Strategies for Marketing an App for Addiction Recovery: A Report

This report examines the marketing strategies for an addiction recovery app, focusing on customer segmentation and promotional channels. The report identifies key customer segments, including drug addicts, alcoholics, and charities, and details how the app can be promoted through Facebook ads, social media accounts, and business subscriptions. It emphasizes the importance of market penetration strategies and leveraging current technological advancements to attract a wide range of customers. The conclusion highlights the need for continuous adaptation to market demands and the development of innovative features to maintain a competitive edge, ensuring the app's successful positioning in the market. References from academic journals and publications are provided to support the analysis.

Introduction
The provided video represents a communication between the CIO of an alcohol and drug
rehabilitation organization and a developer. In this video, the developer suggested an idea of
developing an app which facilitates recovering addicts. On the other hand, CIO suggests that
they should create a forum that rehabilitation professions can utilize to discuss their experiences
in the field. In this paper, we will study how the organization segmented its customers and how it
will promote its app in the market. It can be said that there are more than hundred rehabilitation
organizations around the country and more than thousand around whole world (Schlegelmilch,
2016). So it is an opportunity for the business organization to access their potential buyers.
Customer Segments
Segmentation is considered an effective market strategy which involves dividing a wide target
market into subsets of businesses, countries, or consumers that have, common interests, needs,
and priorities and then implementing strategies to target the segmented individuals. The
organization segmented its customers on the basis of following:
Drug Addicts
Drug addiction is considered as a chronic disease which is compulsive, harmful, and very
difficult to control. The organization is specially designed the app for helping the individuals
from recovering the addicts. Segmentation on the basis of drug addicts people helps the
organization to identify the number of drug addicted people which can be served by the
organization. After deciding its potential segment market, the organization can develop an
efficient strategy to recover them from drug addicts (Wise, 2014). The app served mainly served
the drug addicts people in finding the ways and solutions to remove their drug addiction. This
1

will prove very beneficial for the organization because it need not identify its promotion channel
if it is beneficial people promote it themselves.
Alcoholics
Alcoholism is also considered as a serious disease. The app presented by the organization also
designed to serve alcoholics consumers. It was stated that during 2014, 26% of people ages 16 or
older drank alcohol occasionally in their lifetime (Stavro, 2013). On the other hand, 76% of
people use alcohol in their daily lifestyle. Due to their daily consumption today, there are a large
number of alcohol addict peoples. The designed help provided significant exercises and solutions
to avoid alcohol and live their life happily. Segmenting the market on the basis of alcohol people
helps the organization to identify the number of people who are alcohol addicts and can serve
them in an efficient manner.
Charities
Charities are considered non-profit organizations whose main motives are to serve needed
people. With the help of charities, the organization wants to serve the most suffered peoples who
don't have any resources to access the apps. The charities help those people in creating various
health programs to suggesting various solutions of their problems (Blackwood, 2012). With
segmenting the charities, the organization can enhance the popularity of its app and also able to
serve a large number of needed customers. These charities buy the app from the organization to
help the addicted people in recovering from addiction.
Channels
Promotion is considered an important marketing strategy of an organization. The organization
uses the following channels for promotion of its app:
2

Ads on Facebook
Facebook is known as one of the most popular websites on the internet. Facebook has more than
1.27 billion monthly active users (Lee, 2016). It is the second most visited site on the internet.
Promotion through Facebook proves very beneficial for the organization. This is because it offers
targeted advertising. Due to this the organization able to target a particular group of people based
on personal interest, age and more. Advertising on Facebook helps the organization in keeping
updated and informed its target customer about the new products and services of the
organization.
Social media accounts
Creating an account on social media also helps the organization in conducting effective
promotion of its app. Social media involves various websites like Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. this will
provide an opportunity to create its brand image in the market (Young, 2014). It helps the
organization in gain valuable customer insights which enables it to measure the demand and
needs of customers. With the help of daily active social listening and active engagement the
organization is able to collect necessary data from the customers which can be evaluated further.
Advertise through business that is paying subscription
It proves very efficient promotion method. Today it seems like everyone is moving towards
taking the digital membership of subscription business houses. Through using the paying
subscription business advertisement, the organization is able to win the immediate attraction of
consumers towards their app which ultimately enhances the sale and utility (Michaelidou, 2016).
On the other hand the organization able to advertise itself on continuation bases, which makes it
more popular.
3

Conclusion
After studying all this, we can conclude that the organization should segment its available market
in such a way which brings various growth opportunities for the organization. The organization
can also adopt market penetration strategies to promote itself in the market and gain competitive
advantage. Market penetration strategies help the organization to target a particular market which
can be efficiently served by the organization. On the other hand, the organization should develop
its app with current new features and technology which able to attract the attention of a large
number of customers. Technology is so advanced today, and if the organization want to establish
itself in the market, it should move as per the market demand. This is the key concept though
which organization can efficiently position itself in the eyes of customers.
4

References
Schlegelmilch, B. B. (2016). Segmenting Targeting and Positioning in Global Markets.
In Global Marketing Strategy (pp. 63-82). Springer International Publishing.
Wise, R. A., & Koob, G. F. (2014). The development and maintenance of drug
addiction. Neuropsychopharmacology, 39(2), 254-262.
Stavro, K., Pelletier, J., & Potvin, S. (2013). Widespread and sustained cognitive deficits in
alcoholism: a meta‐analysis. Addiction biology, 18(2), 203-213.
Blackwood, A. (2012). The nonprofit sector in brief: Public charities, giving and volunteering,
2012.
Lee, J., & Hong, I. B. (2016). Predicting positive user responses to social media advertising: The
roles of emotional appeal, informativeness, and creativity. International Journal of Information
Management, 36(3), 360-373.
Young, S. W., Tate, A. M., Rossmann, D., & Hansen, M. A. (2014). The social media toll road
The promise and peril of Facebook advertising. College & Research Libraries News, 75(8), 427-
434.
Michaelidou, N., & Moraes, C. (2016). Internet Users’ Attidutes Towards Advertising on
Facebook. In Looking Forward, Looking Back: Drawing on the Past to Shape the Future of
Marketing (pp. 222-225). Springer International Publishing.
5