Amazon's Marketing Strategies. Execution Of Its Marketing Programmes Online

Table of content

Introduction

Marketing Strategy of Amazon

The Product

The Price

The Place

The Promotion

Strategic marketing as Conducted by Amazon

Developing Marketing Strategies and Plans

Capturing Marketing Insights

Connecting with Customers

Building Strong Brands

Creating Value

Delivering Value

Communicating Value

Conducting Marketing Responsibly for Long-Term Success

Four Distinctive Marketing Strategies Used by Amazon

References

Introduction

The amazon.com site was hosted on July sixteenth 1995. From the earliest starting point in 1994 Jeffrey Bezos, the founder of amazon.com was roused by the plan to reform the book business by making an online store for books with the best possible client care. At first been giggled at, Jeffrey Bezos clung to the thought and set up the world most well-known web book shop (Marcus, 2004) One significant root for overcoming the adversity of amazon.com is surely the inclusion of Jeffrey Bezos in the specialized establishment of amazon.com, since the client experience of an online entryway is essentially characterized by its specialized marketing. From the starting point Bezos and his originator associates where driven by the inquiry „What if...?" The inquiry that, thus replied, prompts the best approach to carry out an easy to use gateway as amazon.com (Round, 2004).

Today Amazon is the worldwide pioneer in online business and discards global destinations, and overall organization of satisfaction and client assistance focuses. Amazon.com offers everything from books and gadgets to tennis rackets and precious stone adornments and works locales in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, and China and keeps up more than 25 satisfaction bases on the world (About Amazon). This paper examines the marketing strategies adopted by Amazon in the course of doing business online.

Marketing Strategy of Amazon

A marketing strategy refers to a business' overall game plan for reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of their products or services. A marketing strategy contains the company’s value proposition, key brand messaging, data on target customer demographics, and other high-level elements (Kotler & Armstrong, 2008) Amazon’s marketing strategy is a significant driving force that distinguishes the success of the organization not only by well-developed strategic marketing- outlining where, when, and how the firm will compete but also by their ability to execute the marketing strategic decision options chosen (Webster Jr., Malter & Ganesan, 2015). An appropriate and effectively implemented marketing strategy is required to productively guide the deployment of the limited available resources via the firm’s marketing capabilities in pursuit of desired goals and objectives (McDonald, 2006). Literature on marketing strategy reveals two distinct but related features to marketing strategy content: marketing strategy decisions and marketing strategy decision implementation. Hence, decision makers responsible for the marketing strategy must select which available resources the firm should deploy, where to deploy them appropriately, and set and signal priorities in terms of achieving the various goals and objectives of the firm Edeling & Fischer, 2016). These strategic marketing toward firm performance may be either formal, top-down strategies or emergent or improvisational strategies (Kotler & Keller, 2016). A firm’s marketing strategy content therefore involves explicit or implicit decisions regarding goal setting, target market selection, positional advantage to be pursued, and timing to attain firm performance (Wood, 2013).

Most investigations focus on factors that impact the choice of a specific marketing strategy, and they look to perceive powers that invigorate strategic marketing of marketing strategies for distinctive advantage (Nwokah, 2008; Enyioko, 2021). By the legitimacy of the decision of strategic marketing system by Amazon is controlled by its capability to improve organization execution expresses that appropriateness of an advertising methodology is affirmed by the procedure's effect on the organization’s marketing efforts – monetary and key advantage, gotten because of execution of the picked technique (Johnson and Scholes 2000).

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Figure 1: Johnson and Scholes’ marketing planning framework

Source: Johnson and Scholes (2000, p.24).

Marketing planning model used by Amazon takes a more general strategic point of view Johnson and Scholes (2000), many of the human and cultural issues being taken into account. Johnson and Scholes’ model is based on analysis, choice and implementation by Amazon as seen (Figure 1). Within this comprehensive framework, marketing strategies are developed from comprehensive portfolio analyses. Many forms of strategy are possible. If one takes the view that the environment is uncontrollable, then it is quite possible that a company will have to be adaptive to the environment that is exactly what Amazon.

Adaptation transpires as Amazon adjusts its market strategies when entering foreign markets, even in an era of globalization where many brands and products are nearly universally prevalent. Those adaptation decisions cleave into an adaptation strategy that can influence the firm’s competitiveness and, in turn, its performance in foreign markets in terms of sales, financial and customer performance (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Adaptation strategies done by Amazon encompass changing the pricing method, promotional mix and packaging of a product, or even the product itself, in order to fit the needs and preferences of a particular export market. Adaptation happens when any element of the marketing strategy is modified to achieve a competitive advantage when entering a foreign market and thus attain firm performance. Adaptation strategies may not be so complex but a simple tweaking of the logo and the colours of the packaging can achieve the marketing objectives, or may involve developing new products better fitted to the local palate or new financing models more fitting for the local economy or market (Enyioko, 2021 ).

It is crucial for marketers in Amazon to adjust the marketing mix and marketing strategy to suit local tastes, meet special market needs and consumers’ non-identical requirements (McDonald, 2006).

Amazon’s marketing implementation considers offers to get the right focus for the further analysis. In that respect the marketing mix of Amazon has the trapping for 7Ps.

The Product

Since Amazon is a service provider in the proper meaning, the products Amazon sells are not the offered consumer goods itself. The products or better the services Amazon offers are:

- portal-usage on amazon.com and other domains (for consumer customer and seller customer)
- information (transparency) of the goods offered (via the portal)
- payment terms
- delivery service of goods
- after sales service

Nevertheless, the consumer goods offered on the portal have to be seen as products in Amazons responsibility and must be kept in mind as well.

The Price

Following the product description above it seems not far to analyse the prices of those services. But since the customer does not directly pay anything to the used services1, even if he realises the service at all, the price for the good to be sold must be considered in this case.

The Place

Amazon offers the above mentioned consumer goods supported by the described services primarily via its portal on amazon.com and further domains. The place in the meaning of “where does the customer get the products and services” is the virtual store in the internet.

The questions where the product originally comes from and where the logistics are done usually don’t concern the customer as long as he can get the product in the expected price-range in an acceptable timeframe.

The Promotion

Offering services via internet usefully comes along with internet marketing since the target customers can primarily be found in the internet already. Internet marketing by Amazon mainly bets on the fact that the internet is a medium to transfer information per definition. Word-by-mouth recommendation via mail, banner-advertising, e-mail campaigns and further common internet marketing methods are used.

Amazon’s marketing rudiments are additionally ordered into seven parts: Look and feel center around the tasteful interest of website page, its comprehensibility, and download time, and additionally its similarity with the programme. Navigation on a website may be assessed in terms of presence of a site map, performance of the search engine, internal links etc. Credentials emphasize the trustworthiness of the platform of Amazon, as well as the reliability of the information available on the website. Content establishes the accuracy and validity of textual and visual information. Customization (or Personalization) features on a website enable users to modify page elements to fit their preferences and choices (Brown, 2015).

The elements in the second set are those that can be attributed to the marketing mix. The marketing mix is a generic term that refers to the combination of tools used by Amazon to accomplish its marketing objectives (Edeling & Fischer, 2016). In an online marketing, the element of the product is assessed in terms of assortment, validity and sufficiency of product description, in addition to the availability of product upon request. The element of price is evaluated on the basis of its competitiveness and negotiability, as well as the multiplicity of payment options. Place in the marketing mix normally refers to the distribution of the product. In online marketing, this element is measured in terms of delivery time and geographical coverage (Brown, 2015).

Promotion, the element focusing on communication, implies an assessment of online advertisements, special offers, direct mails, member benefits, social networking options, etc. Online marketing’s processes are assessed in terms of adaptive design features as well as ease and timeliness of order confirmation. The element of people primarily assesses a website’s customer support. Its evaluation is based on the quality and availability of online help and interactivity offered to connect with sales staff and other user groups. The term physical evidence refers to physical cues that support a customer’s evaluation of intangible services. In online marketing, these cues may include brand name, overall online experience, corporate affiliations through logos, and other signs of an actual physical presence (e.g. office address, pictures of the headquarters, etc.).

With emerging online marketing and increasing development of web 2.0 and web 3.0 applications personalization in marketing has become evident. Through the combination of emerging technologies and the increasing from the interaction between customers via the internet, there is a greater degree of customization of products and services through online marketing (Kerin, 2015).

Participation allows customers to participate in what a brand should stand for digitally. What the direction of the product should be and the style of advertisements, creating a free flow of information between customers and companies. Peer-to-peer also referred to as social computing has become increasingly important in the digital marketing even right form of the traditional balance in marketing, as customers’ bases are being replaced by active customer communities. Rather than the companies imposing brand awareness and advertising it is increasingly engaging towards the customers as active instruments in the selling process (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Predictive modeling as explained by Kerin (2015) is the neural network algorithms used in applied marketing problems. In essence to try to predict the best probability of an outcome on the basis of detection theory, in online marketing predictive modeling has become imperative. Extensively developed, an analytical customer relationship management helps plan out the expectations that a customer will take a particular action.

Strategic marketing as Conducted by Amazon

Strategic marketing facilitates the activities and functions which involved the distribution of goods and services.

Amazon relies heavily on designing the organisation’s offering in terms of the target markets needs and desires and using effective pricing, communication and distribution to inform, motivate and service the market. Strategic marketing is concerned with the chalking out of a definite programme, after careful analysis and forecasting of the market situations and the ultimate execution of these plans to achieve the objectives of the organization (Kerin, 2015).

Further Amazon’s sales plans, to a greater extent rest upon the requirements and motives of the consumers in the market. To achieve this objective, the organisation has to pay heed to the right pricing, effective advertising and sales promotion, distribution and stimulating the consumers through the best services.

Generally, Amazon envisages strategic marketing as the process of management of marketing programmes for accomplishing organisational goals and objectives. It involves planning, implementation and control of marketing programmes or campaigns.

Amazon knows just like Kotler and Keller (2016), that poor management is a consequence of not knowing what drives consumers is behind the majority of marketing failures. The Amazon makes the case that consumer knowledge is a much more reliable route to success. Amazon customer-centric strategic marketing framework emphasizes what they believe are the most important consumer values—acceptability, affordability, accessibility, and awareness—which they dub the four (4As).

Amazon has the full understanding that strategic marketing comes to clarity under the auspices of the 4As: Acceptability is the extent to which a firm’s total product offering exceeds customer expectations. The authors assert that Acceptability is the dominant component in the framework and that design, in turn, is at the root of acceptability. Functional aspects of design can be boosted by, for instance, enhancing the core benefit or increasing reliability of the product; psychological acceptability can be improved with changes to brand image, packing and design, and positioning.

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