Marketing plan development and strategy

¶ … marketing activities will need to rely on the core targeted group of consumers for Vista: users of Windows XP and, on a more general note, users of Microsoft products who are interested in a reliable, more secure operating system and on the technical features and benefits that the new operating system might offer. For this category of targeted consumers, the marketing activities should be most of all informational: they are interested in discovering what some of the benefits are and in being informed about the new changes and in how Windows Vista will improve their performances when working with their computers.

The Microsoft website can be an efficient tool in ensuring that these potential consumers receive all the necessary information. A new website dedicated to Windows Vista can be launched (the launch itself can be announced publicly through a press release and a link from the company's main website) in which a complete description of the new operating system can include new performances, all new advantages over the old Windows XP and relevant information appealing to the identified targeted group of consumers.

The Vista website can also be made interactive, with a forum where the potential new customers can post their questions related to the products and where Microsoft specialists can answer these and provide further information on the product. The advantage of interactivity resides in being closer to the consumers and to being able to adapt further versions of the product following recommendations and inputs from the users themselves.

Since the online environment offers almost limitless possibilities of marketing and promotion activities, online seminars might also be efficient methods by which consumers over 45 years and other representative targeted groups of consumers can obtain relevant information that they need, especially about some of the key areas in which the Vista operating system will make an important difference, such as security and data protection.

The seminars can be announced on both the company and the product website and can take the form of an online presentation by one of the Microsoft employees working on the Vista development team. With an emphasis on security and data protection, areas which 45+ consumers might be more interested in, the seminar can also include questions from the online audience and an open discussion about benefits and advantages for Vista.

These seminars can also take a non-virtual form and can be organized as seminars outside the Internet, however, one of the potential problems in this case is that they may reach less potential consumers than an online seminar is able to do and, additionally, the promoting activities for the seminars might also prove more costly.

Another useful marketing activity for the Windows Vista can be a newsletter to interested users who will sign to receive it on the company's main website. As we have seen, the Microsoft products are generally used by people in their midlife or over 55 years and they are generally those for whom adaptation to change is more difficult. For them, because of this difficulty to manage change, information is important and a newsletter can not only provide this on a day-to-day or weekly basis, but also be a way of keeping in touch with the consumers.

The newsletter can contain everything from information on the product to updates and how to download and install them and to tips for getting the best from the operating system. The consumers can provide their personal emails on the website in order to receive the newsletter, so as to avoid any supposition of spam or illegal use of the customers' email. The newsletter can also be advertised on both the company website and the Vista website as an excellent way to obtain more information on the new product.