The Importance of Marketing Strategy and Process for Business Success

Discuss about the Marketing Management and Corrective Advertising.

A proper marketing strategy and process is vital for the growth and success of an organization. Without one, an organization’s efforts to attract as well as retain customers can be inefficient and haphazard (Chernev 2018). Marketing allows an organization to build and maintain a long-lasting relationship with its target market.  It helps an organization to flourish and achieve its strategic goals and objectives. A proper marketing strategy allows an organization to identify and then communicate to the target market the benefits of its offerings. Businesses are also required to align their marketing strategy with the overall business strategy to ensure that they implement the strategies in an efficient manner hence leading to growth, success and profitability (Hillebrand, Driessen & Koll 2015). The paper shows how the adoption of effective and efficient marketing strategies and processes has allowed both Qantas and Wal-Mart to gain a sustained competitive advantage hence achieve success in the market.

The case study looks at how Qantas has been able to change and adapt to the difficult conditions that are being experienced in the aviation industry. According to the case study, it has become a mission for many airlines in the aviation industry to make a profit since a significant number of airlines have made losses for a number of years (Suzan 2016). It also argues how Qantas was not considered as one of the best airlines. However, a combination of strategies including marketing strategies has enabled the company to be regarded as one of the best in the world (Qantas 2018). It has been able to adequately align its marketing strategies with its overall strategy to achieve business success. Qantas has been able to employ advertisement and lucrative offers to attract a huge customer base.

Wal-Mart marketing case study focuses on how the company was able to align the marketing strategy with the overall corporate strategy to navigate difficult times and return back to profitability hence creating a stronger brand. The case study talks about how the company’s stock experienced a sharp decline between 2005 and 2010 and suffered reputational loss amid claims of unethical practices (Mujtaba & Maxwell 2012). The company decided to employ a new marketing approach where it used the tagline Yes! “Save Money. Live Better.” The new marketing approach allowed it to attract new customers without affecting the already existing customer base.  Wal-Mart founder together with his management team was able to employ marketing as a tool to tour around the fortunes of the global retailer. The global brand has been able to employ different marketing strategies and approaches to compete effectively with both brick and mortar and online giants in the industry (Neff 2013).

Qantas Case Study: Changing and Adapting to the Competitive Aviation Industry

The company’s consumer marketing strategy has allowed it to gain a monopoly in the region. Its ability to develop proper marketing strategies has significantly contributed to its strong brand name and presence in Asia-Pacific region. The marketing strategy employed has resulted in more than 8 million visits each week to Jetstar.com and Qantas.com. It also boasts of high traffic on its websites and has a lot of social media, mobile and web interactions. The marketing processes have also significantly contributed to having more than 50 million passengers each year across the group. Its frequent flyers membership program has more than 11.7 million registered members. The company designed a brand campaign referred to as “Feel’s Like Home” campaign and launched the same in 2014. It has done the same in 2016 and 2017. This has allowed it to emotionally reconnect with the Australians and the campaign films have garnered more than 20 million views on different platforms to date (Qantas 2018).

According to research three-quarter of Australians who have had the chance to see the company’s television commercials feel more positive about the brand. 59% of those who have seen the television commercial have stated that they would wish to fly with Qantas. The enhancement of social media channels and mobile apps has led to a 50% increase in the company’s app flight bookings compared to the previous year. Queries via different social media platforms have increased by almost 20% compared to the previous year. Its marketing strategy has ensured that it is viewed more positively by customers and has allowed it to create a strong brand across Asia-Pacific (Qantas 2018).

The marketing process and strategies employed by Wal-Mart has been an integral part of its current success. It is regarded as one of the biggest companies in the world and is highly ranked under the fortune 500. The retail giant earns significant revenue from the target market by placing online gifts (Neff 2013). It has also been able to use different slogans effectively which pulls customers and increase both revenue and profitability. For instance, the “Grab It Before Its Done” slogan allowed it to push customers to buy the offered products before the deal for those products expired. This strategy has always raked in significant earnings for the company allowing it to achieve its set targets. Other companies are trying to adopt Wal-Mart marketing strategies showing that it has a competitive edge over them and its ability to quickly develop new marketing strategies and tactics allows it to gain a sustained competitive advantage.

Wal-Mart Case Study: Navigating Difficult Times to Return Back to Profitability

Qantas Corporation has been able to adequately segment the market and target that segment that it thinks has the highest capability to make it more profitable. The company has targeted the medium level or middle level of income group and also targets professionals and families. This has allowed it to rank among the top twenty airlines in the world (Shaw, 2016). An organization must determine the best market segment that will allow it to achieve its vision, mission and strategic goals and objectives (Park 2007). This allows the organization to employ the best marketing strategy and achieve adequate results.

Qantas has also been able to employ a marketing audit and develop a proper marketing plan. It has also been able to integrate its marketing strategy to align with the overall corporate strategy adopted.  Marketing audit enables a company to adequately assess its performance and compare the same with the competition (Darke, Ashworth & Ritchie 2013). It also allows it to evaluate the external environment before developing an effective marketing plan. This then ensures that an organization develops proper marketing objectives hence achieves its strategic goals and objectives. It also ensures that the marketing strategy develop aligns with the overall strategy. For instance, in recent years, Qantas has embarked on an expansion strategy and has heavily relied on marketing to create awareness in different regions in Asia

Wal-Mart management claims that advertising alone cannot help a company to succeed and argues that marketing is more than just advertising and should be customer focused (Moth 2013). Wal-Mart has been able to effectively employ segmentation to determine the best target market. It employed demographic and psychographic segmentation strategies. This has allowed it to customer psyche and understood that its target market required everyday products that were price competitive. This ensured that it could adopt an integrated marketing approach that would create awareness about its products and allow it to expand to other regions.

It is no coincidence that the retailer significantly improved its operations once it employed effective business and marketing strategies. The company marketed itself to the target market as a retail chain offering quality products and low prices. It came up with the promotional name “Black Friday” where it offers customers with products at throwaway prices. This day has become very famous and other retailers in different parts of the world are copying this concept due to its success. 

Effective Segmentation and Integration of Marketing in Achieving Business Success

The company has also ensured that stores manager have the autonomy to determine the best marketing strategy to be adopted in individual stores (Goworek, McGoldrick & McGoldrick 2015). This ensures that managers are able to employ marketing strategies based on their competitive environment and this has increased the company’s marketing success. Wal-Mart has over 26 million fans on Facebook which represents a 9 million increase within a year and has over 300, 000 followers on twitter (Kumar & Reinartz 2018). These platforms have allowed the retailer to create conversations and interactions with fans hence acquiring new customers as well as guiding others on how to purchase different products.

Conclusion

The above case studies show that adequate marketing processes and strategies that have taken into consideration the current business environment, the problems to be solved and how to solve these problems among other important aspects allows an organization to achieve its strategic goals and objectives, mission and vision. The case study also shows that the two companies have been able to employ marketing to create a bond and an emotional connection with their customers.  Looking at the case studies, one can conclude that the ability to identify the target market and develop an integrated marketing approach based on the needs of the company and the needs of the market will ensure that the concerned business creates the much-needed awareness, bond and emotional connection with its target market hence gain a sustained competitive advantage over rivals.

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Mujtaba, B.G. &  Maxwell, S. (2012). Wal-mart in the global retail market: Its growth and challenges. Journal of Business Case Studies, 3(2), pp.1-10.

Neff, J. (2013). Why Walmart Is Getting Serious About Marketing. [online] Adage.com. Available at: https://adage.com/article/news/walmart-marketing/137132/ [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].

Park, J.W. (2007). Passenger perceptions of service quality: Korean and Australian case studies. Journal of Air Transport Management, 13(4), pp.238-242.

Qantas (2018).Positioning the Qantas Group for Growth and Sustainable Returns. [online] Available at https://investor.qantas.com/FormBuilder/_Resource/_module/doLLG5ufYkCyEPjF1tpgyw/file/presentations/QAN-Investor-Day-2017.pdf [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].

Shaw, S. (2016). Airline marketing and management.Routledge.

Suzan, M. (2016). Qantas Airways Limited. [online] Available at https://www.academia.edu/9278526/Qantas_-_Marketing_Case_Study [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].