Principles of Marketing: Samsung

Principles of Marketing: Samsung

Samsung offers the market a wide range of electronic products that include kitchen appliances, entertainment and communication devices like feature phones, smartphones and watches, as well as laptop computers and tablets. The Samsung brand on discussion in this essay is under the smartphone category, precisely, the Samsung Galaxy S series. Samsung created this series to compete with other top of the range products. The benefits of Samsung include giving users an easy operating system to use. This comes with benefits like having access to more free games and applications as opposed to other brand stores where most of the applications are for purchase. Samsung gives their users options while maintaining quality of their production. This is evident in the event where the cameras in Samsung phones which sell for $750-850 for the 32 GB internal memory capacity and 128 GB goes for $869 while on Amazon, $569, 64 GB for the Samsung Galaxy s8 provide quality that would render a standalone camera less useful (Ion, 2017). This gives the market a choice of purchasing a phone that is within their budget but still get quality products. Using a Samsung phone is cost effective, as it does not run an operating system where one purchases all the applications. There is room for further modification of products to host a new operating system, which makes it unique. Samsung Galaxy S series have a unique interface that makes it unique and easy to use. 

Effective Market Targeting

Phone Design

Samsung offerings are more product dominant and less service dominant. This is because the phone is a product that people purchase and use for their personal or business engagements. Samsung faces different market groups. In their production, they design phones differently to suit the needs of every target market. The tangible aspect of the smartphone is the handset. The intangible aspects are the features that come with the smartphones like cameras, audio systems, and messaging systems. The camera feature is intangible but offers products that would otherwise require another gadget. With a Samsung phone, there is no need to purchase a separate camera. With the Samsung Galaxy s8 comes a smart watch that makes it easy to access functions like receiving and making calls, listening to music and even taking pictures. 

The target market that Samsung can focus on winning is the young users. These are the young people of ages between 17 and 20 years. This is because they are the most active users of smartphones. They use most of the applications and using other types of smartphones may prove expensive for them. Winning this market does not require changing the product but making it more available (Economic Times, 2018). Samsung can invest in producing quality and affordable smartphones for this age bracket. It will make it easy for the young people to purchase these phones and get value for their money. The camera feature is one of the most popular things that delights young people. It should also have features that can assist in their studies by having enough space to store textbooks, recreational content, and any type of information that they would need to access using their smartphones. 

Rebranding

The Product lifecycle of Samsung is at its maturity stage. The company, therefore, has to find a way of rebranding to attract and maintain their loyal clients. It is advisable to rebrand products once they have reached maturity stage having covered the growth section effectively. At this point, there are many ways of rebranding a company. Targeting the youth market could help the company find ways of rebranding. For instance, production of fancy looking designs yet affordable would be more appealing to the youth. To achieve this, they can get packages that give the youth headsets for their music and a cloud access where they can save their music, movies, and even their pictures. This would give their life cycle and marketing strategy a fresh beginning (Economic Times, 2018). It is crucial to test the market for product acceptance at this point. The company can enhance the security of the data saved on the cloud. The product will then proceed to the growth stage where its popularity will rise by the day. When the popularity stops rising and maintains a steady graph, then at this point, the maturity stage sets in. During the maturity stage, the production is steady and so is the consumption. When the trend continues for a period, clients are bound to start switching to other products to get a new and different experience. It is at this point that if Samsung does not rebrand, they are likely to encounter a decline in the market share. 

Multichannel distribution 

The multichannel distribution network is the ideal way of getting products to customers. This is the process of using many different channels to ease access of the product by the clients. For instance, Samsung can have physical stores and have an online delivery platform where people can make virtual purchases, pay for their products, and have them delivered by courier companies. This is the best way to market and distribute products currently. This is because physical stores make products accessible to the people who prefer to walk in and make their purchases rather than have the product delivered to them. The virtual stores make it easy for the clients who prefer to shop from the comfort of their home (Ten Fold, 2018). This model challenges the company to operate on trust and honesty. They always have to dispatch the products that they advertise. It is a model that does not allow the company to compromise on quality. The popularity of social media today makes it difficult for a company to sweep under the carpet any mishap on their part in terms of delivery of the products. This is because a client complaint on any social media platform is impossible to retrieve. Delivering quality products will justify their prices. People cannot refrain from paying the price for a good product. 

Recommendations

It is evident that the company has an obligation to ensure that the performance and quality of the Samsung phones justifies the price tag that comes with them. They can completely win the loyalty of more clients by having better battery lives and better screen materials. The rate of breakages and destruction of the phone batteries is the only thing that would make a Samsung phone seem too expensive. When the product is in perfect condition in term of performance and hardware, no price will seem too high for the consumers and they will confidently edict how they want to access the product, either by online sales or by walking into shops to purchase the handsets. Conducting promotions where they occasionally adjust pricing will attract young people with average incomes.

Answers

1. The one channel of distribution will have to change for the target market. This will allow the clients to get direct access to the manufacturer and explain what they would want created differently to make the product perfect (Perner, n.d.). The indirect channel takes a longer time to get the message to the manufacturer on the market demands but it is the easiest way when delivering products in bulk. Therefore, changing the distribution strategies from having the direct link to having both the direct and the indirect market distribution strategies will give Samsung higher chances of pushing sales.
2. Intensive distribution is what Samsung has been using to market the phones. This is evident from the type of advertising that the company takes on (Jurevicus, 2013). They advertise everywhere and the focus is on everybody who pays attention and not a specific target. When developing a product that targets the youth, they should change the approach to exclusive youth advertising to attract that specific targeted group.
3. The value chain begins from the procurement section, which gets the raw materials for the company. The human resource section works on developing the raw materials into products that clients can purchase. The human resource also has the marketing and distribution factions under it. All these work together to get the product to the client.
4. Currently, the pricing used by Samsung is the psychology pricing. The phone has great features at a slightly cheaper price compared to their competitors. For a new product, the pricing is suitable to enhance market penetration for the product. This will be in a bid to appeal to the target market and earn loyalty for starters.

References

Economic Times. (2018). Definition of Product Life Cycle. Economic Times, m.economictims.com/definition/product-life-cycle.

Ion, F. (2017, April 7). Everything you need to know about the Galaxy s8’Camera. Retrieved from Andorid Central: https://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s8-camera-info

Jurevicus, O. (2013, April 25). Value Chain Analysis. Retrieved from Strategic Managemnt Insight: www.strategicmanagemntinsight.com/tools/value-chain-analysis.html

Perner, L. (n.d.). Distribtuion intesity decisions. Retrieved from University of South Carolina: www.consumerpsychologyist.com/dist_Distribution_Intensity.html

Ten Fold. (2018). What is a Multi-Channel Distriibution Management System? Retrieved from Ten Fold: www.tenfold.com/partnerships/multi-channel-distributuon-management-system