Introduction
Marketing is a complex process that involves more than just promotional activities. Marketing can be defined as a process of facilitating an exchange of something of value for something needed. This implies that the marketing process is likely to come along with some costs.
Marketing is a very important element in any organization. It is therefore necessary to have a clearly designed marketing plan or strategy in order to have a successful organization. This is achieved through marketing research, which is a systematic process of gathering data that is associated with issues concerning marketing products and services, recording it and finally analyzing it for effective decision making.
Marketing research entails a process or function that brings together various components of a market for instance the consumers, the public as well as the customers to the marketer. This is made possible through appropriate information.
In marketing of existing products, it is necessary to understand the customer’s needs. This understanding will act as guideline in moulding the product and service to maximize customer satisfaction (Lamb, 2009). This piece of work will look at Beeline Vietnam Company and aspects related to research marketing strategy.
Marketing Mix Critique – Section 1
Telecom industry in Vietnam is highly competitive. For this reason, it requires application of appropriate marketing strategies by various business organizations in an effort to secure a good market share in the competitive world or rather attain and maintain a competitive advantage.
Beeline Vietnam Company is however confident enough to succeed in its operations based on the fact that it has succeeded in other countries. All in all, strategic marketing strategies ought to be adopted.
“In spite of being a newcomer in the Vietnamese telecom market, Beeline VN inherits the experience of building telecom networks in many countries in the world and has international and Vietnamese professional, experienced, enthusiastic and passionate human resources. Beeline VN is completely confident to succeed.” (Vietnam Business News 2010, par 2).
Marketing mix is a crucial tool in a business organization. Organizations are usually defined by the products and services they offer. Marketing mix is a combination of various aspects of marketing that are geared to drive a company into achieving its goals and objectives.
Marketing mix, therefore lays a benchmark for the implementation of the company’s marketing strategies. The main elements of the marketing mix are product, place, price, and promotion.
Product is the goods or services that are produced by a company, which in this case, are telecommunication services. The telecommunication services are offered to the different customers in an effective manner as a marketing strategy.
The brand name, Beeline, is also unique in its own way especially with the re-creation in 2005 having black and yellow striped circle. This brought about the principles of simplicity, brightness, effectiveness, and friendliness an aspect that differentiates the brand from the competitors’ products (Beeline 2011).
Place refers to the locality where the Beeline or rather the telecommunication services can be purchased or accessed from. It describes how the product will follow the distribution channel before reaching the final customer. The company applies direct marketing and personal selling as a form of distribution technique for the telecommunication services.
Price refers to the amount of money that the consumers will be willing to pay for the Beeline and telecommunication services in the market. Before deciding on the price to impose on the products and services, the company compares the prices of the competitors so as to make sure that their prices are at par. After the company has broken even, it will be upon it to review the prices with the changing environment.
Promotion is the other marketing mix element that is deemed to be extremely crucial in a business organization. The promotion of the Beeline Vietnam Company is done through various means for instance Advertising, Sales Promotion, Public Relations Activities, Direct Marketing as well as Personal Selling.
Advertisement has been utilized in Beeline Vietnam Company. The negative aspect is that online advertisement has not been emphasized much in the company despite the fact that it could capture many customers particularly the young people. Twitter, Facebook, and My Space could for example enhance the success of the company greatly.
Sales Promotion- Sales and promotions help to sway consumers to risk buying a new product. Product specials encourage a customer to try the product, often giving the much needed boost to sales. This is an aspect that has been utilized in the company for instance through lowering of prices (Trehan and Trehan, 2009).
Public Relations Activities- The best way to increase awareness and public relations for your company is to donate a small amount of the profits to charity. Not only does this give back to the community, but it also gets a lot of free publicity as a way of corporate social responsibility.
To make sure that the public relations are well taken care of, the company should make sure that new product news briefs are well written, properly formatted, and convey the right message about the product. There is only one chance to release a press release for a new product, and editors will not run it more than once.
Direct Marketing- Marketing a product directly to the public is another great way to advertise a new product. This is an aspect that Beeline Vietnam Company has utilized to the maximum and has contributed greatly to its overall success. Positive peer pressure is achieved through direct marketing and thus it is an excellent advertising campaign that raises awareness for the Beeline product and the telecommunication services.
Personal Selling- Marketing and selling the product to the distributors is the largest form of personal sales that a manufacturer takes on, in addition to running commercials that are viewed by the general public and consumers. In general, once the product is doing well, the Beeline Vietnam Company has tried to look for television promotions that in one way or the other increase its popularity and consumption.
Global Marketing Environment
Change is inevitable. The marketing environment is faced with a lot of changes with various factors emerging day by day. For this reason, there are trends which can clearly be observed in the global marketing environment with respect to both micro and macro forces.
Some of the micro forces include the organization, competitors and the intermediaries. The macro forces on the other hand include demographics, economic and technological aspects.
Marketing Mix Critique – Section 2
The above named micro and macro forces affect the global marketing environment differently. The organization operations affect its success or failure level. An organization’s success contributes to the whole industry’s success and vice versa. Competitors could lead to benefits or drawbacks in an organization where healthy competition enhances product quality and profits and vice versa.
Intermediaries on the other hand affect the profit share got by the organization and the entire industry. Demographics for instance the age, income level, and gender of the population affects the demand and preferences of products and services and thus the total profits made.
The economic conditions also affect the telecom industry in that favourable economic conditions boost the industry and vice versa. With respect to technological aspect, the Beeline Vietnam Company falls in an industry that is directly related to technology advancement. Adoption of emerging technology enhances success of the company and vice versa (Moore and Pareek, 2009).
Marketing Strategy Critique
In every organization, the main target is to maximize the level of sales. Marketing is one of the main strategies through which an organization can manage to win its potential customers.
For this reason, marketing process is very significant bearing in mind the current situation where the market is characterized by a very high level of competition. Marketing strategy entails different marketing concepts for instance product, price, place, place, physical evidence, processes and people (Pride, 2006).
Product is the good or service that is produced by a business organization. The telecommunication services provided by Beeline Vietnam Company are appropriate and helpful to its customers. What needs improvement is on the coverage where the organization ought to extend it and serve more customers.
Price refers to the amount of money that the consumers are willing to pay for the products and services offered in the market. Low but competitive prices are a strong point of Beeline Vietnam Company.
Place is the locality from where products and services can be obtained. The fact that customers are able to access the services of Beeline Vietnam Company, anywhere and any time, is a positive move.
Promotion- There are various strategies that could be utilized by Beeline Vietnam Company as a way of promotion. They include; advertising, sales promotion, public relations, directs marketing and personal selling. From the discussion of these strategies in section, the company has tried but it ought to improve on online advertisement (Hoffmann, 2008).
Because the Beeline Vietnam Company is more of a service business there are the additional three Ps – Physical evidence, Processes, and People.
Physical evidence- This is an incredibly crucial element in the service mix. It allows the consumers to have a clear understanding of an organization through making judgments based on the location where products or services are offered. Professionalism has attracted considerable number of subscribers to the company, some of them being from the competing networks. This is enough justification that the company has done greatly in this sector (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2009).
Processes refer to the systems that are utilized to enhance service delivery in organizations. Mobile selling booths is an example of processes used in this company and it has helped greatly in portraying its professionalism.
Through this, customers are in a position to approach Beeline Vietnam Company without difficulty and in a convenient manner (Vietnam Business News 2010, par 7). This therefore shows that in regard to this sector, the company has done well.
People- This entails the staff and people involved in a given organization. In regard to Beeline Vietnam Company it is evident that it has done well. It has for instance recruited qualified staff and trained them effectively such that they have good interpersonal skills and service knowledge.
Recommendations
It is evident that the Beeline Vietnam Company has faired relatively well in the telecom industry. All in all, here are some recommendations that the company ought to take to maintain and improve its position. It ought to enhance its advertisement especially on online advertisement.
The company should also review its marketing strategies regularly to be at per with the changes in the global market. Extending its operations far and wide is also a positive move toward enhancing the company’s success.
Reference List
Beeline (2011). “Beeline” Brand. Web.
Hoffmann, S. (2008). Are the 4 P’s of International Marketing of Equal Importance to All Firms? What Factors Might Cause Some to More Or Less Important Than Others?: A Short Article. New York: GRIN Verlag.
Lamb, C. (2009). Marketing. Canada: Cengage Learning.
Moore, K. and Pareek, N. (2009). Marketing: The Basics. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Pride, W. (2006). Marketing: Concepts and Strategies. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
The Chartered Institute of Marketing (2009). Marketing And The 7Ps: A Brief Summary Of Marketing And How It Works. Web.
Trehan, M. and Trehan, R. (2009). Advertising and Sales Management. New Delhi: FK Publications.
Vietnam Business News (2010). Beeline Vietnam: Highly Competitive in Telecom Market. Web.