic advertising..........................................................................................................5
3.0 Conclusion............................................................................................................................7
4.0 Recommendation..................................................................................................................7
Reference list..............................................................................................................................8

1.0 Introduction
The report comprised of discussion related to segment of market targeted by Vodafone and
their relative strategy of positioning. It also shows evaluation of the techniques and tools used
by Vodafone for digital marketing. Evaluation process comprised of the weakness and
strengths of the techniques and tools adopted by Vodafone for digital marketing. In the recent
years the concerned company has scattered its business from a company of mobile telephony
to service industry of communication. Vodafone also deals in the services of broadband,
services of cloud, mobile telephony and IOT (internet of things).
Issue statement:
The ad campaign of Hutch was mainly considered at the season of cricket. This was the main
time when hutch could reach the people in maximum number. Vodafone mainly took over
Hutch for increase their market segments and reach people globally.
2.0 Findings
2.1 Market Segments targeted by Vodafone
Vodafone mainly uses a mixture regarding the strategies of segmentation to part its offerings
in the service of mobile network, services of enterprise and services of broadband. The
concerned company is mainly targeting several areas in the society with their wide range of
offerings (Lovelock & Patterson, 2015). Hence, the company utilises differentiated and
selective strategy for targeting. The ad campaign of zoo zoo by Vodafone is very successful
for developing awareness in the service of communication in the entire world. It mainly uses
strategies based on value for positioning.
Positioning (Post Hutch)
Before Vodafone takeover Hutch, the strategy of positioning used by hutch was quite famous
and successful. It was in the year of 2007 when Vodafone take charge of Hutch. The time of
transition regarding the concerned company was very limited (Canniford, & Bajde, 2015). It
took approximately about four months by the company for taking decision regarding brand
relaunching, channelising and positioning. It was mandatory for Vodafone for maintaining
things like before. The Vodafone name was not new because it was used many a times in

advertising and it consists of strong position in the international market. The Vodafone arrival
in India is considered as a positive sign regarding the telecom industry of India. Telecom
industry expected that Vodafone would increase the service standard and the market would
face more competition. The concerned company did not failed to satisfy the subscriber.
Vodafone begins a campaign of ad for making a position in the service space of customer.
This campaign did not provide satisfied result in the local region. Vodafone tried to express
that they genuinely care and respect the customer by using the PUG repeatedly. Indian
customer faced a lot of trouble while calling in the number of customer care for solving their
issues. This issue was mitigated by Vodafone and provided better services to the customer.
Latest strategy of positioning
Vodafone started launching campaign of ‘Power to you’. The characteristics of ‘Power to
you’ comprised of following things:
● It emerges with current form of services that helps to mitigate the distance between
the customer and internet (Alt & Iversen, 2017)
● It enhances the experience of users regarding Internet and emails on the phone
(mobile). The service provided by vodafone regarding this is known as ‘Vodafone
Internet pe mobil’. This is now added with browser of Opera Mini.
● Easy assessment of email from any region of the world
● Vodafone provide refreshment regarding the IVR for improved and easier experience
of customer
Users of Vodafone mainly use both the postpaid and prepaid types. The customer could
perform transaction on the basis of self-care with the help of system of IVR. This does not
required the help of operator of Vodafone for purposes like Roaming, Ringtones and many
more. The aims of the new form of campaign were to company’s position as an innovator of
services. Vodafone promises service series that improved the experience of customer and
provide better type of opportunity to them.
2.2 Digital marketing tools
The digital marketing techniques and tools used by the Vodafone are as follows:

Email Marketing
Marketing the services and products of Vodafone with the help of email considered as cost
effective, flexible and fast method to reach customer of new 5 types and to retain the old
customer. Email marketing allows Vodafone for creating messages of personalized and
targeted type. This helps the concerned company in building a better relationship with the
consumer. Rate of response regarding the campaigns of direct marketing also gets improved.
Vodafone also receives negative feedback when they overuse these tools of digital marketing.
This is mainly because peoples get irritated by receiving unwanted and frequents mails from
the company. IINET and Singtel Optus has compiled with several legislation of data
protection. This legislation of protection of data comprised of PECR (The privacy and
electronic communications regulation) and GDPR (General data protection legislation). It is
possible that action of enforcement type could be performed against Vodafone if they do not
maintain the GDPR and PECR obligation. There is a possibility of issuance of fine of
substantial type and liability of contractual matter (Huerta-Muñoz et al. 2017).
Paid social media
Advertising of paid social lets Vodafone to determine particular segments of audience and
message crafting that connects with the slice of the market. The offered variables are
depending different on the used platform. For example, LinkedIn could help to customize the
audience targeted by determining the sector and the entire employees. The other two
telecommunication industry in Australia like IINET and Singtel Optus take advantages of the
location of several platforms of social media. Linkedin is famous among the wealthier while
Facebook is utilised more by the previous generation. Paid social media has several common
items with historical advertisement of online. It is similar to that of the ads of mobile app and
banner for online type. It is an effective process to expand and maintain awareness of brand
by Vodafone. Vodafone used Paid social media for targeting current segments of audience by
choosing important location.
Though there are several benefits to the paid social media, there are also host of
disadvantages which cannot be ignored. The first challenge is the presence of competition
that makes it a costly affair. Another aspect is that it requires constant monitoring from the
advertisers. The paid social media advertisements can have instant results in some of the
cases, the results can be negative as well as positive. Therefore, it is important that the

businesses constantly monitor how their paid social media activities are performing. In
addition, it requires that the team engaged in social media activities are appropriately trained
to understand all the nuances of the social media input and output, otherwise the company
may end up investing huge sums of money without substantial results. Also, setting up in
house social media team requires substantial investment at the initial stages (Holmene.
(2018).
Programmatic advertising
Programmatic is not only used for conversion but also act as an important part of the strategy
of branding for Vodafone. Traditionally, strategies regarding awareness of brand always lie
above activities of advertising like print, radio and television. The advertising of digital
media comprised of branding which concentrates on PPC and media of social types.
Some of the platforms that are used by Vodafone, IINet and Singtel Optus are as follows:
● YouTube
It consists of high responsibility for idea promotion of the marketing of video. It is the most
famous and the platform of extensive type for video sharing. The good things about this
service of video hosting are that the viewers could use it for free. The telecommunication
uses this platform for producing their videos in front of the viewers. As, there is no charge
regarding usage of YouTube, there are large number of users and they could easily come
closer to the telecommunication industry. It is considered as one of the largest engine of
search in this entire world. As per the user base till this year is concerned, YouTube enjoys
more than 1.8 billion users worldwide (Gilbert, 2018). An important aspect of this channel is
that it allows the companies to target users from across the globe. YouTube also allows the
advertisers to target local viewers. However, it depends on the goal of the company that
which option it is willing to use. If the goal of the company is to increase its brand awareness
at random throughout the world, then open advertisement without any country restriction can
be considered. On the other hand, if the goal is to target the local customer to increase the
retention, conversion, and brand value, then latter option should be considered.
● Wistia
Wistia is considered to be the best platform regarding the purpose of business. It gives entire
authority regarding the video branding. The company could have the authority to integrate
button of share. Wistia videos comprised of integration with Twitter which allows the user to
view videos with the help of tweet. It mainly forms with the package of analytics type. Wistia

helps businesses host videos and track the performance of those videos using various analytic
tools. Unlike YouTube, Wistia helps the businesses learn the basics of video making and the
way they can benefit from it.
● Vidyard
The availability of this platform is not free. However, it gives a trial period of 14 days in
which it could rotate around the entire system before tha payment. The particular system is
made mainly for the marketers. The free period is very helpful as it could allow the user to
know about the entire feature of the corresponding platforms. Video player customisation is
also available here. Further, it comprised of features like integration and analytics and helps
video performance tracking.
● Sprout video
● Brightcove
3.0 Conclusion
Vodafone is one of the largest telecommunication businesses across the globe. This company
faced some major success in Australia to. That is the reason why Vodafone has been chosen
for this study. The two major market segments are discussed in this study to demonstrate the
actual scenario. Vodafone is using two main market segments that are positing and digital
marketing to attract more customers and to grow their business in a sustainable way. Email
marketing, advertising and social media are the three main tools that Vodafone is using for
their business growth. In addition to that, paid social media is better to reach more customers
and this company is doing the exact same thing to reach more customers.

4.0 Recommendation
From the above study it could be recommended to the Vodafone that email marketing must
not be over used. This is because it creates irritation in the customer with numerous unwanted
messages. E mail marketing is a great strategy for business growth as it can bring new
customers. In addition to that, it is also helpful to inform about any new service or product
when it comes to the existing customers. However, this e-mail strategy can be done in a
tactful way so that customers will not get irritated. There are several strategies that can be
adopted by Vodafone in the email marketing. As for instance, the company can send
personalized mails to the customers that will help them feel personal. While sending the
mails, the company should consider using buyer history to develop email instead of
suggesting randomly generated product or services. In addition to the email marketing,
effective usage of paid advertising is suggested. There is a difference in using the paid
advertisement for the sake of using it and the paid advertisement that targets the actual user
base of the company. The company should identify paid sources where expenditure can be
fruitful in terms of customer conversion, customer retention, and increase of the brand value
in the longer run.

Reference list
Books
Lovelock, C., & Patterson, P. (2015). Services marketing. Pearson Australia. Retrieved from:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/43169963/Services_Marketing__7th_edi
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%20filename%3DServices_Marketing_People_Technology_Str.pdf, Retrieved on: 22. 11.
2018
Canniford, R., & Bajde, D. (Eds.). (2015). Assembling consumption: Researching actors,
networks and markets. Routledge. Retrieved from:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robin_Canniford/publication/305228092_ASSEMBLIN
G_CONSUMPTION_INTRODUCTION/links/5785acc908aec5c2e4e12117/ASSEMBLING-
CONSUMPTION-INTRODUCTION.pdf, Retrieved on: 20. 11. 2018
Journals
Alt, J., & Iversen, T. (2017). Inequality, labor market segmentation, and preferences for
redistribution. American Journal of Political Science, 61(1), 21-36. Retrieved from:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~iversen/PDFfiles/Alt&Iversen_2016.pdf, Retrieved on:
23. 11. 2018
Huerta-Muñoz, D. L., Ríos-Mercado, R. Z., & Ruiz, R. (2017). An iterated greedy heuristic
for a market segmentation problem with multiple attributes. European Journal of Operational
Research, 261(1), 75-87. Retrieved from: http://yalma.fime.uanl.mx/~roger/ftp/paicyt-IT511-
10/publications/pisis_report_2012-02.pdf, Retrieved on: 21. 11. 2018
Holmene, I. (2018). Paid or semi-public media? The Norwegian film industry’s strategies for
social media. Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook, 16(1), 41-57. doi:
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Websites
Gilbert, B. (2018). YouTube now has over 1.8 billion users every month, within spitting
distance of Facebook's 2 billion. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.in/YouTube-
now-has-over-1-8-billion-users-every-month-within-spitting-distance-of-Facebooks-2-
billion/articleshow/64032773.cms