APA Master's in Marketing:Setting Marketing Goals for Mobile Manufacturing (MM)

Marketing Master's: a fictitious cell phone company has hired me to be a Marketing Consultant through contract, this is the initial discussion. 

Thomas Mezzacapa

Applied Managerial Marketing (MKTG630)

Colorado Technical University

2016: October 5th

Professor: Dr. Freddy Lee

Setting Marketing Goals for Mobile Manufacturing (MM)

Planning the Future Marketing Approaches to Promoting Newly Designed Cell Phones

The cell phone industry is a tough business; especially in Eastern Europe. Mobile Manufacturing (MM) will endure many challenges in the mobile device market when releasing their newly designed cell phone from the prestigious, world renowned designer Elena Steokovich. Elena is very well known for her trendy, cutting-edge designs already completed in Eastern Europe; MM is hoping to take advantage of her expertise when releasing their new mobile phone. In order for this new adventure to be a success, it is imperative that a solid, well-thought-out marketing plan be put in place. This plan will have to include a marketing agenda for state-side sales as well as the global market, especially in eastern Europe.

Exploring the Different Factors for Market Planning
There are many environmental variables that have to be taken in to consideration when forming a successful marketing plan. Firstly, there is a lot of emphasis with the technological factor and how it affects sales and company growth. Operations in an organization are highly impacted by equipment that is used for manufacturing and the products themselves. Because of the huge influx of technology, organizations rely on the equipment much more than ever before; the technological factors of any company are significantly more prominent, especially in the mobile, electronic device markets.

Another important factor is the Demographic variable. In an article titled The Demographic Variables That Affect a Business, Rick Suttle explains this as: Demographics are various traits that can be used to determine product preferences or buying behaviors of consumers. Most companies identify their key customers through these various traits. They then target consumers with like characteristics in their advertisements and promotions. Targeting consumers with similar demographic characteristics helps maximize a company’s sales and profits (Suttle, 2016).

There are many facets to consider when looking into demographics. A particular consumers age is always an area to be addressed. Income plays another huge role in the forming of demographics; if you’re selling a $600.00 new, mobile phone, you should target the people that can actually afford it. Additionally, the consumer’s geographic region needs to factored in. If there was a very remote location in eastern Europe, with high, elevated mountains and a low population, as well as nearly, non-existent cellular signal, this would not be a good area to market mobile devices. A large metropolis setting would be much more suiting.

Another area of concentration that significantly affects marketing strategies world-wide is the Economical Factor. In a web article titled: What are the economic factors affecting your marketing plan?, Mohammed Magdy illustrates what this is. He writes: The inflation rate is affecting the Purchasing Power in each country, which affects the ability of the consumers to buy, that affecting your chance of making profit and hinder any new entrants in the market. When the inflation rate increases, the purchasing power decreases, and the disposable income decrease then the chance of making profits of your product decreases. Increasing the interest rate will be decrease the purchasing power of the consumers, which affect their ability to buy your products. The income levels of the country you are going to market your product in, determines the pricing strategy of your products or services. This will indicate if the people in that country are being able to purchase your products or not. Increasing country resources are affecting organizations and companies to release new product, this is telling you which are the industries that you need to invest your money in. Other variables of the economic factors are Employment Level, Exchange Rate – Currency Valuation, Gross Domestic Product, and Consumer Spending Patterns (Magdy, 2015).

Next we need to explore the Political Factor. This factor views how certain government legal issues and governed regulations affect a particular company’s ability to obtain success and produce a profit. Elements that have to be considered are tax guidelines, copyright and property law enforcement, political stability, trade regulations, social and environmental policy, employment laws and safety regulations. It is also important to think about local and federal government breakdown and try to predict how a power shift could affect the way consumers purchase products.

There is a certain art-form in the world of marketing that is more creative than scientific. Successful marketers help provide statistical analysis of the competing marketplace, figures on the total population and a breakdown on how the consumer’s dollars are spent by consumers. There are many different variables that affect the purchasing of consumers and one that cannot be ignored is the social and cultural factors that affect the way consumers purchase different products. This adds an extra burden to the marketing team emphasizing the need to know your customers and their particular social and cultural ways of life.

        Ethnicity of certain groups have their own ways of thinking and purchasing and are usually different from mainstream beliefs. For an example, in some ethnic cultures it is common for the wife to do the cooking and cleaning, where on a whole with mainstream, this could be seen as offensive.
Other areas of social and cultural concerns are Age, Disposable income, and education factor in to breaking down of purchasing from these particular types of consumers. In this very diverse world we live in, it is more important than ever to understand the differences in cultures and overall ways of life where products are produced and where companies hope to sell their products. All of the different factors need to be considered with a lot of emphasis on the cultural and social views of those areas mentioned.

Social and Cultural, Environmental Factor Criticalness 
The socio-culture of any geographic region has to be addressed, first and foremost, more than any of the other factors listed above. Beginning with the manufacturing standpoint, employee retention is one of the most crucial parts of maintaining success in the marketplace. If employees feel that their cultures are not being addressed they will often be disgruntled and have a low-work performance. It is very important to understand these different cultures in order to address the concerns of employees.

Training and education targeting the understanding of different cultures is a critical step in achieving success with manufacturing and for the purchasing by consumers. A company-wide, cultural, code of conduct needs to be put in place in order to ensure that all socio-cultural views have been recognized and adhered to. Carrying on, it is imperative that the different geographic location’s established cultural-practices get a lot of attention when developing the marketing plan. An example, The Hindu faith has thousands of ancestral deities. Also, in the Hindu culture, it is viewed as blatant disrespect to show the bottoms of your feet, especially when you’re a guest in someone’s home. The athletic apparel, super-power of Nike created a new line of shoes that were named with the same name as a Hindu God; and then they made the shoe name part of the tread, on the bottom of the shoe. In one instant, one small oversight on the product development and marketing plan, caused a world-wide uproar with the entire, global population of Hindu believers making them extremely upset. A very large, “apologetic” check was sent to the Hindu faith and all of the shoes had to be recalled and destroyed. This example shows the demanding need that the cultural aspect of environmental factors be a priority.

Possible Opposing Viewpoints for Environmental Factors
In many situations in life and in business, the Economical factor would take precedence over the rest. This is understandable because most of us have the immediate recognition of more money equals more success; the spending power of the marketplace really does need to be considered. We can’t ship the highest-end, top-of-the-line technological, cell-device to an impoverished geographic region. For them, the marketing plan would concentrate on low-prices and the lower-end line of products. The same holds true on the opposite side of this scenario with targeting the geographic areas that have a substantially higher disposable income with marketing geared toward the high-end products with all of the latest bells and whistles. Again, this is very understandable and a crucial part of the marketing process, it just isn’t the most critical.

Proposing Solutions for a Successful Marketing Plan
Addressing the need to put a lot of emphasis on the socio-cultural aspects of environmental factors, there needs to be a set of guidelines put in place. A newly revised Cultural Code of Conduct should be implemented. With the proper training and education, there can be a happy medium achieved that will spawn a company-wide attitude that will reflect directly with performance and production. Happy employees do better work; it’s that simple. There also needs to be  a lot of research and statistical analysis of the different cultures in the desired geographic regions for sales, increasing MM’s presence in the marketplace.

Finding Compromise with All Environmental Factors
In the ever-changing world of technology, it is very important to address all of the environmental factors. A compromise not only can be met, it has to be implemented. To develop a successful marketing plan all of the environmental factors have to be addressed. Working together with research and planning, Mobile Manufacturing (MM) can begin it’s growing success in the global market of cell phone manufacturing and sales.

References:

Editorial Board. (2014). Marketing Management (pp. 4-12). N.p.: Words of Wisdom, LLC. Retrieved          from https://ebooksbvd.my-education-      
         connection.com/read/9781943926251/marketingmanagement_3_xhtml

Magdy, M. (2015, September 13). What are the economic factors affecting your marketing plan?. In           Guerrilla Marketer. Retrieved October 7, 2016, from http://www.guerrillamarketer.com/what-             are-the-economic-factors-affecting-your-marketing-plan/

Suttle, R. (2016). The Demographic Variables That Affect a Business. In The Houston Chronicle.               Retrieved October 5, 2016, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/demographic-variables-affect-           business-24344.html