Forums › OBU Forums › Topic 18 – An Organisation's Marketing Strategy & its Effectiveness
- This topic has 215 replies, 42 voices, and was last updated 2 years ago by GillianM – OBU Registered Mentor.
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- September 30, 2018 at 3:12 pm #476022
Hi Lindatsai,
We occasionally chip into the forum here and will be glad to share what we know. Trephena has a lot of experience in this and she may add on further later.
Regarding Apple, general brand advertising will be used when you analyse the 4Ps of Apple (i.e. Promotion)
We have had many students who did Apple for the RAP. Usually, they select a product that can represent Apple. The product choice can be further justified by looking at the % of revenue derived from that product.
E.g. Choosing iPhone is fine. Choosing iPod is not so good.Thereafter the 4Ps will be mainly focused on the product itself, with occasional analysis on the general marketing etc
We hope this helps!
Best wishes,
Irwin
The Learning LuminariumOctober 4, 2018 at 11:13 pm #476497Hi Trephena,
I’m getting there! 4 weeks to go! Just a few questions to help tidy it all up:
Do I need to include the financial statements of the organisation that I am researching as an attachment with my RAP or is this to go in the appendices? Also, where I have had internal information to analyse (new clients gained etc) do I need to attach these reports too?
I’ve noticed that I started referring to myself as ‘the author’ of the RAP, then later I use ‘I’ and ‘my’. How am I supposed to refer to myself in the report? Third person? I want to be consistent.
Many thanks!
October 7, 2018 at 8:04 am #476676Lauzzio – well done to you for getting this far by this stage. No matter how much students are encouraged to start their work early most of them end up attempting to do it all in a rush!
The report file should just contain the report and any additional information should go in appendices or separate files. This even extends to the Reference list. When you go to upload your files on submission for a first submission there should be at least 5 mandatory separate files: report, SLS Statement, Prsentation file, Excel spreadsheet and Ref list + any appendices. This is apparently because with online marking it is more convenient for markers to have the key elements in different files. However with the appendices try to organise these so you do not have too many different appendix files -again for expediency – so collate the information appropriately and label them with titles to try to give a clue about what they contain.
In the Parts 1 and 2 (Introduction to the RAP and Information gathering) you may refer to yourself personally in the 1st Person (I, myself, mine , my) or as the Author. However in Part 3 there is normally both little scope for personal detail and it is the more formal part of your work and this should be written in the 3rd person (the author or the researcher). Obviously if you want to be consistent use the 3rd person throughout.
The SLS should be written in the 1st person as it is your own personal experience you are writing about.
October 9, 2018 at 10:43 am #476926hello Trephena,
I’m submitting my project this November. when I was going through references, I just came across that one of the cited info is not available on that website anymore. Do you think I should refer to another site t get that info or can I keep that cited reference coz website changes arent none of my business?
Thank you.
October 9, 2018 at 9:21 pm #476982Thank you Trephena. I still don’t feel anywhere near finished though! So the financial statements of the company that I’m using, do these go in the appendices? And do I need to reference which appendix number within the RAP where I have used the figures from the accounts?
I just feel like I’ve (hopefully) got my head around the project, but it’s all the presentation and referencing that I’m unsure of. I’ve sussed the Harvard Referencing System and anything cited is in my reference list.Bibliography of books/resources that I haven’t cited but used for background reading – do these go in a separate list in the reference list, or within part 1 of the RAP stating what books I have read?
Thank you so much for your help, I would be rather lost without Open Tuition and your guidance!
October 10, 2018 at 1:41 pm #477062You use appendices for additional information and these can be referred to in the report by the comment (see Appendix XX) or a normal reference (Annual Report 20XX)
You do not need to produce a bibliography for the RAP. The reference list for actual sources cited will suffice.
October 12, 2018 at 1:09 pm #477534Thank you Trephena. Where I have used charts to show results, should these go in the main body of the RAP, or in the appendices?
Is there a rough guide of how many references we should enter? I’m worried that I may not have cited enough resources and perhaps need to read more! (I could just be having a last minute panic! I’ll be so glad when this is all done!)
October 12, 2018 at 1:15 pm #477536Also, the analysis that I have completed in the spreadsheet – how do I reference this in the RAP? Is this an appendix?
Thank you – I’ll leave you alone soon 😉
October 14, 2018 at 11:00 am #477916The spreadsheet can be called an Appendix as it contains ancillary information
There is no hard and fast rule on the actual number of references required however as stated in the OT Ultimate Guide to Referencing your RAP every fact, opinion and the work of others should be appropriately referenced. Quality references are preferred over anonymous sources sosee if you can incorporate something from Philip Kotler as he is the guru of marketing.
November 7, 2018 at 3:19 am #484066Hi, I have done my report and my mentor pointed out my problem of unable to link on how the marketing strategies affecting the result of Ratio analysis. For the result, The revenue margin is decreasing. Is this consider as ineffective? But the gross profit margin and Pre tax margin which i used to evaluate the effectiveness is performing better than the company I compared to. In this case my result is effective or not effective? If ineffective, do i have the explain anything?
Thank YouNovember 7, 2018 at 8:26 am #484080For a start what do you mean by ‘revenue margin’ ? Secondly marketing efforts, and results showing its effectiveness are not always instantaneous and the effect can spread over different year ends (Remember that decisions are not taken on the first day of a financial year and stop on the last day). Also one financial ratio taken in isolation is not going to give you an answer. Do you have any market share information as this KPI would be useful? However I suspect there is not a simple answer that the marketing strategies have or have not been successful so you need to put it all in a bigger picture.
A lot depends on the product and industry sector -a company might be having to ‘re-invent itself’ and will want to keep itself in the public mind while it undergoes a major change e.g. Dell computers having to go from PCs to laptops and then face the challenge of tablets and smart phones. The effectiveness of its marketing strategies might therefore not be assessible for sometime and as the world has moved on, the company may possibly never regain its former position (look what happened to goth Nokia and BlackBerry)
Occasionally there maybe a general decline in share of brand leaders if new competitors enter the market, the former then turn to more promotion and advertising to slow down the rate of loss of market share. Such promotion costs will impact on the operating margin, however might still be considered effective if the overall performance was better than a major rival with the latter suffering a greater decrease in market share. For example both Tesco and Sainsbury’s have seen Lidl and Aldi take customers away from them but are still locked in inter-rivalry battle with each other and some of their marketing efforts are aimed at maintaining their pecking order.
You need to research a bit into what is going on in the company and its general strategies and those of the industry sector to complete the picture. Declining revenues for both companies might indicate general pressure on that sector e.g. New car sales in Europe are down for many manufacturers because of both the uncertainty of the future of diesel cars and the emissions scandal plus the inroads made by electric cars and hybrids and no amount of marketing can change these factors in the short term and in the longer term the car manufacturers have to become more innovative.
There is no simple answer however evidence of research around it will demonstrate understanding of the topic allowing you to discuss the ratios in a better context.
November 8, 2018 at 10:15 am #484176Sorry, it should be revenue growth margin. The percentage of revenue growth year by year.
I have found out the repeating of strategies written in the annual report. For example, Expansion of business to oversea. This is repeating every year in the annual report under the CEO statement. Is this showing the strategies is still in progress? Although the business already operated in overseas, and the company wish to expand further. Also, the company is in a monopoly market. Can I include the external factor that influencing customer buying behaviour? For example, implementation of GST that lead to higher living cost and revenue growth become lesser. This is not from the marketing strategies.
Thank you for answering my question.November 10, 2018 at 7:15 am #484360Your ideas sound reasonable about GST as this probably has depressed sales (and possibly increased them artificially before it’s introduction as people rushed to buy to beat the tax)
Ooverseas expansion would more than likely be a strategy that runs over several years -initial trial and if signs looked good, being gradually expanded. It does take quite a lot of new investment in both money and effort and often slower to show big results in the early years.
Monopoly often means high prices to the consumer and can produce complacency by the producer (depending on the demand for the product)
November 14, 2018 at 1:26 pm #484800Me again! Just a quick question, as the OBU submissions website is down so now I am having a last minute panic due to having extra time!
Where I have mentioned SWOT analysis and what it is, do I need to mention the person who created it? (Albert Humphrey) and PESTEL (Francis Aguilar) or is this not a requirement as the models have been developed further since their initial work?
Do I need to reference the pages of my SWOT analysis etc, when I have mentioned it in the ‘part 2: information gathering and techniques’ section of my report?
Thank you so much! Hopefully the submission website will be up and running again very soon so I can submit it all and forget about it for a few months!
November 15, 2018 at 7:27 am #484878Yes you need to reference in Part 2. Possibly going right back to the originators is not necessary and you could reference to the actual source you used (which I doubt was Humphrey and Aquilar?)
[If you are doing Topic 18 I trust you are using other appropriate models in addition to the SWOT and PESTEL? Although the latter are strategic, as models they are not specific to marketing (although the marketing strategies might be affected by them) – you are also expected to demonstrate in Part 3 how the company uses market segmentation and target marketing to achieve its marketing objectives]
February 25, 2019 at 4:13 pm #506492I doing Topic 18. is it ok if i have only 2 objectives and 2 research questions? Please help
February 26, 2019 at 8:49 am #506569The research objectives are very much tied to the topic title and are overarching. So something like the aims of this report are to identity the marketing strategies of company XYZ and to assess their overall effectiveness.
You then have to think what information you would need to be able to achieve those aims/objectives. These form the basis of your questions – specific areas that need to be looked into. There would normally be more than just 2 questions you need to answer to arrive at that position. The following are merely examples but you need to think about what is special about the company’s products and how it gets them out in the market place and the effect of this:
e.g. What is the target market of XYZ?; How has XYZ becoming the leading brand of ……… in [country]?; Who are its main rivals? What specific factors have led to the success of its product[s]?; What is its current market share?; How is its success reflected in sales and profit?
August 8, 2019 at 5:01 pm #526713Hi, I’ve been going through this thread and I’ve understood why SWOT and PESTLE analysis may not be too relevant for this topic. I wanted to know any other models we can use? Apart from the 7P’s and Porter’s five forces.
Thanks 🙂August 9, 2019 at 2:20 pm #526875Why would you want more than 2 models? The models need to be relevant to the context and discussions on the effectiveness of the marketing strategies and it is better to use 2 models well than 3 or 4 thinly applied. Depending on the organisation you might be able to analyse the product portfolio using the BCG matrix or possibly the Ansoff Matrix when examining strategies and you should consider aspects of market segmentation and target marketing.
An assessment of the effectiveness of such strategies is critical to answering the second part of the topic title and this requires some financial analysis. My advice therefore is to ensure you cover all of these elements and not overly rely on models if you want to get a decent grade and remember
February 5, 2020 at 10:14 am #560770Hye Trephena.
For the ‘Assessing Market effectiveness’ part, do I need to make points on non-financial, i.e. number of subscribers. The company I choose is netflix. Are there any models needed to write for assessing market effectiveness? I have used the 7Ps on explaining the strategies btw.
Thanks in advance.Afrina.
February 8, 2020 at 1:45 pm #561077Yes stats relating to subscribers and churn are relevant to illustrate the effectiveness of the strategies.
The 7 Ps for this type of company should be fine together with some form of competitor analysis. Assess what Netflix does well and what it does not do so well compared with other main competitors
March 10, 2020 at 9:46 pm #565063Hello
I’m using the 7Ps as a tool to analyse the marketing strategies of my chosen company. The company I’ve chosen operates in the high-end hotel industry. However, I am absolutely stumped as to what I should write for “process”. I would really appreciate any help with this.
March 11, 2020 at 3:00 pm #565094Hi,
I doing topic 18 too. The company i choose is Dutch Lady Industry Malaysia. I get some information from their annual report 2018 which is they have investment into UHT milk filler processing line to increase output; they relaunch growing up milk and also introduced milk with flavour. They are planning to strengthen its position in the F&B sector particularly in the bakery and confectionery industry.
For those information, i confuse on which model should i use, should i use Market Positioning or Ansoff Matrix? Currently i used 4P and SWOT Analysis.
If using Market Positioning, should i need to explain in Part 2 ?
Market Positioning is so wide, can i get some advice on which factor i need to focus on?
If want to use competitor comparison or financial performance analysis should i need to explain it in part 2?
Is that necessary to do comparison with competitor or financial performance analysis for this topic 18 ?My research question are :
1.)What is the marketing strategy implemented by Dutch Lady?2.)How effective is Dutch Lady’s marketing strategies?
3.)How do they communicate their products offer to their customer?
4.)What makes Dutch Lady distinguish from competitor?
Wish to get some advice, will really appreciate it.
Thanks.March 16, 2020 at 5:59 pm #565317Without detailed knowledge of your particular company I can only give general guidance (your mentor should be in a position to help with specific advice). However a model that might be worth looking at is the Boston Matrix (BCG Matrix) and you may consider analysing some of the company’s established and new innovative products and any of its failures (discontinued product lines /flavours). You should also apply the 4 Ps
Product position may depend on the target market and this in turn may be dependent on the availability of the product. With luxury chocolate products for example these would only be available at specialist upmarket retailers whereas everyday snack chocolate bars might be widely available at supermarkets and vending machines. The whole point of luxury brands is that the company would only want them to be available to a select market to give an impression of exclusivity and thus justify and maintain a higher price (think about the luxury sectir of the fashion industry for example), whereas the strategy for everyday brands is to mass market, discounting, and increasing volume as margins are lower.
Some competitor analysis may be appropriate however this is mainly in respect of the 4 Ps though a comparison of market share would be appropriate.
March 20, 2020 at 11:23 am #565467Hello
I’m using the 7Ps as a tool to analyse the marketing strategies of my chosen company. The company I’ve chosen operates in the high-end hotel industry. However, I am absolutely stumped as to what I should write for “process”. I would really appreciate any help with this.
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