Marketing Strategy

The case study discusses about a Bypass App that will allow customers to place online order and collect coffee from the shop as per their convenience. The initial step would be to identify the target markets. The 4C’s of the marketing strategy are customers, cots, communication and convenience (Paul 2014). Identification of customers and their needs and requirements play a significant role in determining the target market. This app must be cost effective and the users will be able to easily avail it. The convenience of the customers must be taken into account (Jianting 2014). The customers will not need to visit the coffee shop for placing any order. The App must incorporate features so that it can locate the coffee shops by using GPS tracker. The other ‘C’ stands for communication (Jianting 2014). Customer awareness can be created by online advertisements and even over television (Jianting 2014).  The market must be segmented in order to classify the various categories of consumers for proper identification (Bharadwaj et al. 2013). The initial step for the distribution strategy will be to identify the customers and allowing them to run the app by a method of invitation. The main distribution and market access strategy will be to make the app easily available in the App Store. Direct distribution strategy will be convenient for a mobile application (Bharadwaj et al. 2013). The users should not face any difficulty in finding the app.   This app will help the customers to save time and will be extremely convenient for them to locate coffee shops in any area. This will be the competitive advantage of this service (Wang, Liao and Yang 2013). The differentiating feature of this app will that it will give discounts to the customers for buying coffee online. The customers who will visit the shop will not get this advantage.  This differentiating feature will attract the customers to buy coffee by using the application. The pricing strategy adopted for this app is the onetime payment strategy (Liu, Au and Choi 2012). The price strategy model will be penetration strategy where low price will be offered for attracting customers. The users will need to buy the app initially and then use it regularly. This will be a convenient strategy for both the company and the clients. The promotional methods that can be applied are online advertisements as well as advertisements over the television. Social media advertisements will be extremely effective for attracting young aged consumers who play an active role in the social media platform. The Marketing Mix Model and Gernier Theory can be used as a strategy model. Gernier Theory can be used for analyzing the organization’s growth and the marketing mix model can be used for analyzing the marketing mix. The porter’s five-force model can be used for analyzing industries.

Marketing Strategy

 The marketing strategy for Bypass App will be concentrated marketing strategy. Here the marketing strategy will be to target specific group of users. This will help to utilize the resources of the small company in an optimal and effective manner (Baker 2014). The company must target those consumers who use mobile apps. Proper market research plan must be made that will help to identify the mobile app users. These users must be targeted by various promotional methods. A well planned strategy must be made for the purpose of Niche advertising for the purpose of reaching the target consumers. Socially active audience must also be targeted (Toften and Hammervoll 2013). A distinct niche will help to generate more revenue and profit. Promotional advertisements must be given in different apps that are used by the users. This will help the Bypass app to succeed over its competitors. The marketing strategy must aim to target a profitable segment that will help this app to succeed. Three main steps that is needed to be taken are:

Market Segmentation

Planning: A proper marketing plan must be developed before building the app. The website of this app must be the base for promoting the mobile application. Once the app is being built, the website can give out information about it. This will create a sense of curiosity in the users.

Easily discoverable: The details of the Bypass app must be optimized for the App Store as well as for Google Play. This is considered to be a crucial component of the marketing strategy of the app. A demo video of the app can be released in order to get customer feedbacks. Customer reviews will help to modify the app. This will act as a success factor for the app. This app must be submitted to reputable sites. Tools like Followerwonk can be used for reaching out to socially active audience. Proper trust must be built by interacting with the active users over different websites.

Long-term marketing: The marketing strategy of the app must be divided into three main stages called pre-launch followed by launch as well as post-launch phase. The campaign needs to be started much before the release of the Bypass app. The campaign must not be stopped after the app has been released. In order to remain competitive in the market this process must go on in a continuous basis. Continuous learning and development will play a major role in the success of the app.

Proper market segmentation along with market targeting plan must be carried out in order to develop a successful marketing strategy. Enhancement of the marketing strategy will be possible by developing a strong team who will be able to process information in an effective manner and select the correct mobile platform for the marketing of the application. A well integrated strategy will lead to the success of the Bypass app.

Market segmentation is considered to be an effective marketing concept that helps the marketers to target their consumers. There are four main dimensions of market segmentation called geographic, behavioural, demographic and psychographic (Wedel and Kamakura 2012). The geographic segmentation is based on the geographical region like city size, region and density. The app can target more than one geographical area. The Bypass app must target the urban regions and metropolitan cities. The people of these areas will be acquainted with mobile apps. It will be easy for the company to target these consumers. The demographic segmentation is based on the age, occupation, religion, generation, social class, family size and education of the people. The Bypass app must target educated individuals between the age group mainly ranging from 18 to 45 years of age. The education level can range from graduation to higher level of education. The younger generation will be targeted because they are more accustomed to mobile apps. It will be easy to convince them about the usability of the Bypass App. The psychographic segmentation is based on the lifestyle and value of the people. Their interests play a significant role in segmenting the market. Frequent app users and coffee lovers must be tracked and identified. People who love drinking coffee must be targeted by various online means. The behavioural segmentation is based on the historical data of the consumers. People who love drinking coffee need to be targeted in a strategic manner.

Marketing Mix: 7Ps

The 7Ps of marketing are a strategy tool for marketing (Jain 2013):

Product: The Bypass app is the service that is to be developed for the purpose of enabling the consumers to order coffee online via this app.

Price: One-time payment needs to be made for purchasing the app. Penetration strategy will be highly effective.

Place: The Bypass app will be available in the online app stores and websites.

Promotion: Paid online advertisements, social media ads and director speech at webinars will be effective for promoting this app.

Physical Evidence: The app must be well designed and the website will also need to be user friendly and attractive.

People: Highly educated and skilled team must be developed for planning and developing marketing strategy.

Process: Highly skilled sale staffs must be involved in converting the audience into consumers.

Proper feasibility study is needed to be carried out for proper development and implementation of the Bypass App. The software developers and engineers will be involved in developing the Bypass App. The product will be developed in the software development laboratory of the company (Petsas et al. 2013). The convenient site must be in an urban location, preferably in the middle of the city where there will be enormous availability of technical tools and solutions in the nearby locations. There will not be any transportation issues. Transportation will be available to the employees easily. Other utilities will also be available to the company (Nayebi, Desharnais and Abran 2012). A programming language like JavaScript needs to be used for developing the app. User interface needs to be developed. This interface must user friendly (Nayebi, Desharnais and Abran 2012).  Middleware components like app server, service-oriented architecture and MBaaS are required for developing this app. The development tools that are required for developing the front end are UI designing tools, SDKs as well as cross-platform support (McWherter and Gowell 2012). Back-end tools are also required for providing services that are reusable in nature. The most important feature that must be included in the system is the strong security policies as well as features. Adoption of firewall and encryption processes is required in this case. Software testing tools are also required in the development of this application (Petsas et al. 2013). Emulators can be used for testing the application. Other important testing tools include Eggplant, Ranorex and Testdroid. The hardware requirements for this app development are computer devices and network components. The software requirements are operating systems and app development platform. The cost will be incurred in developing the interface of the Bypass App, database designing, coding, testing as well as implementation. It will also incur the cost of training the employees so that the application can be utilized in an effective manner (McWherter and Gowell 2012). The App must include all the security features and will help the users to save time.

References

Baker, M.J., 2014. Marketing strategy and management. Palgrave Macmillan.

Bharadwaj, A., El Sawy, O.A., Pavlou, P.A. and Venkatraman, N.V., 2013. Digital business strategy: toward a next generation of insights.

Jain, M.K., 2013. An analysis of marketing mix: 7Ps or more. Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 1(4).

Jianting, R., 2014. Marketing Mix Analysis for Goethe Institute Based on 4P and 4C Theory (Doctoral dissertation, Institute of Language and Commerce, Shanghai University).

Liu, C.Z., Au, Y.A. and Choi, H.S., 2012. An empirical study of the freemium strategy for mobile apps: Evidence from the google play market.

McWherter, J. and Gowell, S., 2012. Professional mobile application development. John Wiley & Sons.

Nayebi, F., Desharnais, J.M. and Abran, A., 2012, April. The state of the art of mobile application usability evaluation. In Electrical & Computer Engineering (CCECE), 2012 25th IEEE Canadian Conference on (pp. 1-4). IEEE.

Paul, T., 2014. Customer Communication Dimension of Marketing Mix-A Review of Gap between Mutual Fund Investors’ Expectation and Experience. Scholar Journal of Economics, Business & Management, 1(5), pp.197-202.

Petsas, T., Papadogiannakis, A., Polychronakis, M., Markatos, E.P. and Karagiannis, T., 2013, October. Rise of the planet of the apps: A systematic study of the mobile app ecosystem. In Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Internet measurement conference (pp. 277-290). ACM.

Toften, K. and Hammervoll, T., 2013. Niche marketing research: status and challenges. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 31(3), pp.272-285.

Wang, H.Y., Liao, C. and Yang, L.H., 2013. What affects mobile application use? The roles of consumption values. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 5(2), p.11.

Wedel, M. and Kamakura, W.A., 2012. Market segmentation: Conceptual and methodological foundations (Vol. 8). Springer Science & Business Media.