Creating the Marketing Mix

Respond to at least 2 of your fellow classmates (listed below) with at least a 100-word reply about their Primary Task Response regarding items you found to be compelling and enlightening. To help you with your discussion, please consider the following questions:
What did you learn from your classmate’s posting?
What additional questions do you have after reading the posting?
What clarification do you need regarding the posting?
What differences or similarities do you see between your posting and other classmates’ postings?

Cody Steinfeld

Michelle,

Promotions are one of the most valuable assets that a marketer has. Promotions are the means at which we communicate the product we are offering to our intended target market, where we strive to convince them to buy the product we are offering (Board, 2014). As you may know, there are many different channels that marketers can utilize to advertise to our target audience. There are traditional modes of promotions which include: magazines, newspapers, billboards, TV, radio, and others, and there are digital promotions such as Social media, internet, SEO, banner advertisements blogs, etc. Both traditional and digital promotional methods have their strengths and their weaknesses. It is important to look at both, and decide which has a role in promoting NF5.

Traditional Promotions:

-Traditional advertising spending has decreased drastically from 2012-2020 (Guttmann, 2020)

Pros:

-Reaches a wider audience faster than digital marketing (Wharton, 2019)

-Resonates with an older demographic

-Proven success rate – Has worked for as long as advertising has been around.

-TV reaches ~70% of the population (Wharton, 2019)

Cons:

– More costly than digital promotions

-Traditional marketing does not have a means for direct follow-through (ex: clicking on an ad online that leads you to the website to directly make a sale) (Macomber, L 2015)

-Effects not as easily measured

-Static- no interaction

Digital promotions:

Pros:

-Adaptability of content (Ma, J & Du, B., 2018)

-More efficient consumer targeting (Ma, J & Du, B., 2018)

-Super specific content marketing

-Higher reach per dollar* (Ma, J & Du, B., 2018)

-Measurable results (Wharton, 2019)

-Customizable to each user (Georgas-Tellefsen, 2020)

Cons:

– Depend on technology

-Not everybody has access to technology

-Older generations limited use with technology

-Digital marketing can be “low impact from a visual standpoint (The web is crowded with ads).” (Georgas-Tellefsen, M, 2020).”

-Can lead to content/ email overload (Georgas-Tellefsen, M, 2020).”

– Greater potential for fraud and theft

My recommendation for MM:

N5F is a high tech mobile phone that contains the latest and greatest version of modern technology: A fully integrated 5G network. While NF5 is intended to speak to an all-encompassing group of mobile users, we are really focusing on an audience who has a need for speed. These people want instant gratification- hence a no buffering, no lag time phone. This phone runs at 100gbps, has rapid charging, and a longer than 24-hour battery life. This phone is highly focused on a tech-forward group of people.

I could argue that both forms of promotion would reach some form of our target market. However, to reach the largest portion of our target market, the most appropriate promotional route for N5F is to heavily focus on digital promotions.

Due to our financial situation, it would be the most bang for our buck. We can save money this way, reach the majority of our target market, and tailor our promotions for individual needs. We can continue to monitor our promotions and adjust them accordingly since we will have a better means to interpret and measure them. Traditional promotions are not without merit, but I do not think they serve a greater purpose for our company given our audience and financial restraints.

I think a good place to start is for us to set some promotional goals for our first year. We should release banner ads especially geared to tech-heavy users. Banners have great success in directing website traffic. We should send monthly promotional emails to previous, prospective, and current customers. We will offer different promotions to each that will encourage brand loyalty to current and previous customers, and incentivize new ones. I think we should work on boosting our SEO so that we are one of the top 3 companies that pop up for mobile phone searches. Lastly, I think we need to create a heavy social media presence where we post daily.

References:

Board, E. (2014). Marketing Management. E-book-Vitalsource. Retrieved from: https://coloradotech.vitalsource.com

Georgas-Tellefsen, M. (2020, Jan). The pros and cons of digital marketing. ABA Bank marketing. Retrieved from https://bankingjournal.aba.com/2020/01/the-pros-and-cons-of-digital-marketing/

Guttmann, A. (2020, Sep). Change in digital vs. traditional marketing budgets per U.S CMOs 2012-2020. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/693449/digital-vs-traditional-marketing-budget-change-according-to-cmos-usa/

Ma, J., Du, B. (2018, Sep). Digital advertising and company value: Implications of reallocating advertising expenditures. Journal of advertising research. DOI10.2501/JAR-2018-002

Macomber, L. (2015). Content marketing vs. traditional marketing. Trade Journals, 34(4) 13,21. Retrieved from https://proxy.cecybrary.com/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.proxy.cecybrary.com/docview/1658710600?accountid=144789

Wharton (2019, Jul). Digital versus traditional marketing: What today’s c-suite needs to know. Retrieved from https://online.wharton.upenn.edu/blog/digital-versus-traditional-marketing/

Christopher Habermehl

Michelle,

Thank you for taking the time to speak with me about the importance of traditional marketing and digital marketing. I understand we didn’t get as long as we would have liked to discuss the finer points of this topic, so allow me to go over them now. When marketing a product, the type of advertisements we use directly affect which consumer demographics we will be targeting. Let’s take a brief look at each type before discussing which would be the most effective.

Digital marketing has become very popular due to the huge spike in internet use in the last two decades. In the past we would need a person to pass a billboard or happen across a newspaper ad, whereas today, everyone carries a personal screen from which we can interact with them. Advertisements such as mid-roll ads placed within internet videos, sponsorships with popular influencers, sending review products to internet channels, website advertisements, and so on can be a powerful tool from which to promote our brand. Considering we have the best sales potential with teenagers to middle aged adults, digital marketing would be the best tool to reach these individuals.

Traditional marketing has been a corner stone of the sales industry for generations. This type of advertisements include newspaper and magazine placements, billboards, bus and bench placements, and even TV commercials are slowly slipping towards traditional marketing as internet entertainment becomes more and more popular. These ads still play a large role in getting the name and availability of our product out into the world. Due to the fact that this is a type of marketing which targets longer standing mediums, it is more likely to grab the attention of an older demographic. This demographic isn’t as important for our sales as younger generations are, but brand familiarity still needs to be achieved with as many potential customers as possible.

This being said, if I had to select one type of marketing to fund more than the other, I would select digital marketing. It matches our demographic more widely and has a better chance of being seen globally as compared to buying advertisement space all around the world. Even so, I do believe that any marketing campaign needs elements of both types of marketing to successful. Only going digital or only going traditional would alienate large groups of people that don’t utilize one or the other. Though I believe digital is our best bet for marketing our product, traditional means should be used as well; or in other words “Traditional marketing definitely has a place in your marketing mix. However, for best results, it’s time you paired it with select high-yield digital campaigns” (Owen, 2020).

V/R

Christopher Habermehl

References:

Owen, MJ. (Aug 22, 2020) Digital Marketing VS Traditional Marketing: Who’s Winning the Battle? Retrieved from: https://assetdigitalcom.com/digital-marketing-vs-traditional-marketing-whos-winning-the-battle/