A company's marketing strategy

Marketing Strategies

It is likely that a market leader would be concerned with maintaining its market position. As a leader, the company already has a significant customer base and strategies for maintaining customer relations are probably well in place. Such a company would then emphasize competition oriented strategies, as new entrants and challenges to the market leader are more pressing concerns than gaining new customers or finding new ways of maintaining existing customers. The particular product, pharmaceuticals, should also be taken into account when devising strategies for the company. Pharmaceuticals are products that come to be trusted by customers over years of use. Incremental innovation is therefore a good strategy when focusing on the competitor. Customers can then buy slightly altered, but still trusted products, and hence the market leader gains the competitive edge. Another possible strategy is adaptability. The market and competition need to be analyzed on a continuous basis. Pharmaceuticals can then be adapted to better serve the market and its needs in order to gain the edge over competitors.

2.) a market follower might be more likely to emphasize customer-oriented strategies, as leaders generally have a large amount of customers. As such, market followers would emphasize an investigation of customer needs, and how to fill these. One good strategy to use in this regard is to provide customers with value and with satisfaction. Providing customers with value means that the products produced by the company will be thoroughly tested for quality. The perceived value is also generally expected to exceed the financial value of the product. To provide customers with satisfaction, a company needs continual monitoring tools. To accomplish this, interviewers can ask customers arriving at the place of business about their experience with the company. More commonly, customers are sometimes asked to fill out a form relating to their level of satisfaction. Satisfied customers will generally return to the business and provide it with a competitive edge.

3.) a market nicher will focus on both customer and competition oriented strategies. For niche markets, the customer base is smaller than for general markets. It is therefore necessary to ensure customer satisfaction at all times. Because interior decoration is a very subjective field, it is necessary for the company representative or business person to always ensure that he or she understands the customer's needs and wants exactly to ensure ultimate satisfaction.

In terms of competition oriented strategies, an interior decorator should ensure the quality of his or her products are superior and innovative in order to remain at the top of this competitive field. Further strategies can include the radical nature of the designs and decorating patterns themselves, or indeed building distinctive capabilities to give an advantage over competitors.

4.) a market challenger in a mature market would need to focus on customer oriented strategies. The main reason for this is the fact that mature markets have generally settled in an accepted price range for the public. As such, a market challenger cannot go far below existing prices without losing a significant amount of capital that will be very hard to re-earn.

Customer satisfaction is one strategy that should be emphasized by a market challenger. The way in which customers are treated, for example, can be superior to the strategies used by competitors. Special introductory parties for new customers can for example be implemented to launch the new company.