Marketing Orientation
Introduction:
Nike is among the top multinational retailers of sporting equipments for many decades. Unique design and high quality products of Nike have allowed several world class athletes to perform their best at their respective games. The marketing strategies of Nike have allowed proper development of brand portfolio, which eventually created major impact on the brand popularity (Khan 2014). Presently, Nike is looking to widening its target audience by opening its only women retail store in London’s King road. The purpose of opening this store is encouraging female athletes on London or UK area to fulfil their ambitions. This report will focus on assessing different marketing aspects associated with women store of Nike for making it a success.
a. Marketing orientation approach of Nike:
Marketing orientation reflects a business model that concentrate on providing products as per the needs, desires and requirements of the customers. It is the wide generation of the market intelligence pertaining to future and current customer needs. Now, the business strategies of Nike have always concentrated on providing best quality products at the reasonable price. The organization spends massive amount each year on the R&D department to ensure all the provided products are meeting the needs of the athletes. For instance, the quality of the Nike shoes has changed drastically over the years. In fact, Nike has developed specific shoes for specific sports persons to avoid major injuries (Jackson and Wood 2013). Moreover, Nike has spent lot of resources on market research activities for understanding the needs and wants of the customers. No product of Nike has been launched before understanding the needs of the market. All the products of Nike focused on bringing motivation or inspiration among the athletes by providing all types of support they require at the time of practicing or playing the game. In addition, Nike has developed women stall so that female athletes do not have to face any challenges in finding their requirements. Thus, the development of female store in London can also be considered within the marketing orientation strategy.
a. Components of marketing environment analysis:
As per the article by Leeflang et al. (2014), it is essential for an organization to evaluate entire marketing environment appropriately. Proper evaluating of marketing environment will help organizations to identify the kind of support or challenges they will face in near future. For establishing the only female store in London area, Nike will have to concentrate on political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors. Many countries have restriction on using different raw materials for the development of the sport products. Therefore, it can actually affect the popularity of the female outlet. In addition, economic and technological factors will provide the buying nature among the female athletes in London. Social factor will help Nike to understand the kind of CSR guidelines they have to follow for providing additional benefits to the community. Finally, legal factors will allow Nike to understand the kind of legislative challenges they have to face at the time of establishing female stores in different areas of UK.
Marketing Environments
Every business is affected by the macro environmental factors, as they can create direct impact on the overall needs of a particular product. Nike also has to identify all these macro factors appropriately for widening their reach in global market. Three macro factors of Nike are as follows:
Demographics: Demography refers to the entire population of an economy. Now, it is critical for Nike to evaluate size, gender, age and occupation of the entire population for identifying actual potential market (Tsimonis and Dimitriadis 2014). Proper evaluation of the demographics will allow Nike to understand the number of females in London is actually take part into different sports or athletic activities.
Culture: It evaluates the basic preference, values and behaviour of the society, which eventually allow Nike to implement effective marketing orientation approach. Proper evaluation of culture also allows understanding the purchasing behaviour of the customers. It has been assessed that female from different cultural background prefers different types of athletic equipments, which can create major impact on the overall revenue level.
Technological: Proper utilization of available technologies is essential for the development of high quality sporting equipments. London is one of the most technologically advanced areas across the entire globe (Verhoef, Kannan and Inman 2015). Therefore, it is likely to support Nike in minimizing the time required for developing appropriate sporting equipments. As a result, it allows increasing production quantity in a major way. Therefore, it will eventually provide more marketing opportunities for the Nike to promote their new outlets.
Proper analysis of the micro factors is also essential for achieving sustainable growth in the market. It will allow Nike to implement several precautionary strategies for enhancing the acceptance among the target customers. Two prime micro factors of Nike are as follows:
Customers: Customer evaluation is probably the most critical aspect of any business. It not only allows organizations to understand the exact needs and wants of the customers but also allows evaluating all the future challenges in an effective way (Shao et al. 2016). Nike needs to evaluate all the probable customers at the time of initiating any new products or services. Moreover, Nike also has to ensure all the potential customers receive required level of information regarding the new initiation of the business for accomplishing all the goals.
Suppliers: Maintenance of strong relationship with all the suppliers is also essential, as it determines the overall cost of the operational procedure. Nike will also have to ensure proper bonding with all the suppliers so that it can able to produce required level of product. Nike will have to provide different facilities or support to all its suppliers so that they remain associated with the organization for longer timeframe.
As stated by Kowalkowski et al. (2015) proper evaluation of the internal environmental factors is critical for assessing the strengths and weaknesses. Understanding of organizational strength allows businesses to reduce the adverse impact of the weak factors in a major way. The prime three internal environmental factors of Nike are as follows:
Macro Environmental Factors Influencing Nike’s Marketing Decisions
Clear structure: From the beginning, Nike has focused on developing clear organizational structure to ensure no gap in the communication process. It has also allowed Nike in segregating all the responsibilities related with the operational procedure in an effective way.
Leadership: Nike has always tried to develop supportive leadership styles where employees from different designations can remain motivated towards professional roles and responsibilities. Moreover, the leadership style of Nike has allowed employees to share their thoughts and believes at the time of developing any major decision.
Research and development: Nike possesses strong research and development team that helps to identify all the requirements of different sports persons. The requirement of protective or supportive gear changes with the sports, which allows Nike to maintain competitive edge over other organizations in the industry.
As illustrated by Cant, Wiid and Meyer (2016) market segmentation reflects a process of segregating a broad consumer market into different parts of groups. It has been assessed that people with different culture, values, believes and occupation have different taste and preference. As a result, a particular product might be the first choice for one group but the same product is not that much popular among other groups. Therefore, Nike needs to segregate the entire market based on the demands or need of the products for maximizing the profit level. Nike concentres on different types of marketing segmentation process including geographic segmentation, psychographic segmentation and psychographic segmentation for reaching to all potential customers in an effective way. Appropriate utilization of different segmentation procedure allows Nike to target all potential customers in an effective way, which will eventually create positive impact on the revenue level.
It is critical for Nike to implement several marketing strategies for enhancing the popularity of the women products. Now, women sporting equipment outlets are extremely uncommon across the world. Therefore, Nike has to focus on utilizing differentiated strategies for providing required level of knowledge for the targeted customers. Firstly, participation of women in different sports activities is relatively rare compared to any men. For that reason, it is essential to encourage women to participate in different sports. It will not only enhance the businesses of Nike but also will increase the overall health of the community (Sheikh, Shahzad and Ishak 2016). In order to spread the information about the women outlet, Nike has offered different additional services like run club and training facilities. It has also offered gait analysis, bra fitting and other services for enhancing the acceptance among the women athletes. Thus, it can be definitely mentioned that Nike has consciously utilized differentiated strategies for encouraging women to purchase different offered sporting products on regular basis.
a. Marketing mix:
As described by Anggadwita and Dhewanto (2016) marketing mix is among the most popular marketing tools that businesses utilize for accomplishing all their goals and objectives. The marketing mix strategy for the women’s product of Nike is discussed as follow:
Product: Product reflects to that item that organizations utilize to satisfy the needs and wants of the customers. Here, Nike has focused on promoting all their women sporting accessories for widening their reach across the targeted market. Nike has always focused on offering such products that will fulfil all the market demands in an appropriate way.
Micro Environmental Forces to Monitor for Nike
Price: Nike has concentrated on premium pricing strategy, as it never compromises with the quality of the product (Luca, Hibbert and McDonald 2016). The pricing strategy has allowed Nike to gain strong reputation across different section of the market. However, Nike has also recently offered several products on lower price for enhancing their penetration on the targeted market.
Place: Nike has selected King Road of London as the place for opening women outlet, which is extremely convenient from transport perspective. As a result, it will allow women from different region to easily come and access all the offered products. Hence, it is likely to enhance revenue level of an organization in a major way.
Promotion: Proper utilization of promotional strategies is essential for gaining popularity in the targeted market. Nike has concentrated on providing several added benefits for encouraging women of UK to purchase all the offered products. Nike also needs to use social media, television and digital platform to highlight their special initiation for the women.
Process: The operational procedure of Nike is extremely clear, as it will help to maintain required level of stock at all the time (Cao 2017). The operational process of Nike has allowed the organizations to create strong bonding with all its stakeholders, which is likely to create positive impact on the overall revenue level.
People: Nike always has focused on providing proper benefits to all their employees for keeping them associated with the organization for long period of time. Nike also provides special training and development facilities for all their employees so that they can enhance their skills appropriately (Berthon et al. 2012). Moreover, proper career structure has allowed employees of Nike to set clear goals for career progression.
Physical evidence: Nike is arguably the strongest brand in sporting equipment providing industry. It has separate set of loyal customers who always purchase products of Nike. For that reason, it can be mentioned that physical evidence of Nike is very strong, which will enhance the revenue level.
Figure 1: Marketing mix
(Source: Xiao, Nicholson and Iyer 2017)
Conclusion:
The above illustration has highlighted the type of marketing strategies that Nike can utilize for capturing major share of the market. Nike already has focused on a path breaking strategy by opening a women outlet in London area. As a result, it will increase the curiosity level among the potential customers regarding the offered products and services at the retail outlets, which is likely to create positive impact on the overall revenue level.
Introduction:
In order to reach to its target audience, Nike needs to focus on developing different types of strategies and procedures for accomplishing organizational goals and objectives. The poster is created for the effective utilization of visual promotional strategies. It aims to increase the acceptance level among all the potential customers.
a. Promotional mix:
In this competitive environment, it is essential to utilize different promotional tools and techniques at the similar time. Promotional mix contains public relation, advertising, sales promotion and personal selling strategies that businesses utilize for gaining popularity in the market (Armstrong et al. 2015). Now, Nike will also have to use all these strategies for accomplishing all the required objectives in an effective way.
Internal Environmental Factors Considered as Strengths or Weaknesses
Here, the target audience are female athletes’ lives in the London or UK area. Therefore, it will have to focus on utilizing several strategies for reaching to all the potential customers in an effective way (Kim et al. 2012). Initiation of different marketing strategies will allow reaching to all the targeted customers.
Nike will have to focus on following marketing channels:
Producer → Distributor → Wholesaler or Retailer → Customer
Here, the key message has focused on providing information regarding women retail outlet, which is first initiated by Nike. Moreover, it has also concentrated on highlighting the free training facilities provided by the Nike authority.
In order to accomplish the objectives through the poster created, it is necessary for the organization Nike to focus on AIDA framework that covers four different aspects of marketing elements. It is certain that the world of advertising becomes more competitive while the advertising becomes more sophisticated (Ghirvu 2013). AIDA framework includes four different aspects such as Attention, Interest, Desire and Action (Rawal 2013).
Figure 2: Advertising model AIDA
(Source: Rawal 2013)
Attention- To achieve organizational objectives, Nike should consider how market should be acquired. In a competitive advertising world, Nike needs to be quick as well as direct to grab customers’ attention. For instance, to motivate the people to attend an organization session on giving feedback, the email headline should be such as “How effective is you feedback?”. This could certainly grab the attention of people.
Interest- In this stage, the organization needs to gain the attention of the target audience; however, the company needs to engage them enough so that they could spend their precious time.
Desire- As the company is determined to build reader’s interest towards the products and services, Nike should help the customers understand how and what they are being offered with in a real way. Hence, the company could focus on the current trends for product development.
Action- In the final stage, the organization needs to be very clear about what action needs to be conducted. This means, after the desire and attention, by understanding the need of the customers, relevant products and services should be developed.
In order to collect the feedback, the company could use the communication and technology. This means, each member should be informed about the new apparel and other significant services through emails. In addition, a survey can be conducted through among the customers to learn about their interest and demands.
Conclusion:
The analysis has highlighted that proper utilization of different marketing techniques is essential to reach to the targeted customers. It has also highlighted Nike has consciously tried to cover the entire basis for maximizing the profit level in a major way.
References:
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