The seven-step process to assess market opportunity
Rayport and Jaworski (2003) argue that the key to the success of a business depends hugely on the ability of management to ascertain the business opportunities accurately. This can be made possible by conducting a market opportunity analysis, which is usually done on seven-step processes.
A market opportunity analysis according to Rayport and Jaworski (2003) begins by analysis the environment of customers. This analysis aims at understanding the unmet needs of customers and the market they occupy.
Understanding the unmet needs and underserved customers is critical because it forms the basis of market segmentation, which leads to a better understanding of consumers that the company may seek to serve in a given market.
Once the unmet needs of customers have been assessed, the management is then tasked with the responsibility of analyzing the technology environment. This analysis seeks to ascertain how ready a given technology is as well as if an alternative technology may be required for the firm’s offerings (Rayport and Jaworski, 2003).
Thirdly, managers are required to analyze the competition that other firms in the same industry may offer the company. This involves gathering information on competitors both at individual and industry level (Rayport and Jaworski, 2003).
Once managers have understood how competitive the market might be, the next process of the analysis entails assessing the resources and technologies that the company might need to deliver the offering benefits.
Rayport and Jaworski (2003) note that understanding the resources and technology required for an offering is vital since it influences and determines the rationale of a company for success in its area of operations.
Once the resource and technology have been ascertained, managers are then required to analyze the readiness of the market to the technology the company intends to introduce.
This process entails assessing the trend of technology, and whether there are enough infrastructures to enable customers adopt the technology with ease (Rayport and Jaworski, 2003).
In addition, managers will also assess the penetration requirement to make the company’s offering viable, as well as the likelihood that customers will use the new technology being introduced.
Once all these have been done, the management is now expected to have a clear understanding of the market opportunity. Therefore, the sixth process now involves specifying the opportunity in actual terms by designing the opportunity story.
This is followed by the last process, which involves developing a business plan, which will contain information pertaining to market segmentation, value proposition, resources needed, how to counter competition, financial requirements, and the overall benefit of the system to both the company and society (Rayport and Jaworski, 2003).
Analysis of steps Amazon is using in its branding process
Below are steps followed by Amazon in its branding process:
Firstly, Amazon’s branding involved the identification of its target audience. Since online audience is large, segmentation becomes easy since it focuses on everyone using an online resource.
The second step involved analysis of the target audience so as to have a better understanding on their needs and behaviors.
Having a better understanding of customers need made it possible for Amazon to build a brand that all audience can easily differentiate from those of competitors such as Yahoo and Google among others (Clifton, 2010).
The third step of Amazon’s branding involved the analysis of the company’s customer interface, product prices, and other levers, which could motivate customers to consume the company’s products. In this regard, Amazon introduced unique brand features that helped in drawing customers to its product.
The fourth step involved analysis of its customer’s brands with the aim of understanding how best to beat its compactors by developing a user-friendly brand. It is then that Amazon designed its compelling and entire brand intent (Clifton, 2010).
After the development of the brand, Amazon did not just stop there, rather obtained feedback from its customers by developing a feedback system. Amazon used customer’s feedbacks to make adjustments on areas that had shortcomings.
The final step involved patenting the brand to prevent other companies or unscrupulous and malicious people from using the brand for their personal gains (Clifton, 2010).
Comparison between Amazon’s website marketing approaches to the traditional methods
Amazon’s website is among the top online websites visited by millions of people daily. This is attributed to its unique marketing approach. For instance, unlike traditional methods, which only focused on group customer segment, Amazon adopts a new approach, which involves using the crowd to develop a single segment.
This strategy focuses on an individual customer in relation to his or her specific online behavior and needs. For instance, the company’s website provides suggestions for various products such as movies, books and many other products based on a customer’s buying history and pattern of shopping (Mordkovich, Mordkovich, 2005).
Unlike the traditional methods, Amazon has created numerous contents, which it has stored on Google Index. Currently, there are about 248,000,000 contents in Google, which makes it easy for customers to find the company’s products irrespective of the search engine used.
In this regard, a customer does not need to go to Amazon’s website to find a product; instead, the customers can just do a search on Google (Mordkovich, Mordkovich, 2005).
References
Clifton, R. (2010). Brands and Branding. New York, NY: Profile Books.
Mordkovich, B., & Mordkovich, E. (2005). Pay-per-click search engine marketing handbook: low cost strategies to attracting new customers using Google, Yahoo & other search engines. Hoboken, NJ: Lulu.com.
Rayport, J.F., & Jaworski, B.J. (2003). Introduction to e-commerce (2nd edn). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin MarketspaceU.