Tapit has earned itself a good brand as a company that enables phone owners to get information that concerns leading brands to their phones. Their technology is popular because of its use. With the developments of information technologies that make use of mobile phones, the contents that get to one’s phone is of importance. There is a need to utilize this content for adequate and proper use. This is one aspect that makes Tapit sell its products very fast. The strategy that a firm uses to compete globally will affect a company. The size of the markets, the behavior of the buyers also affects the company marketing strategies that they will employ. It is important to understand the market well and get the consumer behavior of that market before undertaking marketing of a given product. This paper will assess the marketing mix of Tapit Company, which taps content to consumer phones using near field communication mechanism. The company ventured into global service provision of their services because of several reasons. One of the reasons is that they would get a share of the expanding market of consumers making use of mobile phones. This is a market that can be tapped for high rates of return. With the expansion of the use of smart phones, there are many reasons to make use of this technology in its marketing. The global marketing mix strategies show that a company strives to attain globalization basing on individual marketing mix elements that include pricing, distribution, place, promotion, product or communication. These elements are partly globalized and will enable a company to partially customize some other aspects of its marketing strategies. Even though there are many marketing strategies that companies engage in, the most common ones are the global product strategies, advertising strategies, and global strategies that are used in branding.
Background of the company
Tapit is a company that does marketing using emerging technologies. It has been known to integrate technology in the marketing mix. Its technology is known to be used around the world. The company has been engaged in marketing oriented with technology.
Marketing mix strategies
There is various marketing mix for Tapit Company in their quest to sell their services. This is a service industry and there are no physical products that are available for sell.
Global branding marketing strategy
This is one of the marketing strategies that the company has use. The company has made use of this strategy so that its brand name is common. Since the brand is known all over the world, it is respected and used by many. The technology that the company makes use of is that of near field communication strategy. They did not change the technology and left the name open. This way, they have gained a wider market share. With the use of this technology with a well-known brand name, they have been able to get many clients who trust this technology. If they would have changed the name of the technology, it would sound as if it is totally a new kind of technology. This company understands that the clients will gain access to other companies on the internet and would want to try their products. This strategy makes the clients to stick to Tapit technology as it has a known brand on the internet. Its technology is widely used all over the world. Even of the clients will read trade and industry journals from other companies and industries on the internet, they will still be able to see that Tapit brand is known and respected. This is because of the use of one brand all over the internet. Even before the introduction of similar technologies other countries, people already have an idea of the services of Tapit. The global branding strategy has been effective in this field and aspect. They have been able to take advantage of the goodwill.
Global service strategy
The company has used global service strategy to market their services worldwide. There are key standards that have been developed by the company that allows it to be used worldwide. Most of the standards that are used by the company to transfer content are globalized. They have followed the strategies that are followed by many smart phone developers around the world. One way they have achieved this is that they have researched on major smart phone brands around the world and looked for ways in which these mobile brands worked. With this, their technology of transferring content has been known to be common and working well with all these brands. This way, they have been able to tap on the smart phone market which is increasing every day.
Marketing mix
Global and international marketing is essentially a firm’s ability to reach a global or international client and customer base. To attain this, an organization must employ a global or international marketing strategy. In addition to the conventional marketing approaches and strategies, a comprehension of international operations, finance, government relations, resource allocation and international human capital management is needed. Furthermore the effectiveness of these strategies is dependent on technology development and management, inter-business relationships and international competition, international risk management, joint ventures and foreign direct investment.
The standard principles of marketing; product, price, placement and promotion are fundamental for the success of a business, however as the business grows and attains global or international status, these principles are affected in one way or another. At the international level the determinants of these principles are international and thus the organization is faced with hurdles in establishing an international marketing plan. Achieving a strategy that totally internationalizes the marketing activities is not possible. This is due to the growth and expansion to new and wider market base that have more actors that creates competition. It is also apparent that the consumers have different tastes and preferences determined by several concrete factors. For this reason alternative marketing strategies are employed to ensure competitiveness, business growth and viability over time.
- Product strategy
A company can achieve effective global or international marketing through product strategy. This is through globalization of the product and creating an identity in the global market. The single product can then be changed or altered to fit the different markets based on their taste and preferences. The changes can be effected in product packaging and labeling to suit the different countries or markets but the products remain the same. A good example of such is the coca cola company, the ingredients of the product is the same and to some degree the packaging, however labeling is done to suit the market segments and sometimes include the local dialect. Additionally different products can be created for the different market segments depending on the demand from these segments. This is common with culture, race, age and religion; thus a company may decide to focus on a product for a particular segment or satisfy each of these segments. This strategy however will depend on the nature and type of product one is dealing in.
This strategy can be affected through standardization or customization. As discussed above the process of making a product suitable for a particular group of consumers is adaptation or customization. On the other hand standardization does not require adaptation; rather the product is standardized and sold on a global or international scale without any changes to it. Standardized products are however targeted at similar groups on a global scale these could be sports persons, technology users, hospitals, where the use of the products is not affected by the religion or culture. Both standardization and customization of a product can effectively work as a marketing strategy but it will depend on the kind of product.
- Promotion strategy;
Product promotion can also be achieved through adaptation, customization or standardization of the product promotion strategy. The promotion particularly advertisements may be adapted in different market segments due to language, cultural attitudes, political aspects, and religious practices. The promotional detail thus requires a great deal of research to ensure acceptance by the targeted consumer segments. Cultural backgrounds and religious practices influence consumer trends therefore customization of promotion strategies is imperative to Organizations. The media development level in the host country is also an important consideration, the most established and penetrated media platform could be used for promotion depending on the target audience.
Market segmentation strategy
Market segmentation has enabled the company to market internationally. It also gives a firm a good opportunity to increase the amount of sales and the allowance of making and accessing new markets across the world. Market segmentation is made possible with the use of business-to-business application technologies. (McGraw Hill) the efficiency and effectiveness of the supply chain is also enhanced.
References:
Bradley, S. P. (2001). The digital economy. New Jersey (NJ): Pearson Prentice Hall.
Crouse, K. (2003). The digital economy and e-commerce. New Jersey(NJ): Pearson Prentice Hall.
Ghemawat, P and Baird. B (1998). Fundamentals of e-commerce. Harvard Business School, Boston.
McGraw, H. (2005). The importance of e-business in the recent economy. New Jersey (NJ): Pearson.
