Executive Summary
This market report presents feasibility strategies to gain acceptance, sustainable returns, and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms of an app for gadgets to promote verbal interaction in New Zealand. The report indicates that the app requires robust promotional campaigns, sufficient promotional budgets, and massive exploitation of free or low cost online platforms for aggressive campaigns in order to succeed.
Introduction
Currently, the company has observed that the use of gadgets, such as mobile phones, has drastically reduced verbal communication and general interaction in households and workplaces. The company is concerned about possible negative effects of this tendency on workplace and household productivity and relationships respectively. Consequently, the company has designed an app for gadgets to promote verbal interaction in New Zealand. This market report presents feasibility strategies to gain acceptance, sustainable returns, and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.
Two Feasible Strategies that will help the Organisation to Gain Market
Acceptance and Sustainable Returns
Objectives
The company’s first six-month objective is to increase downloads from zero to 500,000 downloads and users and generate NZ$1 million in revenue in the same period. In a year, the company will position its app in the market as the only app for gadgets to promote verbal interaction in workplaces, homes, and learning institutions.
Target market
Generally, the company target market consists of all users of smartphones in New Zealand. However, the company understands that the market is largely dominated by young people (users who are mainly below 25 years of age) and a significant percentage has not finished high school. Therefore, the main target market of the company consists of users aged between 18 and 25 years old. This age group is known to drive the use of social media and other apps across different platforms.
The company also targets users aged between 26 and 34 – people who have finished college, found their first employment, and now moving up the career ladder. Furthermore, it will also target users aged between 35 and 54. These groups can use the app both at home and in the workplace to facilitate verbal communication.
This app will also target children aged between 10 and 17 who own smartphones or tablets. This target market would provide a stronger loyal market for the company in the future.
Notably, users who are aged over 55 will also be targeted by this app. The company understands that different age groups would use the app, but at various rates. Since penetration will also differ among various age groups, the company will develop its promotional messages to reach the least penetrated target markets. It is also expected that growth will be gradual, but the target group aged between 18 and 25 would be the most active on the app.
Additionally, the demographic of interest would mainly be young, female users who tend to spend much of their time on smart gadgets. The majority of users are expected to be residing in major cities and towns of New Zealand.
The number of users is expected to grow within a year based on current social networks that exist among other social media users. Nevertheless, the app is expected to engage majorities across different age groups.
Two strategies based on the 4Ps (or 7Ps)
Price is a fundamental aspect of any product or service. It is what customers pay to use a product or service. Pricing is a major element of marketing mix. For this app, however, users will download and install it without a fee. That is, no subscription or download fee is applicable to use the app. The company understands that pricing ultimately influences profitability and survival. Price setting generally has a significant effect on the entire marketing strategy, as well as impacts on sales and demands of a product or service. Pricing remains one of the most difficult aspects in marketing strategies. The company is new in the market and lacks a recognizable brand. Therefore, it is most unlikely that the target market will pay premium for such an app.
While consumers could have downloaded the app for a fee, it will be difficult to get them to use it during the initial stage of the launch of the business. Organisations use pricing to shape user perceptions about their products and services. Consumers, for instance, may associate low prices with inferior services or products relative to competitors (Lowe, 2010). Higher prices may also lead to an issue of cost against benefits. Thus, pricing should be set appropriately. A study conducted by eMarketer in 2015 established that apps with dollar signs have fewer people willing to download and install them (eMarketer, 2015). Further, a forecast indicated that about 33% of consumers is willing to purchase an app. Prices are generally based on perceived value, costs associated with running the business and preferred margins.
For this app, the company has opted for ‘freemium’ tactic. Freemium is a construct driven by the digital economy due to minimal marginal costs associated with digital services and goods (Needleman & Loten, 2012; Heier, 2015; Liu, Au, & Choi, 2014). Consequently, many startups find it attractive because it is ‘deceptively simple’ – users are attracted to free apps until they can no longer abandon them, and then they are charged for paid versions. It is observed that companies, such as Skype Inc., Dropbox Inc., WhatsApp Inc., and LinkedIn Corp. managed to be successful by providing free services in order to build a large customer base (Needleman & Loten, 2012). The company, however, will capture user data and use them for marketing or sell to other interested parties.
Another strategy that the company will adopt is promotion. Promotion will be extremely important for the newly launched company that lacks market presence and a strong brand. It will improve brand recognition and facilitate more downloads and installation of the app.
The company will greatly depend on advertising to promote its app. Advertising will generally account for various modes of communication, including television, radio commercial, the Internet commercial (Goi, 2009). While all these are possibilities to promote the app, the company will mainly concentrate on online platforms. Social media advertisement would include strategic placement on popular social media sites, such as YouTube, Facebook, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Spotify, and others. This tactic aims to create awareness among the target market aged between 12 and 25 or the millennial generation who frequent such sites. In addition to Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, the company will reach users who are net savvy and familiar with most apps. Instagram and Snapchat, for instance, will have appealing images that will draw attention to the app while Twitter will be used to promote the app using tweets and re-tweets with the description and social advantages of the app.
In addition, the company will also consider app store advertisement. The app shall be available on Google Play and Apple’s App Store (Thurner, 2012). There would also be different advertisement banners to direct users to the app. In addition, the company will also establish app kiosks in cities and towns across New Zealand for users who do not frequent social media sites, for instance, seniors. Such kiosks, television, and radio promotions would effectively reach these target markets. Kiosks will provide sufficient information for users on benefits of the app and processes of downloading and installation, as well as specific gadgets that can support the app.
The company will also do promotions through SMS. Users would get direct links to the app contained in the message. In addition, they will also be encouraged to refer friends while users who successfully meet the required referral targets will get ‘freebies’ as desired by the company. These promotional advertisement tactics aim to create brand awareness and loyalty among users who will try the product first. Thus, by offering the app free for download and installation, the company will be able to achieve this goal.
Strategies implementation, resource, and timeline.
The company understands the world of apps is overcrowded with some companies supporting their apps with huge promotional budgets to grow. On the other hand, most apps disappear soon after the launch without any significant downloads. The company, however, has created an excellent app to meet needs of users, and it will rely on sufficiently developed and well-executed marketing strategies to create awareness, realise downloads, and retain users.
The company shall not underestimate the importance of financial resources in its strategies and implementation efforts. A study had established that most app developers were extremely underestimating costs associated with promotion (Ohayon, Kaye, Rigby, Hanage, & Cooper, 2013). In fact, the research found out that 78% of developers allocated only $5,000 to promote their apps, and many developers were frustrated by low penetration and distribution of their apps (Ohayon et al., 2013). This implies that without sufficient financial resources, the c
company must be creative with its promotional strategies. Hence, the company will significantly rely on various channels to promote the app. Web sites, social media sites, e-mail, and other cross-promotional tools will be used to market the app. Overall, the company would select the right marketing platforms for its app.
Two Monitoring and Evaluation Mechanisms
Tracking promotional activities will be used to monitor and assess progress. The company would acquire third party tools to assist in tracking events, such as downloads related to clicked banners, app stores, or any other sources. The capability to compile these disparate data and to derive useful insights would allow the company to optimise its marketing promotions by directing resources to more productive activities. The company shall continue to evaluate robust technological tools that may enhance efficiency in service delivery and monitoring of its outcomes. By closely monitoring online activities and tracking outcomes of traditional media promotions using best technologies, the company will be able to respond accordingly to its customers’ needs (Geiger, 2006). Any failure will be handled instantly to meet customer satisfaction and market demands.
The company shall also monitor its actual users against the set targets for six months after the launch. With these robust strategies, the company expects to meet its target, but it will review outcomes to determine areas of strengths and weaknesses for improvements while strategically allocating resources to support investments (Popovic, 2006).
Conclusion
This marketing report concludes that the company is most likely to succeed in the market if its promotional strategies are well planned and executed as recommended. The app market is unique, but apps that eventually succeed rely on robust promotional campaigns, sufficient promotional budgets, and massive exploitation of free or low cost online platforms for aggressive campaigns.
References
eMarketer. (2015). Only 33% of US mobile users will pay for apps this year. Web.
Geiger, B. (2006). Commercialization strategies for high-tech startups. Web.
Goi, C. L. (2009). A review of marketing mix: 4Ps or more? International Journal of Marketing Studies, 1(1), 2-15.
Heier, C. (2015). Free to play: Mobile gaming and the precipitous rise of freemium. The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research, 16(4), 5-11.
Liu, C. Z., Au, Y. A., & Choi, H. S. (2014). Effects of freemium strategy in the mobile app market: An empirical study of Google Play.Journal of Management Information Systems, 31(3), 326-354. Web.
Lowe, B. (2010). Consumer perceptions of extra free product promotions and discounts: the moderating role of perceived performance risk.Journal of Product & Brand Management, 19(7), 496-503. Web.
Needleman, S. E., & Loten, A. (2012). When freemium fails.The Wall Street Journal. Web.
Ohayon, O., Kaye, J., Rigby, M., Hanage, C., & Cooper, J. (2013). The insiders guide to mobile app promotion: Top tips for marketing your app from industry experts. Web.
Popovic, D. (2006). Modelling the marketing of high-tech start-ups. Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 14(3), 260-276. Web.
Thurner, R. (2012). Mobile app promotion methods. Web.