Marketing Research and it Use in a Marketing Plan

Marketing research is necessary in contributing to business strategy. Marketing research is a process to collecting, recording, organizing and analysing purposeful information about Marketing which are including, target market, customers and competition and how people thought about your brand in order to making decisions efficiently. (Bizfluent/Meagan Van Beest. 2017.) McDonald's Restaurant is a large-scale fast-food chain group with about 30,000 stores in the world and Mainly selling hamburgers, French fries, fried chicken, soft drinks, desserts. McDonald's restaurants are scattered around the world.One of the reasons of the success of McDonald’s is McDonald’s has a wonderful marketing research in different countries. McDonald's is using primary research customer expectations which will add additional products. Their main research includes - survey (paper or online), questionnaire, one on one interview and customer feedback.

Because of this, McDonald's was trying to bring great promotional offers. McDonald's launched meal about steak lunch box with water, fruit bags, and juice in this year which is healthy and cheap. At the beginning, what their customers want and what their target market is the first research problem they need to know. Primary data has been collected information and McDonald's did quantitative and qualitative analysing on it. After that, steak lunch box is confirmed a good marketing planning and strength by descriptive research. Thought marketing research McDonald's will clearly know what they are marketing objectives, strategies or tactics. The diagram show that in Austenian most of the people willing to pay for fast food rather than others, (T. (2017).) but in different countries, people have different food culture so McDonald's need to adapt them. such as in India, for instance, the Big Mac has been changed to the Maharaja Mac which contains no beef, basing on local diets. In Greece, the Big Mac using a pita bread rather than a bun. ?I. (2017, June 18)?

Who Are the Competition for Your Favourite Product?

The competitors force prevails in various factors that affect corporate marketing goals and strategies. Apple Music product and Spotify are occupying most of the market of the on-demand music streaming. Before Spotify was launched the market, iTunes which is Apple’s product was play an important role in the media and music market. iTunes provided millions of songs for apple user to download from their iTunes store which each song cost customer around 2 dollar. apple not only revolutionized the music industry but also gain a 3.9 billion in 2012.

Despite this the iTunes users have been reducing because of Apple’s micro-environment. Spotify was introduced to the market of on-demand music service which their concept is providing a monthly subscription to consumers, which provides around millions of downloadable offline listening songs, instead of paying for each download. ?Reseigh-Lincoln, D. (2018, April 25) ?This will a huge impacted for Apple, with Spotify launching on-demand streaming media, iTunes’ download revenue has dropped significantly. Because of the competitive pressure of Spotify, Apple need to flighting back for the market of one-demand music, Apple’s introduced a product called Apple Music in June 2015. As a streaming music, apple music service that allows consumers to purchase subscriptions so that they can access more than 30 million songs for offline listening. In the first year of Apple Music, not only the product attracted more than 15 million subscriptions but also maintained completion with Spotify's.

According to the chart above Apple’s marketing objectives and strategies was influenced by competitor such as Spotify, so Apple music have 3 months free trail whereas most of the other services offer users around 30 days. Those 3 months free trail is already attracting the users. This will be the charming of completion force, which the company change their objectives and strategies constantly in order to flighting back to the competitors. ?Miller, C. (2017)?

PESTL and how this affects the introduction of a new product/service.

The PESTEL analysis model, also known as macro-environment analysis, is an effective tool for analyzing the macro-environment. It can not only analyze the external environment, but also identify all forces that have an impact on the organization. It is a method of investigating external influence factors of an organization. Each letter represents a factor that can be divided into six major factors: Political, Economic, Social, Technological, and Environmental and legal factors. Uber is app taxi-sharing company which is growing fasting than other. The PESTLE analysis of Uber was showed.

Political Forces:

There is much controversy about Uber in society such as who is responsible in car accident Uber or driver? Uber did not have a clear rule in its initial development. In addition, the minimum wage laws in the taxi industry have been disgusted. The government also needs a commercial license and requires Uber to provide the document.

Economic Forces

Uber operates in a sharing economy which sharing physical or intellectual resources. In this case, Uber hires drivers and services the customers which is bring them to a location. It is usually considered cheaper than a taxi and it is easier to make some appointments. The sharing economy model represented by Uber working with intermediary platform. The core is the distribution on demand, which not only rationally allocates resources, but also controls risks to some extent. Uber growing fastest since its introduction. However, due to Uber's unfair competition for ordinary taxis, countries have banned or restricted their services such as China.

Social and Culture Forces:

Customers of Uber are easily to enjoy their services. Using the app for Uber can easily make an appointment in anytime and anywhere. It requires no commutation rather than a few step-in smartphones. the cheaper price is attracting most of the people.

Technological Forces:

Location based service is used in Uber Location-based service, which obtains the mobile terminal user's location information through the telecommunication mobile operator's radio communication network or an external positioning method (such as GPS), and provides the user with the corresponding services under the support of the geographic information system platform. Many drivers use 4G networks to connect to the app assess the location for the customer. (Srivastava, S. (2018, January 19))

Environmental Forces

Uber’s effect on the environment is ever shifting, People may use Uber instead of public transportation, so the fuel usage is a big problem and then it may increase traffic congestion.

Legal Forces:

Uber faces many criticisms, bans and attempts to ban all over the world. Companies must abide by the technology usage laws, copyright laws, labour and employee safety laws. (Rhodes, A. (2017, September 22))

SWOT analysis and its use in the marketing plan.

Swot analysis is crucial to direct the company's decision about marketing mix or marketing plan. It highlights the company's internal strengths and weaknesses while also highlighting external opportunities and threats. Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. is a private communications technology company that produces and sells communications equipment. Huawei Swot analysis is useful to them understand the company’s internal and external.

Strengthen:

1. Products and technologies. Huawei is a knowledge-intensive enterprise. Knowledge can make products or services have higher value. Huawei's independent research and development of the world's very high core technology such as 5G.
2. Employees?Huawei have 180000 employees and their ICT solutions, products, and services are used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the world's population. (huawei. 2018)
3. word-of-mouth. (DARLEY SHEN/REUTERS. 2017)

Weaknesses:

1. As a China company, Huawei has trouble with westerner’s preconceptions concerning the “made in China label” which can be perceived as products with reduced quality. (Rory Lee. 2016)
2. Huawei Fails to Enter US. ( Ian Kano. 2018)
3. Lots of competitive companies such as Apple, Samsung, xiaomi.

Opportunities:

Cheapest product. Huawei phone price is around 200-800 AUD and those cheap prices will attract lots of consumer.

Huawei research and development in those years basing on Huawei smart technologists. With the advent of 2020, the growth of 5G-based enhanced mobile broadband network (eMBB) and Internet of Things applications will increase dramatically, including VR/AR applications, industrial Internet, driverless technology and vehicle internet. This is an opportunity because other competitor doesn’t have those technology. ( Auchard, Sijia Jiang. 2018.)

Threats:

The competition from other countries is exist and the competitor will be stronger than stronger. Huawei still has not yet reached satisfactory levels.

Segmentation, targeting and positioning in marketing: Current trends in an industry of your choice.

STP refers to target marketing, which means that after the company subdivides the overall market according to certain standards, it selects one or more market segments as its target market, and targets the target market. Starbucks Coffee STP analysis.

Segmentation (P. (2016, September 29))

In geographic, people buy coffee usually in Large cities in coastal areas or economically developed areas such as Sydney, Beijing, New York.

In Demographic, Starbucks's potential consumer groups can be 18-40 years old female and male. They are occupation maybe students, employees, professional which they common is relying on the internet.

In Psychographic, they are social will be middle and upper class which they have high demands on taste and fashion.

In Behavioral, First, as lovers of drinking coffee regularly, they have a deep understanding of coffee, high quality and service requirements, habitual consumption. Second, as potential lovers of coffee sometimes who have limited knowledge of coffee, have a certain sensitivity to the price of coffee, and are also susceptible to promotions. The third is a traditional person who never or occasionally drinks coffee. They just need a place to talk, to relax or to do some work.

Targeting

Basing on the segmentation of geographic, demographic, psychographic, behavioral the target market of Starbucks has three types of consumer. First, young generation/college student, white collar worker. They are fashion, cool, understand and care about trends, love the internet, love to make new friends and socialize, love travel, have passion for consumption, have some pressure and are committed to success. Second, the business elite / rising middle class. Relatively more mature, higher income available and consuming but more cautious and rational, face a lot of pressure in this competitive society. The Third, as coffee lovers they are coffee experts, coffee drinkers, and very loyal customers. (Bean-Mellinger, B. (2018, March 14).)

Positioning

After determining the target market, the company must decide what position it wants to occupy in the target market. Starbucks uses of 3 types of positioning; firstly, mono segment positioning is willing to pay extra for high quality of product and services. Secondly adaptive positioning is basing one the tendency of increasing consumer health awareness, Starbucks developed more healthy coffee which is less calories. Thirdly, Standby positioning is the produce had to wait changes in the market for a period to find demand. ((P. (2016, September 29))

New product/services launches or brand management: A success and failure.

Success of Product

AirPods which is Apple’s wireless earphones launched to the world in 2016, Apple Store Worldwide Sells out AirPods Immediately. Demand for AirPods soon outstripped supply, the consumers had to wait for few days buying AirPods which is the internal factors not only influence the success of Apple’s AirPods but also reduces customer loyalty to Apple products. Facing those problem, Apple’s launch iPhone 7 in 2016. (Miller, C., Chance Miller, & Apple. (2017, December 17)) As we all known, iPhone 7 does not include traditional headphone-jack, should make Airpods easy to cross-sell to iPhone customers. they also provide deeper integration with Apple’s product ecosystem. For instance, Airpods offer a seamless pairing process, the ability to access Apple’s digital assistant Siri, in addition to providing longer wireless range when paired with Apple devices. Furthermore, the success of Aidpods for an external factor is which apple product is one of the most popular in the world and consumer has high loyalty with Apple products. Airpods not only consider convenience and simplicity but also high-quality audio which is more convenient people. ( Kastrenakes, J. (2016, September 07))

Fail of Product

Google also launched Google Pixel Buds, a wireless earphone in 2017. Google Pixel Buds, which sells for $159, was initially seen as a competitor to Apple AirPods. However, after the launched of this product, it uses experienc and product quality are not good enough. They are external factors which is Google still lacks experience compared to Samsung and Apple in the hardware field and They are internal factors which is Google calls it “Semi-Occluded which is a main problem lead Pixel Buds fail is only useful in a quiet room and sound good but once in noise environment such as bus, train anything that around and making noise it will hard to listening the music in Pixel Buds. On other word Pixel Buds only can use in quiet room.

Reference:

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