Introduction
Realistically, certain lifecycles are experienced in all products and services. The term life cycle refers to the period between products/service first launch into the market to the products or service final withdrawal. During a products or service life cycle, significant changes may be experienced depending on the behavior of the product in the market and the marketing objectives. An increase in profits is always the major objective or goal for an organization that is introducing a new product in the market, therefore, management of a product life cycle is very important. Technology is improving and developing every day and therefore new products tend to mature with the growing technology. The occurring change in technology life cycle has a unique reflection on the buyers especially with electronics.
LG is one of the leading electronics companies in the world m. Launching a new product in the market will attract the attention of competitors such as Apple and Nokia therefore the Company requires highly developed marketing objectives and proper use of the marketing mix strategies in order to acquire large market share and combat the emerging competition. Technology grows old especially when products and services reach maturity stage thus customers seek for quick solutions. This gives an opportunity to Companies like LG who take advantage of such demands, develop and introduce new products in the market to meet the customer’s needs satisfactorily.
2.0 Marketing Objectives
Any product or service goes through a certain product cycle in the market. Along this cycle the marketing objectives of LG smartphone will change at every stage as outlined below.
Introduction Stage: This stage involves the development of the product and launching in the market. Since the smartphone has already been developed and launching in the market with an objective to create awareness of the existence of the product. The LG smartphone has unique features that make it complex to operate thus on of the objectives at this stage would be to create awareness on the new complex features. Another major marketing at this objective would be to convince consumers using smartphones from other companies to change their allegiance. There is need to convince potential users that the new features will be useful to them and that they are improvements to the smartphones in the market. The advanced features in the LG smartphone would give the marketing team an upper hand as the product is not a duplicate of what is already in the market thus the marketing presentation would be different. The challenge at this stage is that it would require high capital investment through advertisements and promotion especially because other companies already have their products established in the market.
A major objective of this stage in life cycle of the LG smartphone is to test the market response to the new product. This objective is to be attained at the end of this stage through monitoring and evaluating the sales as well as the customer feedback. Other than the promotion and advertisement strategies at these stage incentives can also be given to those who buy the phone as a marketing strategy. For instance the company could give a small gift for anyone who buys the smartphone or sell the first 1,000 phones at a lower price to attract new customers with the hope that after using the smartphone they will tell their friends about it.
The next stage of the product life cycle is the growth stage in which the marketing objectives will certainly change. At this stage, the main company’s marketing objective is to acquire a strong and large market position. Also the company will try to maximize its market share at this stage. Intense advertising and promotion continues to occur at this stage, therefore creating more awareness will still be another objective at this stage. Intense competition will be highly experienced at this stage that is why the company marketers need to work on product modification and development at this stage. After creating awareness at this stage the other market objective is to make inroads in new territories (may be introduce the smartphones in other markets or build manufacturing units in other countries).This objective is part of market expansion and will help to get new clients (especially those who have never used smartphones before but could benefit in one way or another.
The market strategy at this stage would involve market survey to establish potential markets that have probably not been invaded or are not saturated by the competitors. As had earlier been mentioned at this stage LG will need to open new outlets in the new markets and where necessary open new manufacturing units near the markets. Another objective at this stage would be to establish loyal clients which could be done by client follow-up (as a marketing strategy) and having such features like after sales service and warrantees. Another marketing strategy at this stage is to evaluate the market response after the introduction stage and making the necessary corrective measure both in the marketing plan and in the design of the smartphones. By way of example the company could change certain features following customer complains. At this stage another important strategy would be to provide an interactive forum (for example in the LG website) where client can air their opinions and give feedback on the product. This stage of the life cycle will require aggressive marketing and to achieve this, the company will need to higher more marketers and give them good commissions for the phones sold as another marketing strategy.
The next stage in the product life cycle is the maturity Stage where the product is well known as it has passed through introduction and growth stages. The major objective for LG Company at this stage is to maintain a strong market position and maximizing profits. To do these the company would need to increase the sales and probably out compete the other companies producing smartphones. At this stage the major strategy will be to carry out aggressive market studies to compare how the clients respond to the LG smartphone and how they respond to other smartphones in the market. Another marketing strategy at this stage is product improvement; having studied the weaknesses of the LG smartphones there is need at this stage to improve the LG smartphone and eliminate or reduce the weaknesses.
Decline Stage is the last stage where the product declines in the sense that there is very little growth in the sales. This stage could also be referred to as the platue stage. Reduction of expenditure and milking of remaining profits will be the Company’s major objective. At this stage, competitors such as Apple and Nokia will have introduced similar or more superior devices into the market and the LG Company sales will start declining due to the competition. This is therefore a good stage where product diversification can be introduced. The company needs will need to introduce different smartphones with different prices and different features thus be able to attract different categories of clients. At this stage there is also need be innovative in product diversification in order to beat the competition.
References
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