Strategic Marketing: Reflection on Assignment 1 and Amazon Case Study

This paper provides a student's reflective analysis of marketing strategies, drawing upon insights from an Amazon case study. The student details their expectations, learnings, and planned future actions concerning marketing approaches. The reflection covers various marketing strategies, including the comparison between Top Down and Outside-In marketing. The student highlights the importance of customer satisfaction and the application of marketing strategies. The paper also discusses the student's plans for continuous learning and professional development, focusing on improving decision-making, adapting to customer needs, and leveraging various marketing tools and techniques, like crowdsourcing. The student emphasizes the importance of time management, communication, and continuous learning to improve their performance and achieve their goals. The student also discusses their next steps, including applying the acquired knowledge and skills, gathering customer feedback, and participating in training to enhance their professional practice.

Strategic Marketing
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
What did I expect to learn............................................................................................................................2
What did I learn...........................................................................................................................................2
What will I do differently going forwards...................................................................................................3
My actions and next steps............................................................................................................................4
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................5
References...................................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
This paper will provide reflection upon various marketing strategies and how it is useful
for any organization. This will also reflect my learnings regarding strategy used by Amazon and
what are the two main approaches of marketing strategy. I have gathered information regarding
the difference between the approaches like Outside-In marketing and Top Down marketing that
will be reflected throughout the paper. It will also include the demands of the customers and how
marketing strategy is fulfilling it.
What did I expect to learn
I was expecting to gain a deeper understanding of the use of various marketing strategies
and for this Amazon was selected as the relevant case study. There are various companies using
different types of marketing approaches, and therefore, it was important for me to identify the
difference between the various strategies and to select the suitable one for my future career. I
was expecting to learn the differences between two of the vital marketing strategies like Top
Down marketing approach and the Outside-In marketing approach. And which approach is better
to build a relationship in business (Menon et al., 2015). Also, it was crucial for me to identify
the satisfaction of the customers through the use of Outside-In marketing approach. The
identification of the customer’s satisfaction will help in facilitating the effectiveness of the entire
marketing approaches used by any of the organization. And what kind of technological
advancement and strategies used by online marketing to provide the product to the consumers in
sufficient time. Also, it will help me to know about the importance of advertisement that how it
is effective for business or any organization. It will help me to know the weakness and strength
of the strategies. The completion of the assignment was expected to provide proper relevance
and a good portion of knowledge in its every aspect, critically making adequate evaluation and
analysis (Hansen, McDonald and Mitchell, 2017). Further, I was looking forward to gaining
knowledge on the referencing part as a proper reference to suitable literature was considered as
to be vital.
What did I learn
My learnings include the use and importance of marketing strategies while executing a
particular business as per the concerned market segments. Marketing strategy is a business plan

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to reach people and turn them into consumers of the service or product that provide by the
business. It determines to be an approach that looks forward to planning long-term goals and
achieving competitive advantage (Akter et al., 2016). It also helps in organizational strategic
planning by analyzing the situation. From this study, I learned that for starting a new business,
there are some essential parts of a marketing plan that can use, that are market research, clear
statement about the services and products, value, business goal and planning, pricing strategy
(Armstrong, Delia and Giardina, 2016). Amazon.com, Inc. is American electronic commerce and
consumer electronics organization based in Washington, established by Jeff Bezos on 5th July
1994. There are few of the crucial marketing strategies adopted by Amazon which provided me
immense knowledge regarding its utilization and implementation within an organization for
achieving the desired goals of the firm. The marketing strategies used by Amazon are divided
into four of the crucial sections as strategies used by the CEO, advertising, external marketing,
and technological advancement. I have gathered knowledge regarding why the outside-In
approach is considered to be better than the Top Down approach in marketing (Eguchi, 2016).
One of the well-known and oldest strategies in the world of business is a top-down marketing
approach, by which an organization will able to generate new ideas to target its customers. There
are few of the pros and cons of using this approach that needs to be known before implementing
this approach. The system is important for verifying large deals in an efficient way. Outside-In
marketing approach mainly focuses on the customer, and it identifies any business through the
customer’s point of view. It enhances the consumer’s direct link to observe and adapt to the
pattern of purchasing. In online marketing, outside in approach is better than the top-down
approach strategy (Day, 2014).
What will I do differently going forwards
The learning will help me in enhancing my skills and knowledge regarding the effective
and efficient use of marketing strategies, and this will also help me in securing the best job in the
future. Moreover, I will apply these learnings to increase my decision-making processes so that
my overall performance can be significantly increased. The different thing that I will do going
forward is to make better strategies by analyzing the particular situation as well as the business
and the customer requirements, as these will help in evaluating the preferred growth of my future
organization (Fan, Lau and Zhao, 2015).Before purchasing any product, the customer critically
analyses the contents of advertisements and then makes the decision, whether to purchase it or

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not. So, I should give importance to two way communication to improve my work and listen
actively to consumer’s wants and needs (Killian and McManus, 2015). For the better growth of
any firm, I will do effective advertisement, promotions and will use crowdsourcing.
Crowdsourcing is used to collect information from the public and then use to complete a
business-related work. I should use the Outside-In marketing approach to build a direct
connection with the consumers and to adapt and observe the pattern of purchasing. I must outline
the challenges and major problems that confront my work. Time management is considered as to
be vital as it generates a great amount of impact on the execution of the business processes of
any of the concerned firm. Therefore, it becomes vital for me to formulate and execute the
concerned strategies within the decided timeframe as it will improve the overall quality of the
services delivered to the customers. My ability for continuous learning through reflection will
facilitate my knowledge and will improve my overall performance for all of the future works.
My actions and next steps
My next steps will be to apply my knowledge and skills in my work. I will always collect
information and feedback from customers and then use it to grow my knowledge towards better
development (Sagiroglu and Sinanc, 2013). I can implement tactics of modern marketing to be
sure that the right information’s are reaching to the right customers. I must prepare a schedule
where there will be different sections for various activities that will be performed in a schedule
time frame. This action plan will help in reducing my weakness and will improve my weakness.
I will use various marketing theories to enhance my knowledge. I will analyze my actions to
improve my professional practice. I will discuss anxieties and analyses my errors and strength
for successful my future. I should take participate in campaigns and training to develop my
knowledge and to understand better about the strategies and planning’s. I need to communicate
with experienced people to learn and to improve my practice. I will start a journal to record my
observations and monitor my growths toward various activities. I should organize my time
effectively and review my commitments regularly. I will set my daily goals for achievements. I
will boost my ability to learn through experience and practice (Wedel and Kannan, 2016).

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Conclusion
The paper reflected my learnings including various marketing strategies and the use of
marketing strategies for different companies. I have gained knowledge regarding the marketing
strategies used by Amazon and their application. Also, I have identified the difference between
the two marketing approaches such as Top Down approach and the Outside-In approach. The
knowledge gained through this assessment will help in providing the desired shape to future
career jobs.

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References
Akter, S., Wamba, S.F., Gunasekaran, A., Dubey, R. and Childe, S.J., 2016. How to improve
firm performance using big data analytics capability and business strategy
alignment?. International Journal of Production Economics, 182, pp.113-131.
Armstrong, C.G., Delia, E.B. and Giardina, M.D., 2016. Embracing the social in social media:
An analysis of the social media marketing strategies of the Los Angeles Kings. Communication
& Sport, 4(2), pp.145-165.
Day, G.S., 2014. An outside-in approach to resource-based theories. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 42(1), pp.27-28.
Eguchi, A., 2016. RoboCupJunior for promoting STEM education, 21st century skills, and
technological advancement through robotics competition. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 75,
pp.692-699.
Fan, S., Lau, R.Y. and Zhao, J.L., 2015. Demystifying big data analytics for business intelligence
through the lens of marketing mix. Big Data Research, 2(1), pp.28-32.
Hansen, J.M., McDonald, R.E. and Mitchell, R.K., 2017. Marketing Benchmarking, Triangulated
Isomorphism, and Firm Strategy. In Creating Marketing Magic and Innovative Future
Marketing Trends (pp. 533-543). Springer, Cham.
Killian, G. and McManus, K., 2015. A marketing communications approach for the digital era:
Managerial guidelines for social media integration. Business Horizons, 58(5), pp.539-549.
Menon, A., Bharadwaj, S.G., Adidam, P.T. and Edison, S.W., 2015. Effective Marketing
Strategy-Making: Antecedents and Consequences. In Proceedings of the 1997 Academy of
Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 224-224). Springer, Cham.
Sagiroglu, S. and Sinanc, D., 2013, May. Big data: A review. In Collaboration Technologies and
Systems (CTS), 2013 International Conference on (pp. 42-47). IEEE.
Wedel, M. and Kannan, P.K., 2016. Marketing analytics for data-rich environments. Journal of
Marketing, 80(6), pp.97-121.