The marketing strategies that will create positive relationships with the shareholders will certainly be in the growth strategies category. Following the discussion we have previously had for the customers category of stakeholders, a diversification strategy seems to be the most appropriate to encourage positive relationships with the shareholders.
Indeed, a diversification marketing strategy will encourage the shareholders to believe that the company is constantly willing to promote its own business model and its own particular products and services on the market. Additionally it will also sustain the idea that the company has a clear plan and strategy for the future, one that will support the company's profitability.
On the other hand, the company also has to promote innovation strategy of the leader/pioneer type. Such a strategy will determine the fact that the management's aim is towards supporting a leadership path into the future. Such marketing strategies will allow the shareholders be confident of the fact that their investment is safe with the company and that it is likely to bring in additional profit in the years to come.
A similar marketing strategy will have to be promoted towards the investors as well, as the last main category of stakeholders. We need to enlarge the perspective here from the current investors (shareholders) to future, prospective investors. Indeed, for the latter category, an innovation marketing strategy will promote Starbucks as a potentially beneficial business to be done. Innovation and a proactive stance on the market will let potential investors know that the company is targeting to be a leader in the present, as in the years to come, and that it will take the steps necessary to ensure this. In this sense, such a marketing strategy promoted towards the investors will help them make the step from potential investor to shareholder.
Resuming the main marketing strategies that can create positive relationships with each of Starbuck's stakeholders, we can emphasize the idea that all of the stakeholders need to receive messages that will sustain the idea that the company is a leader on the market, both in terms of services,...
These types of messages will also promote the idea that the company can attract new investors, as well as support its present shareholders.
In fact, all these strategies create an image for the company: the image of a strong company, able to face challenges on the market, to adapt to different conditions and to create the adequate responses, as well as to creating new trends on the market. These types of marketing strategies will in fact boost confidence for the main categories of stakeholders and increase the overall value of the company.
For stakeholders such as labor unions, local communities or governmental agencies, the company should probably select a participative approach and a marketing strategy that can support such an approach. The company will need to promote its social responsibility campaigns, its interest towards supporting the environment and local communities through educational programs etc.
These types of marketing strategies will not necessarily have an immediate financial translation, but will support an image for the company as a participant on the market that is also targeting environmental protection and community participation, all translated into social responsibility. In many situations, such strategies will bear more in balance than an innovation or a proactive marketing strategy.
Corroborated, the aggressive, leadership-type marketing campaigns and the more social responsible ones are likely to generate the positive feedbacks that are expected.
Bibliography
1. Starbucks Corporation Corporate Social Responsibility / FISCAL 2006 ANNUAL REPORT. On the Internet at http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/csrannualreport.pdf.Last retrieved on July 17, 2007
