Purpose of Assignment 

This assignment is designed to help students analyze and understand how price setting and go to market (distribution) are interrelated and affects the profitability and growth of the business. It has been designed to be a short overview on purpose: the concepts of pricing and distribution are complex and a general understanding is what should be absorbed in one week of study. 

Assignment Steps 

Resources:

Marketing Plan and Outline

Construct a minimum 700-word plan for setting price and a distribution model (place/distribution) in Microsoft® Word. This plan should address at least three elements (from the Price and Place/Distribution list below) of the Price and Place/Distribution section of the marketing plan.

• Price and Place/Distribution:
• Distribution Strategies
• Channels, Mass, Selective, Exclusive
• Positioning within channels
• Dynamic/Static Pricing Strategies
• Channel tactics (Pricing)
• Daily pricing, promotion pricing, List pricing

Note: Charts/graphs/tables do not count toward the word count.

The plan will be a continuation of your global or multi-regional business you chose in Week 1. This will be incorporated into your overall marketing plan for Week 6.

Format your assignment according to APA guidelines.

Running head: UNDERSTANDING THE TARGET MARKETS 5

The following research is of a marketing plan for Apple Inc.’s iPhone. An accurate report of numerous factors, which enlighten Apple Inc.’s iPhone, along with the demographics of customers who buy the product. Some of the crucial components created in this paper consist of client analysis, opportunities of Apple Inc., and their main threat, and awareness on the targeted market.

Understanding Target Markets

Client Analysis

It is distinct that the desire for innovation and technology motivates the customers to purchase Apple iPhones. Apple is a corporation that has put its emphasis on technology innovation; therefore, it has become a favorable choice of purchase from the consumers. A majority of Apple’s clientele are fascinated by the fact that the organization can uphold its position concerning their innovative values as well as their leadership. The market of the Apple iPhone comprises of the customers in the high-social class (Khan et al., 2015).

Regarding this state, the customer’s pay rate permits them to buy the merchandise. Another thing, which observed is that many of Apple’s clientele are young adults who spend cash on such items and relish on having extravagances like an iPhone. Similarly, Apple Inc. can control the fascination of its clienteles by steadily improving the technology associated with the iPhone.

Opportunities

the organization has the opportunity of increasing its market section and proliferating sales of the phones in the market if it only makes use of the following commendations:

1. with a focus on the Asian and African markets, the middle-class persons in Africa are vexing to shift their class and have a better status; hence, they are chasing high-end gadgets that will display their anticipated level (Khan et al., 2015).

2. The Asian market is growing to be important in Apple Inc. Asian nations have gotten financial solidity over the previous years, signifying that the inhabitants are more enthusiastic about buying high-end merchandise like the Apple iPhone. Also, the Asian market is one of the best markets that Apple Inc. ought to survey since they will have the capability of selling their products.

Present Threats

Chinese organizations display a strong presence in similar market section as Apple Inc. Apple will require to do a lot concerning advertising the iPhone. The probabilities of trades in China duplicating Apple Inc.’s merchandise are high, meaning Apple ought to have the capability to make the iPhone striking to the developing market (Blenko et al., 2016). Furthermore, Apple Inc.ought to persist in growing its market as well as product to the precise target audience in order to remain competitive. Apple Inc. should be dependent on increasing technology and staying advanced; this will assist them in becoming and remaining an essential product in overseas markets. Generally, Apple Inc. has both innovation and technology, but they should also utilize well-thought-out strategies of marketing to remain modest in the market.

Target market

Demographics

Regarding the age of the persons who buy the phones, they range from twenty to forty years; these customers are additionally referred to as young adults (Blenko et al., 2016). In many of the cases, these clients are well-thought-out to be middle-class and desire to buy the products. This type of customer has the cash to spend on iPhones. In many scenarios, these persons have small families, hence permitting them to have the additional cash to buy Apple Inc.’s products like iPhone.

Psychographics

The consumers of Apple Inc. are constituted of individuals who like to discover new advanced technology that Apple Inc. provides with their phones; they are interested and desire to possess the latest technological devices. Apple Inc. customers enjoy hobbies like traveling that provides them an intensified desire to take numerous pictures with the Apple iPhone. About the customer’s sentiments, they wish for a phone that can be utilized to distinguish them from others in public; this is the reason why Apple presents a new iPhone from time to time (Arndt & Ewe, 2017). Similarly, the iPhone is a criterion of the social class in which the groups of persons are in.

Insight Explanation

The Apple iPhone is one company that associates with young adults in the community. They are the persons who believe owning a specific sort of phone is a method of making their social class identified by anybody seeing her or him operating the phone. Apple Inc. ought to explore new market sectors and attempt to include new technology and ideas when they launch a new sequence of the iPhones. The Apple iPhone is exclusive and preferred by numerous persons, which offers Apple an advantage in the market, which they should take benefit of and linger in making developments.

Conclusion

Apple Inc. is a company that is innovative with products that are sought out by several people. Apple Inc. should continue upgrading the iPhone in line with the market trends in order to stay modest and market to the targeted census. Besides, the corporation is doing an excellent job with their marketing and advances approaches, which demonstrates that they are an innovative corporation.

References

Arndt, H. K., & Ewe, C. (2017). Analysis of Product Lifecycle Data to Determine the

Environmental Impact of the Apple iPhone. Advances and New Trends in Environmental Informatics (pp. 3-13). Springer International Publishing.

Blenko, D., Waldron, K., Cornelius, J., Nespoli, G., & Lee, D. (2016). Organizational

Analysis: Apple Retail Stores. Retrieved from http://daenaleemsod.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/617-Organizational-Analysis-Apple-12.2016

Khan, U. A., Alam, M. N., & Alam, S. (2015). A Critical Analysis of Internal and External

The environment of Apple Inc. International Journal of Economics, Commerce, and Management, 3(6), 955-961.

Promotionand the Product Life Cycle

Apple has established a useful technique for marketing and implementing its product life cycle for its mobile merchandise. I have developed a substitute product strategy for the induction of the anticipated new service — the standard product of new product introduction, development, maturity, and stages of decline. Currently, Apple presents its new merchandise at an occasion and grants all the information about the prices along with release dates in the event. Besides, the products are typically accessible for presale shortly afterward. The partners commence marketing after the Apple event.

Product Strategy

Apple has created a brand, which is a leader in the technology industry, and it is effectual to develop when it is at the forefront of the competition. Additionally, this is the reason the organization ought to remain inventive. There is not much marketing about the Apple event happening, and people usually receive little to no information warning before any announcement being made. The new strategy will market and promote the is a new product and provide information on the dates of the event earlier. There will be printed physical materials for positioning in storerooms and streets with simple messaging about the event. Also, there will use social media to promote the event as well as products with similar messaging.

The emphasis will be to form expectancy about the release of the new product. A press conference is held with a formal statement and an e-mail flashes with details about the newly released product. Also, Facebook Live will be utilized to stream the statement, and other sites of social media will also be used to program the specifics. Live-tweeting will occur during the event on Instagram and Twitter, which can be found on the official page of Apple, which will have all the details of the product.

After the introduction of the new product, the development stage of the product strategy starts; This is the main stage for creating a position of a product in the market, enhancing the profit margins, and increasing sales (Growth, 2018). The organization will take on this stage by getting feedback from early clients and airing that feedback across e-mail blasts and social media, and This will produce promotion material for in-store demonstrations; That will comprise of flyers, display cutouts, and posters to hand out to prospective customers. Also, the organization will run a different pricing event in this period. The early adopters are prepared to recompense a premium fee for having the product earlier than expected; Apple will be able to get extra users by providing lower prices after the growth stage has reached. This will similarly assist in combating an augmented competition, which indeed transpires when new product unveilings.

There are no propositions on how Apple administers the maturity stage of the lifecycle of the product. Nevertheless, in the declining stage, I am suggesting for specific strategic changes. Throughout the decline stage, industries detect that sales start to decrease for a service or product — that might have once been famous – because of low demand (Brookins, 2016) The suggested plan involves three steps. The initial step is decreasing the price to a rate of clearance. The pricing ought to not come at a loss to the organization. The second stage is to market tactically to a precise target group of clients in a method that does not have lots of financial problems. Lastly, adding extra features to the product to refresh the request for it.

Measuring Success or Failure

Success in every stage will be measured in a different way and with various metrics. In the introduction of the new product, the organization will concentrate on the numbers of presales as well as the early return from customers who are early adopters. Besides, this will enable the organization to distinguish how useful buildup promotion was and how striking the product is. In the stage of growth, the organization will amount to success from the feedback and surveys gotten from customers. The positive word of mouth will boost the growth to be higher and maintain the positive drift the Apple firm has with recognition of brand recognition. In the decline stage, the organization will concentrate on the volume of catalog moved, the margin of the profits will not be very high due to reduced pricing, but the advantage of moving the catalog will be two-fold. Apple will remain to capture the share of the market, and it will open room for added catalog after the releases of the next products.

Conclusion

Apple has been a steady influence in the market of mobile devices, and the shreds of evidence are in the income. Through executing the plan of the product life cycle above, the Apple organization has the chance to remain in the lead spot of the business and increase the distance further with its rivals.

References

Brookins, Miranda. “How to Maintain a Strategy in the Decline Stage.” Small Business – Chron.com, Chron.com, October 26, 2016, smallbusiness.chron.com/maintain-strategy-decline-stage-26080.html.

“Growth.” Product Life Cycle Stages, productlifecyclestages.com/product-life-cycle-stages/growth/.