Reflective Essay on Strategic Marketing: Amazon Case Study Analysis

This reflective essay examines strategic marketing principles through a critical analysis of the Amazon case study. The essay begins by outlining the student's expectations for the case study, which included learning about data analysis, effective communication tactics, and various aspects of marketing such as promotion, branding, and advertising. The student reflects on what was actually learned, emphasizing the importance of a customer-centric approach, where marketing strategies originate from understanding customer needs and wants. The essay discusses Amazon's strategies, including online advertising, promotional activities such as free shipping, market segmentation, and the use of tools like SWOT analysis to understand market dynamics. The student highlights the significance of customer experience and retention. The essay concludes with a reflection on the importance of social media advertising and reinforces the idea that effective marketing strategies are driven by understanding and satisfying customer needs.

Reflective Essay on Strategic Marketing1
Reflective Essay on Strategic Marketing
By Name
Course
Instructor
Institution
Location
Date

Reflective Essay on Strategic Marketing2
Reflective Essay on Strategic Marketing
Marketing is a critical aspect that determines the survival and success of any business
organization. The current business environment all over the world is dynamic thus strategic
marketing has become a very vital tool in any business regardless of its size or nature. Marketing
is a term that refers to the process of developing services or products that are valuable to
customers and they fulfill the wants and needs of their customers, (Gronroos, 2006). Strategic
marketing is very essential in business organizations since it facilitates the growth in the sales
capacity, customer satisfaction as well as the development of innovative products and services.
This paper is my personal reflective essay outlining what I expected to learn from the case study,
what I actually learnt, what I will do differently going forwards and my actions and next steps.
This reflective essay should be considered as a way of demonstrating my truthful and critical
self-awareness, self-reflection, my ability to learn through reflection as well as demonstrate my
sensitivity to diversity in people and different situations.
In the case study, I expected to learn a lot about marketing strategies in this case study. I
expected to learn data collection and analysis as this is a major part of marketing in business. I
expected to learn how to develop effective communication and marketing tactics that will help
me become a competent professional in developing strategic marketing. Learning strategic
marketing is something that I really anticipated since I consider it a way of preparing myself for
my future career. I expected to learn so many principles and aspects of marketing such as
promotion, public relations, branding and advertising. Since marketing is really continuously
changing in the business world I expected to learn the personal skills and professional skills
required in order to formulate a strategic marketing plan to ensure the survival and success of
any business organizations.

Reflective Essay on Strategic Marketing3
I actually learnt a lot about strategic marketing from the Amazon case study. The case
study has mainly demonstrated to me that the best marketing strategies are not top-down; they
are outside in, starting with the customers' needs and wants. The Amazon case study has proven
that there are so many stakeholders involved in the business but the customer is the most critical
when it comes to strategic marketing. The customers' wants and needs are very important in
formulating a strategic marketing plan since the wants and needs change continuously with time.
The spending and purchasing habits of customers are highly associated with the changing
demographics and population size, (Perreault, Cannon, and McCarthy, 2015). As in the Amazon
case study, after analyzing their annual reports and realizing they had a lot of customers visiting
their site but more than half of them not purchasing any product they restated they restated their
marketing strategy. This is to ensure that they consider the new needs and wants of their
customers.
I realized that strategic marketing should also involve attracting new customers.
Attracting new customers may is not easy in the dynamic global and local business environment
this requires employing innovative and creative advertising tactics, (Weinstein, 2018). One of
these tactics includes identification of a market segment that the business organization will focus
on. For instance, in the Amazon case study, the organization had identified a segment of the
market which they have classified as "the hard middle". The organization had analyzed this
segment carefully and came up with the most effective way of advertising to reach them. They
have come up with such tools and related features that help the organization to connect their
products with the needs of these customers, (Chernev, 2018). This helps in creating products and
services that attract customers since they are connected with their wants and needs. I also learnt
that in advertising to attract new customer the Amazon business organization has employed

Reflective Essay on Strategic Marketing4
online advertising. Online advertising is a very upcoming marketing tool that is growing so
rapidly and it is almost outshining the conventional media advertising. Thus analyzing their
market segment helped them in selecting online advertising as a medium to reach their potential
customers.
In the case study, I also learnt that promotion is also a crucial advertising tool. Amazon
had to come up with a promotion service that will attract their potential customers and they
decided to offer free shipping options for their worldwide customers. Although such promotional
activities increase the advertising cost the come with more merits including increasing the sales
and gaining new customers, (Proctor, 2014).Therefore, I realized that promotion is actually an
important aspect that organizations have to consider to help them attract new customers and
create or maintain a competitive advantage over their competitors in the market. Competitive
advantage is an asset that organizations strive to have since this is a crucial determinant of
survival and success of any organization. Segmentation is one of the strategic marketing aspects
that as a professional I have to understand as a way of preparing me for a future career
(Schlegelmilch, Bodo, 2016, 65). Segmentation helps in targeting specific people in the
population and this facilitates producing innovative products and services as well as promotes
efficient advertising.
In the Amazon case study, I learnt that strategic marketing involves understanding the
continuously improving customer experience in the organization. Customer retention entirely
relies on customers satisfaction therefore many organization include customer satisfaction among
their key organizational objectives (Tanner, Jeff, and Mary Raymond, 2015). This is very
essential in gaining repetitive buying from customers. In order for an organization to be able to
retain their customers, they have to consider several factors but customer satisfaction is very

Reflective Essay on Strategic Marketing5
important. The customers have needs and want that expect the business organization has to solve
them through the goods and services they offer (West, Ford & Ibrahim, 2015). Once the
customers' expectations are met by the organization them the customer will always be loyal to
the business organization or even refer other potential customers.
There are several market analysis tools that come handy when analyzing the market of
any organization. These tools include SWOT analysis that has been used in the Amazon case
study. This analysis identifies the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities as well as the threats that
a business organization is facing, (Leiber, Theodor, Stensaker, and Lee Harvey. 2018). This
market analysis is very crucial in strategic marketing since it helps in assessing the business
organization position and help in coming up with innovative mechanisms to maintain a
competitive advantage. The SWOT analysis helps an organization to understand the market
dynamics comprehensively and this helps in formulating strategic marketing techniques.
According to what I learnt, what I would do differently and my next step in strategic marketing
is concentrating in online social media advertising as a way of reaching most of my potential
customers. Social media marketing is growing so rapidly and almost all the potential customers
in the Amazon market segment are connected to a social media platform. Social media is so
important since it allows interactive interaction and offers a better way of understanding the
customers with their changing needs and wants.
In conclusion, I personally agree with the statement that the best marketing strategies are
not top-down; they are outside in, starting with the customers' needs and wants. Strategic
marketing is based on a comprehensive understanding of the changing customer wants and needs
in order to attract and satisfy them.

Reflective Essay on Strategic Marketing6
Bibliography
Amazon, 2018 Our Leadership Principles. Available at: https://www.aboutamazon.com/our-
leardership-principles
Chernev, A. 2018. Strategic marketing management. Cerebellum Press.
Gronroos, C, (2006) On defining marketing: finding new a new roadmap for marketing.
European Journal of Marketing, Volume 3, Issue 2352-60
Leiber, Theodor, Bjørn Stensaker, and Lee Colin Harvey. 2018 "Bridging theory and practice of
impact evaluation of quality management in higher education institutions: a SWOT analysis."
European Journal of Higher Education (1-15).
Perreault, W. D., Cannon, J. P., & McCarthy, E. J. (2015). Essentials of marketing: A marketing
strategy planning approach. McGraw-Hill Education.
Proctor, T. (2014). Strategic marketing: an introduction. Routledge.
Schlegelmilch, Bodo B. 2016. "Segmenting Targeting and Positioning in Global Markets."
Global Marketing Strategy. Springer, Cham, 63-82.
Tanner, Jeff, and Mary Raymond.2015. Principles of marketing. University of Minnesota
Libraries Publishing.
Weinstein, 2018. Superior customer value: Strategies for winning and retaining customers. CRC
Press,
West, D. C., Ford, J., & Ibrahim, E. 2015. Strategic marketing: creating a competitive
advantage. Oxford University Press, USA.