The world changes, and of course also marketing, which evolves adapting to these changes that happen in companies. Philip Kotler, one of the greatest gurus in the field of marketing, has recognized this important change and has added to his famous Marketing Plan model new strategies that change the way of seeing and understanding marketing in companies.
It is essential that for a company, of any size, small or large, to be able to achieve the established objectives, it proposes a global strategy, developing it in small actions that act both in its external market (environment), and in the internal. That is why when establishing these 7 strategies it is not essential to develop them globally and with an essential order or script, since each company must know its needs and possible developments, it must know how it is perceived by its customers or consumers and above all, it must have take into account the environment you live in.
Having these points clear, it is therefore necessary to specify and deepen those strategies, one or more, that can lead us to achieve business success, adapting as a company to our social and economic reality, and above all, taking into account all the factors that may benefit or harm us when applying them.
In this first article we will therefore talk about two of the strategies that Kotler proposes: a) The Low Cost strategy and b) the one that talks about creating a unique experience for the consumer or customer.
Low Costs:
When we develop the Low Cost strategy, we refer to a set of business factors that directly intervene to develop it. We are not talking about reducing costs by reducing them, but it is about analyzing in which parts of our company we can adjust the budget, in order to be able to have a result in the final price that goes to our consumer or client. This is a job that is not only for the marketing department, to develop a Low Cost job, but it is a task in which the directors of all departments have to intervene, since it is a matter of pooling ideas, of raising a global strategy that should aim to end in a particular strategy to follow.
Talking about reducing the costs of a company is not only talking about reducing the final price of the product or service, but it goes further, and it would be much more about knowing our business in depth, to be able to know where we can save money, (personnel, communication, production, etc.), This will help us to better manage and enhance other departments.
Developing such a global strategy is not an easy task, if we assume that in order to achieve it, there must first be a fairly clear communication within the company, and then have a global vision of both the business and the market. However, these factors are two activities that every company should have and therefore it should not be difficult for us to determine where and how we apply this strategy.
Unique experience for the client or consumer.
Every company should have as one of its main purposes the satisfaction of its customers or consumers as a policy to follow and that is usually reaped by bringing other customers or loyal consumers who recognize the brand and consume it, as a product or service. However, all companies constantly strive every day to provide their target market with something different that they recognize and make them stand out from the competition.
Making the customer or consumer feel like a special person, who lives unique experiences when consuming such a product or service, can make us achieve that we are perceived as a company really concerned about the needs of our market and public, and this is a strategy in the which can intervene a number of factors, although it is a strategy derived from deep knowledge of our market and knowledge of the needs of our customers and how to know how to satisfy them, not only basically, at the primary level, but worrying about giving them something more, different from the competition.
For this, we then have to establish and recognize the competitive advantages that our market values, exploiting and communicating them properly.
The application of this strategy is very easy to identify on many occasions with services or luxury items. In these cases, the client or consumer becomes willing to pay a large extra for the value of the product or service for the differentials that it offers, from the brand to small details that make it unique and exclusive from the rest in the market.
However, this strategy is also fully applicable to articles or services of small and medium-sized companies that want to be different for the market, remembering that little things make a difference.
Reinvent our business model:
We are hardly open and looking for new opportunities not only for products, services or public, but on many occasions we are closed to possible changes and improvements that would make our company more profitable.
This strategy is a wake-up call, to be able to analyze whether what we are doing, we are doing well, or if it is necessary in any case, to turn our company around, sometimes drastically, sometimes not. It is a constant that no matter how much we meet the objectives that have been set, on different occasions, the expected results are not achieved, this is a reflection that something is failing and that is where a plan B enters the strategy or We rethink the actions that we are developing with a more accurate vision of what the market is looking for in those moments, aware of the resources that we have lost, but with the necessary information to do things well, and if doing things well means reinventing our company, it must be done without fear,but with full knowledge of the facts and analyzing in depth all the possibilities that allow us to retain customers and obtain new business opportunities.
This is achieved by creating new services, modifying products, distribution channels, points of sale, exploiting communication, etc.
Offer maximum quality in the product:
It is a constant of every company, dedicating all possible resources to create quality products or services, however this is not perceived by customers if we do not let them know of all these efforts, quality, in many cases is perceived as something intrinsic However, we must know our target audience very well to know what they define as quality, knowing this to exalt the attributes or characteristics that give us a quality image.
It is very important to focus on what we do, how we do it and above all how we transmit it to the client. Quality is a matter of perception, of creating a brand, of creating loyal customers who feel satisfied with our products or services, achieving this, we can focus on other aspects of the company without ever neglecting how our public perceives us, constantly trying to every time you think of our brand, think in addition to quality.
Focus on Market Niches:
The better we know our market, it is easier to know what their real needs are and it is even easier to determine how we are going to satisfy them.
Every business strategy should dedicate knowledge of the market as a primary objective, however what Kotler tries to reflect on this point is the need not to forget that although we operate in globalized markets, there are characteristics of certain groups (niches) that differentiate them. of the rest, and it is the task of companies to discover these characteristics that will in turn reflect the needs to be satisfied.
It is very easy to create general services or products, but each head is a world and each person has specific and different needs, it is necessary to discover when a certain group of people share those needs and above all it is important to know that this group of people can be a potential market for us and therefore dedicate special care to them, because in the intention of covering a large market share, the best profitability of the companies is not always there.
Other variants of this strategy are based on how you communicate to your clients the characteristics of your services or products, this means that you can have the same product or service but present it differently, depending on which niches you want to reach, exalt certain characteristics that for some groups of people can be interesting. For example, you can present a pair of sports shoes to a professional athlete with all the technical characteristics that are useful for them in their use, but you can also present them to a certain sector of young people as sneakers with an innovative design, who would buy it for fashion. It is the same product but aimed at different niches, and all thanks to communication.
As a final reflection, we can specify that one of the important aspects within any company is information, as a starting point to make both internal and external decisions, the more information we have about our needs and the needs of our market we can act with more security, we will be able to make increasingly correct decisions and above all we will be able to apply any of the three strategies previously proposed.
