Verizon Strategic Market Plan

Strategic Marketing Verizon operates under a marketing orientation. The product/service offering of Verizon does not differ all that much from that of its competitors. Thus, Verizon is in a position where it must use marketing to increase its sales. Close attention is paid to things like pricing and distribution -- for example what Verizon's service areas are and where they place their stores -- because those are things that attract customers.

The Verizon brand is another focal point for this marketing orientation, and it is important that the company builds a stronger brand reputation and higher brand visibility than its competitors. It is difficult to differentiate between the major providers in telecom, so there is a high level of marketing emphasis in order to help Verizon do just this. Verizon offers a number of different plans for its customers.

The Verizon service is fairly generic, but the company does alter how it packages the service, and this is particularly with respect to pricing. Verizon seeks to package its pricing -- the combination of features that come at a certain price -- in a way that best meets consumer needs, and is also competitive with the plans that are offered by the competition. One of the offerings that the company has is called Verizon Edge.

What this program does is that it allows the person who has enrolled in the program to upgrade their device frequently. They get discounts on their service plans for being a part of this. The Verizon Edge plan is intended to create a higher degree of brand loyalty. What happens is that people will typically buy a new device, and get a new plan to go along with it, because the cost of the device is tied to the plan.

Verizon Edge is a means of encouraging customers to sign with Verizon for multiple devices life cycles, extending far beyond the usualy two or three years that might normally come with a plan. So Edge benefits the consumer who knows that they want to do business with Verizon, by offering them discounts for their brand loyalty. For Verizon, Edge creates a little bit better revenue certainty, by increasing the loyalty of consumers to the Verizon brand, creating incentive for people to stay with Verizon.

Edge can even act as a hedge in case Verizon cannot get the hottest new phone. While the company will always try, such devices can be attractive to consumers, and should Verizon not be able to secure the rights to some phone offering, their customers will find it more difficult to leave because of the benefits that they are getting with Edge.

The customer will need to undertake extra steps to sign up with Edge, but the bigger cost for the customer is that they will sacrifice some of their own flexibility in order to sign up with Edge. By doing so, they are in a situation where they have incentive to remain with Verizon, rather than shopping around for a new telecom provider every time that they need a new device. 3.

Verizon's strengths include its installed base and market share, where Verizon was the leader at least until 2014, though its lead was being eroded at that time (Trefis, 2014). More customers means it can offer better prices, making up the margin difference with volume, while maintaining its ability to cover fixed costs. Because of its size, Verizon also has a strong distribution network and good brand recognition.

A weakness is still that its customer service is nothing special -- this is an area where a company can differentiate and instead there are headlines about their customer service causing heart attacks (Fox News, 2015). There are opportunities for growth abroad. The domestic market is mature, and highly competitive, but there remains tremendous opportunities abroad. Verizon is only in the U.S., but some competitors like Virgin or AT&T have operations in other countries. Verizon can look at that as an opportunity.

Competition is a threat, but so too are the technological changes in the industry, which risk the revenue streams. The last major changes in technology -- smartphones and tablets -- were great revenue drivers for Verizon, but alos required tremendous fixed cost investment. The next change might take that revenue somewhere else. 4. The first strategic marketing objective is to increase domestic share, and ensure that Verizon is #1. The company has been the industry leader, and it should ensure that it has better offerings than its.