Marketing Techniques and Strategies: Apple Inc. and British Red Cross

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Unit 3 – Introduction to Marketing
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................6
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................9
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12
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Introduction
This study is based on the marketing function. The marketing function helps the companies to
increase their sales with the help of proper brand awareness. Like this the company can increases
their sales. There are different factors in relation to the marketing process. In this case it can be
seen that, the companies can develop their products on the basis of the needs and demands of
their customers. On the other hand, the product awareness of the company can help the
customers to take right decision for selecting right products. The company also can manage their
business with the help of proper marketing process. The companies have different kinds of
marketing approaches. In this study two companies have been selected such as Apple and British
Red Cross. These are two different kinds of companies Apple Inc is a profit organization and
British Red Cross is a non profit company. Thus, they both have different kinds of marketing
process which can be identified with the help of this assignment.
Task 1
P1- Describe how marketing techniques are used to market products in two organisations
(M1)
In terms of discussing Apple Inc it can be seen that the company deals with several electronic
goods like laptop, mobile and so on. This is mainly an American multinational organization. As
per Prasad and Saigal, (2019, p.202), they are positively focused on the innovation activities as
well as innovative strategies. In this case they use the innovation in their marketing process.
Basically, the customers keep focus on the quality of the products as well as the services.
On the other hand, it can be seen that British Red Cross is the UK based organization. They
always provide different kinds of helps to the social people. The people who are in crisis the
company help them to be settled down. As per Prasad and Saigal, (2019, p.202), the company
help the international people also. Thus the companies have huge differences and so their
marketing process also has some differences and they can different marketing approaches which
have given below
The growth strategy
The Growth Strategy
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With the help of this strategy the company can effectively develop their position in the market.
Apple uses the growth strategy to get some benefits in the competitive market. The details of
growth strategy has been analyzed below
Market penetration The company uses their staffs to manage their market expansion in a
proper way. In this case they use marketing mix around to increase
the market share. As per Prasad and Saigal, (2019, p.202), basically,
Apple has focus on the Pricing as well as Promotion mix which help
them to help penetrate their market by decreasing the prices of their
products.
Market Development In this case the company take the help of new products. They bring
new products time to time which help them to attract new customers.
The main purpose of this factor is to increase the number of new
customers.
Product Development Business markets new products to sell to existing customers for
instance apple sell new launches of iPhones, and because the product
is so desirable the consumers are willing to pay whatever the price.
The company effectively bring iPhone X10 to capture the market in a
positive way.
Diversification The company brings several kinds of products time to time which
help them to attract different kinds of customers. They have diverse
range of products such as iPhone, iPad, iWatch and so on.
The branding strategy of Apple
On the other hand, the company also uses effective branding strategy. Basically, the brand can be
the name, slogan, logo, as well as service. The company effectively develops their brand image
with the help of proper strategy. They are famous with their logo the customers pay whatever the
company demands to buy the products to show the logo as the price is very high of the product
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so they can effectively develop their status. Like this the company increases the sales with the
help of effective branding.
The Survival strategies of British Red Cross
With the help of this strategy the company can easily manage their activities and they can proper
survive in the market. The British Red Cross needs to develop effective plans for surviving in the
market (Metcalf et al. 2019, p.26). Charity based businesses may have to downsize their
businesses to reduce their daily costs as all transport of money will have to be justified to the
government. They properly communicate with the people of the society and they encourage the
society with the help of different kinds of charities. This develops their market position properly.
On the other hand, they interact with the people who want to take a part in the charity so they can
get some helps and this also helps them to sustain in the market.
British Red Cross Relationship Marketing
 Lifetime Customers
This is related to the customer loyalty. As stayed by Köseoglu et al. (2019, p.234), the customers
who have proper faith on the business can be the lifetime customers. In this case the company
effective communicate with the customers to impress them as well as they also get some
personal details of their customers for their future activities. For example British Red Cross
ensures with the help of the social networking sites the company maintain proper relationship
with their customers. Like this they can gain effective benefits and the customers also can
provide effective advantages to the business as well.
 Gaining Information
It is important for the company to have overall information regarding their customers. Thus, they
can identify who buy their products. In this situation it can be seen that, British Red Cross uses
the website in terms of tracking the people who donates to the organization for their charity. In
this case if the company see that the people are regular sponsors then they provide some reward
to the people as well. This is how they can properly get positive result in their business process.
P2 - Describe the limitations and constraints of marketing
The laws and regulations can provide some limitations in the marketing process which have been
given below
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 Consumer law: There are different kinds of consumer protection laws which can provide
some negative issues in the business process and their marketing as well (Simon and
Fassnacht, 2019, p.299). This mainly ensures that the company is honest towards the
customers. However sometimes the company wants to lie the customers in order to attract
them towards their products. Thus, it can provide limitation on their marketing process.
 Consumerism: This is the social movement which can help the customers and provide
some forces to the companies to develop their services and manage their marketing
process as well. Thus, it is another limitation of the marketing process as well.
As stated by Naudé and Sutton-Brady, (2019, p.90), like these there are more acts and activities
which provide some limitations on the activities of the organizations along with their marketing
function. Thus, to develop the marketing the companies need to manage the limitations with
proper strategies.
Task 2
P3- Describe how a selected organisation uses marketing research to contribute to the
development of its marketing plans (M2)
I have selected Apple as a profit company and this company uses different techniques of
marketing research to adapt different marketing strategies for contributing to the development of
its marketing plan effectively. The company Apple has divided the market research in four
categories such as primary research, secondary research, qualitative research and quantitative
research for analyzing the market effectively and this also helps them to develop their marketing
plan effectively for running their business successfully in this competitive market (Noci, 2019,
p.7). The four categories of market research are as follows
Primary research – primary research helps the company Apple to gather information from the
market easily and primary research helps the company to identify the data that has not been
collected before. In this case the company is collected data from the people by using
questionnaire and interviews. Therefore this definitely helps the company Apple to identify the
need and demand of the customers easily and therefore on the other hand this also helps the
company to develop its marketing plan successfully.
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Secondary research- secondary research helps the company Apple to gather information
regarding the market from internet, magazine, articles and other sources. These types of data are
already available in the market and therefore using secondary research helps the company to
collect those data from the market easily. This also helps the company Apple to provide effective
products to their customers for attracting them easily and therefore the overall marketing plan of
the company can be developed with the help of this as well.
Quantitative research- Quantitative research helps the company to do numerical analysis of the
data those are collected through primary research and therefore Apple can use this to analyze the
validation of those data easily. As stated by Marion, (2019, p.11), this also helps the company
Apple to identify the right approach for developing their business successfully and this also helps
the company to develop their marketing plan in an effective way.
Qualitative research- Qualitative research used to contribute to the development of a marketing
plan of the company Apple. As per Ardito et al. (20119, p.323), qualitative research helps the
company to identify the features of the market easily and therefore with the help of this the
company Apple can analyze the market trend easily. Therefore with the help of this Apple can
develop quality products for fulfilling the demand of the market easily and this also helps them
to develop their marketing plan in an effective way.
P4- Use marketing research for marketing plans
Apple can use different market research tools such as SWOT, PESTLE and porter five forces
tool for developing their marketing plan successfully. They can use SWOT analyzing tool for
analyzing their strengths and weaknesses depending on their competitors easily and also they can
use porter five forces tool for analyzing the competition in this market easily. PESTLE tool is
also very important for the company Apple and this also helps the company to identify the
threats in the external market easily. As sighted by Gligor et al. (2019, p.170), analysis of
different market research tools are as follows
Strength
 Strong brand image
 High quality products
 Proper management
 Good customer relationship management
 High quality staffs
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 Proper training and development
Weakness
 High price products
 Intercultural conflicts
Opportunity
 Can develop new products for attracting the customers easily
 Can sell high quality products in competitive prices for gaining competitive advantages
over other competitors in this industry easily.
Threat
 Competition level is very high in this industry
 Many low cost competitors are also coming in the UK market and this can be threat as
well.
Porter five forces tool
 According to Rundle-Thiele et al. (2019, p.22), bargaining power of the customers is very
high in UK and therefore Apple should focus more on this for developing a new business
plan successfully.
 Bargaining power of the suppliers is low in UK and therefore the company Apple can
many benefits from this.
 Threats of substitutes are low for Apple and therefore Apple can also get many
advantages from this.
 Competition level is very high in UK and therefore Apple needs to sell quality products
in competitive prices for sustaining in this UK market easily.
 Apple is a multinational company and they have strong brand as well. Therefore new
companies cannot beat them easily and thus it can be said that threats of new entry is low
for company Apple
PESTLE tool
 Politically UK is very stable and therefore the company Apple is getting many
advantages while doing their business successfully in UK (Morgan et al. 2019, p.4).
 Economically UK is also a very developed country and therefore Apple is getting many
financial help from this country. Therefore it can be said that the company can do their
business successfully in this country.
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 UK people prefer rich lifestyle and therefore they are buying premium products. This
helps Apple to sell their product successfully in UK.
 Apple is getting many help from help UK, because this is a technologically developed
country. They can improve their supply chain management easily for enhancing their
productivity and operation.
 UK has some laws for the international companies and therefore Apple should follow this
to do their business successfully in this UK market.
 Apple should focus more on environment conservation, protection and sustainable
development for protecting the environment successfully while doing their business. This
also effects their decision making process as well.
After analyzing this it can be said that Apple needs to use different market research tools for
developing their marketing plan successfully.
Task 3
P5- Explain how and why groups of customers are targeted for selected products
According to Cao et al. (219, p.72), companies are developing different products for targeting
different customers easily. Different customers are available in this market and they have
different need and want. Therefore companies are segmenting the market for targeting the
different customers easily. Here the company Apple is also using market segmentation technique
for targeting group of customers for selected products easily. The customer and the consumer
both are the key parts in the market segmentation process. Customers are the ones who buy
products and on the other hand consumers are the ones who use them. The company needs to
understand the difference between the consumers and the customers for segmenting the market
properly. Some time parents buy Apple products for their children and sometime people buy
Apple products for themselves. Therefore in both of these case Apple should target the end user
for encouraging them towards buying the product successfully. This is how the company Apple
target group of customers for selected products for developing their business successfully in this
competitive market.
Market segmentation is very important for the company Apple to develop a new marketing plan
successfully and this also helps the company to run their business successfully in this
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competitive market. Market segmentation has many advantages and these can help the company
Apple to develop their business successfully in this market.
 Market segmentation helps the company Apple to fulfil the need and demand of the
customers effectively and fulfilling the need and demand of the customers helps the
company to develop their business successfully in this changing market. However this
also helps the company Apple to attract the customers towards the company successfully.
 Market segmentation helps the company Apple to develop their premium segments in
which customers are accepting a higher price level and therefore this definitely helps the
company to increase their profits easily.
 As per Huang et al. (2-19, p.88), by segmenting the market the company Apple can create
their own niche products for attracting new customers easily and this also helps the
company to move their regular customers into premium products easily. Apple is
launching different new products for attracting new customers easily.
 Market segmentation also helps company Apple to stress those criteria that are most
relevant for each particular product. Therefore marketing segmentation can be very
important for them to sustain in this market successfully.
Market segmentation can help the company Apple to develop its marketing mix strategies
effectively and this also helps the company to develop their marketing plan successfully.
Task 4
P6- Develop a coherent marketing mix for a new product or service (M3)
With the help of proper marketing mix the company can get several benefits and they can
effectively sustain in the competitive market with their new product. Along with this it can be
seen that with the help of the marketing mix the company can easily attract the customers with
their new products (Kemper and Ballantine, 2019, p.33). The marketing mix of Apple Inc has
been given below
 Product: The company effective develops their product with the help of innovative
approach. In modern days the customers want something new. Thus Apple Inc can bring
the mobile which can get charged with the solar system the customers will not have to
give electric charging.
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 Price: The company can keep focus on the skimming pricing strategy. In this situation
they can at first sale their product in high price then with the time they can decrease their
price range. Like this the customers or the target market can easily buy the products
whenever they want (Laczniak and Murphy, 2019, p.401).
 Place: They can sale the products throughout the world as they target the people of all the
countries.
 Promotion: The digital media activities have been developing day by day. Thus Apple
can also use the social media sites in order to attract the customers towards their new
product.
Conclusion
After analyzing the study it can be concluded that, the company Apple and British Red Cross has
some different marketing activities. They belong to different industries and they have several
kinds of activities so they use several marketing process which help them to get success in the
market. Apple can use 4Ps marketing mix to increase their sales of the new products among their
target market as well.
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References
Ardito, L., Petruzzelli, A.M., Panniello, U. and Garavelli, A.C., 2019. Towards Industry 4.0:
Mapping digital technologies for supply chain management-marketing integration. Business
Process Management Journal, 25(2), pp.323-346.
Cao, G., Duan, Y. and El Banna, A., 2019. A dynamic capability view of marketing analytics:
Evidence from UK firms. Industrial Marketing Management, 76, pp.72-83.
Gligor, D., Bozkurt, S., Russo, I. and Omar, A., 2019. A look into the past and future: theories
within supply chain management, marketing and management. Supply Chain Management: An
International Journal, 24(1), pp.170-186.
Huang, Y.T., Rundle-Thiele, S. and Chen, Y.H., 2019. Extending understanding of the internal
marketing practice and employee satisfaction relationship: A budget Chinese airline empirical
examination. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 25(1), pp.88-98.
Kemper, J.A. and Ballantine, P.W., 2019. What do we mean by sustainability
marketing?. Journal of Marketing Management, pp.1-33.
Köseoglu, M.A., Okumus, F., Dogan, I.C. and Law, R., 2019. Intellectual structure of strategic
management research in the hospitality management field: A co-citation analysis. International
Journal of Hospitality Management, 78, pp.234-250.
Laczniak, G.R. and Murphy, P.E., 2019. The role of normative marketing ethics. Journal of
Business Research, 95, pp.401-407.
Marion, G., 2019. Raise your hand if you have never taught the 4 Ps! From marketing
management to practice lens.
Metcalf, A.L., Angle, J.W., Phelan, C.N., Muth, B.A. and Finley, J.C., 2019. More “bank” for
the buck: Microtargeting and normative appeals to increase social marketing efficiency. Social
Marketing Quarterly, 25(1), pp.26-39.
Morgan, N.A., Whitler, K.A., Feng, H. and Chari, S., 2019. Research in marketing
strategy. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 47(1), pp.4-29.
Naudé, P. and Sutton-Brady, C., 2019. Relationships and networks as examined in Industrial
Marketing Management. Industrial Marketing Management.
Noci, G., 2019. The evolving nature of the marketing–supply chain management interface in
contemporary markets. Business Process Management Journal.
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