Marketing Strategies

Research Proposal

Institute of
Administrative Sciences

(University of the Punjab)

Research Topic:

Marketing Strategies for Attracting Customers

Submitted to:

Dr. Yaamina Salman

Submitted BY:

Haseeb Tanveer

Roll Number:

15-BS-S-125

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Marketing Strategies

Introduction

Starting a business can be exhilarating and wildly fulfilling. However, it can be quite
complicated, and may challenge you in ways you had not imagined. Knowing the challenges and
problems you may encounter in your start-up can help you to prepare for the unexpected, and
possibly help avoid common pitfalls (Kristie Lorette). A business start-up requires a tremendous
time commitment and a strong will. Add to this the financial stress of a fledgling business. New
businesses often struggle finding their first customers. The challenge is even more difficult with
startups in the sharing economy that launch as platforms connecting independent service
providers with consumers. When you have a two-sided platform, you have to acquire both the
customers and the services.

Literature review

Lets Take Uber. Its tribune is two-sided, connecting human beings either want rides along with
people who have rides to offer. Its the traditional chicken-and-egg problem. You
cant have one except the other, however as some do you discover first the customer chicken or
the service egg? As a small company, you cannot afford to focus on both with the same amount
of effort. You may need to prioritize one side. Being acquiring a first thousand customer Uber
concentrated on getting the service side of the equation first, customers second. But theres a
catch. Its not just the chicken and the egg, you also want to select the right eggs, If you acquire
the wrong eggs and ostriches come out, then you are in trouble. The chickens will run for the
hills. The first thing Uber were notice think like a customer Ride-sharing app Uber pursued a

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similar strategy. Rather than starting out with Uber Pool or Uber X, in which drivers use their
own cars, the company started with black cars driven by professional drivers. That way, they
could ensure that customers would have a great experience virtually every time they used the
serviceand they could then rely on customers to spread the news of that experience by word of
mouth. Thats why you get the supply side firstif you get the right suppliers, the customers
will experience their high-quality service and then do the marketing for you. Ubers main
competition was taxi cab companies, the startup researched which cities had the biggest
discrepancy between supply and demand for taxis. They then launched during times when that
demand was likely to be the highest, for example during the holidays when people tend to stay
out late partying. It also ran promotions during large concerts or sporting events, when big
crowds of people all needed cabs at the same time, and an individual might be more likely to
take a chance on an unfamiliar company named Uber. For acquiring new customer, they did not
advertise on traditional mass media such as local TV commercials or print ads, which are
expensive and time-consuming, paid digital media such as Google search ads, Facebook ads, and
YouTube video ads offer many benefits that make them better suited for platform startups. Going
from zero customers to 1,000 customers can be a slow process for platforms because of the need
to acquire both providers and customers of products and services in a balanced manner.

People dont buy products, they buy the results that product will give (Brain Tracy). Start your
process of identifying your ideal customer by making a list of all of the benefits that your
customer will enjoy by using your product or service.

Uber define their competitive advantage to attract customer, the reason for buying their service,
in terms of the benefits, results or outcomes that their customer will enjoy from purchasing their
service that they would not fully enjoy from purchasing the service of other competitors. They
always focus on the benefits of what makes their service better than others.

First of all firms should get customer loyalty by sell their product and service effectively. In the
new era, we need new skills to attract the customers these skills are relationship selling almost
84% of customers attract in world originates from word-of-mouth and from customer satisfaction
from great customer relationship, most of new customer attract from satisfied existing customers.
The relationship between existing customers should be very strong because it is 10 to 15 times
easier to sell product or service to satisfied customer rather than a brand-new customer, your

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commitment and dedication to service to your customer in such a way build incredible customer
loyalty that is the smartest and profitable things for business. The key factor for running business
in Competition you have to better in competition to service in this very turbulent world.

Relationship selling is the Core of Modern marketing strategies, relationship selling require a
clear understanding of the dynamics of the selling process because of the complexity of most
products and services today like high-tech products the relationship is actually more important
than a product because a person can get a product anywhere so they have to hold something that
is trust and relationship. The relationship comes first in every field of life, if there is no
relationship there is no further conversation and it is the key differentiator between you and your
competitors. The firms that have great relationship with their customer sell higher priced
products than their competitors, customer intimacy shows you are so close to your customer that
they would not buy from anyone else.

The second factor to attract the customer is Partnering for profit approach When you deal with
the customer, who are interested in business and very close to his business. You should ask him
questions about his business, and look for ways to help him run his business better, the customer
is going to warm up to you and want to be associated with you and your company. This
approach to partnering in profit with your customer is a key way to differentiate yourself and to
building customer loyalty for the indefinite future. The third key to attract customer is the
Consultative selling to your dealings with your customer, or what is called consultative
approach. When you position yourself as a consultant, you are really positioning yourself to
serve your customer as a problem solver. Instead of trying to sell something to your customer,
you concentrate all of your efforts and attention on helping your customer solve his problems,
achieve his goals, or satisfy his needs. Many firms fail to build strong customer loyalty because
they are unable to create strong emotional bonds with their customers (Fournier, Dobscha, and
Mick 19)

Determine your sales cycle, which is the amount of time that elapses between an initial meeting
with a prospective customer and the closing of a deal. This can vary greatly from one company
to the next. But you need to understand exactly how much time it takes you on average,
measured in days, weeks or months. Identify your most valuable customer which are more
profitable like buy more goods and services. This can be for a range of reasons, from the size of

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Marketing Strategies

their purchases to the relative ease of managing their account. Successful businesses are
generally those that identify these customers, build relationships with them and work to bring in
new customers with a similar profile. The more you know about them and their needs, the easier
it is to identify opportunities to sell them new products and target them with appropriate offers.
Your customers are a valuable source of information, so you should aim to collect data that lets
you identify your customers and how they behave. This will vary depending on your customer
profile. If you sell to individual consumers, you might want to know about their age, gender,
income and so on. For businesses, you might want to know what industry they operate in and
their size. You should also try to find out what they think about you and your products and
services. For example, learn what they like and dislike and why they choose to use you.

If you have just a few important customers, it's worth getting detailed feedback from them.
Companies that sell to individual consumers sometimes use customer surveys. Analyzing your
customers allows you to identify those who best fit your business priorities. These will depend
on your strategy - for example, if you are launching a new product your aim might be to build
sales as quickly as possible, whereas if you have cash flow problems you might value customers
who pay quickly. Looking after your customers helps build customer loyalty (Butcher, Sparks,
and O'Callaghan 2002). In Selling more to existing customers can be far more cost-effective and
profitable than finding new ones.

Negotiating is an inevitable part of doing business. You negotiate with customers. Good
negotiations can lead to prosperity, while bad negotiations can damage your business
profitability. However good your product or service is, the simple truth is that no-one will buy it
if they don't want it or believe they don't need it. And you won't persuade anyone that they want
or need to buy what you're offering unless you clearly understand what it is your customers
really want.

Knowing and understanding customer needs is at the center of every successful business,
whether it sells directly to individuals or other businesses. Once you have this knowledge, you
can use it to persuade potential and existing customers that buying from you is in their best
interests. Customer touch points are the many critical moments when customers interact with
the organization and its offerings on their way to purchase and after (Rawson et al., 2013, p.
90). Meyer and Schwager (2007, p. 119) define touch points in a somewhat wider sense as

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Marketing Strategies

instances of contact either with the product or service itself or with representations of it by the
company or some third party, including other customers.

Once the customer has decided to buy from you, you must think of ways to increase the size of
the sale and therefore the profitability and cash flow. Because acquiring customers can be so
expensive, you can give deep discounts and bonuses to get the customer to buy something else
before they leave. You can cut the price on additional items by 10 percent, 25 percent, or even 50
percent to capture the add-on sale. The extra cash flow you earn is money that you would not
have if you let the customer depart. If you sell a product or service that is used and consumed
regularly, such as food, business services, automobile maintenance, barber and beauty services,
or office stationery supplies, the key to business growth and extra cash flow is to capture more of
the customers business. Understanding who your most valuable customers are helps focus your
efforts to find new customers. Often, the most effective approach is to look for similar prospects.
At the same time, diversification is important. It's risky relying too heavily on just a few key
customers. Even if you have many customers, it's risky if they are too similar. A change in
circumstances could mean that all of them reduce their purchases at the same time (Brain Tracy).

Use Marketing strategy to aim for depth of wallet rather than for breadth of market. It is
much easier to sell to a satisfied customer than it is to advertise, promote, and sell to
a new customer. So, once you have created the customer, you must move heaven and earth to
ensure that this customer buys from you again and again. Value-added is another technique for
attract the customers means add something extra that costs you nothing but that customers
buying from you perceive as being of high value. You can follow up with a thank you note or a
telephone call. You can offer the customers a special status with your company that gives them
discounts or better customer service whenever they call or visit.

Digital marketing is another strategy to attract customer in the new era, you should focus on
social media marketing and email marketing to build customer loyalty and an ongoing digital
conversation. You can not underestimate the influence of social media on your overall online
presence. Social media has become the lifeblood of your conversation with your customers.
Advertise on Google and get more Customers for your Business. It is clear that Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc. are used for attract customer and brand building. Content
Marketing is an essential component of online market strategy, basically it is the valuable and

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Marketing Strategies

reliable information of the product and service on a consistent basis. Online marketing campaign
is one of the leading market strategy which is based on customer behavior and attentions. Doing
business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark (Steuart Henderson Britt).

Research Objective

The purpose is to identify the problems that firms face in the startup phase for attracting
customers. Hence this paper intends to find out the market strategies and suggestions for
attracting customers and reduce the probability of failure in business. Following questions are set
as a guideline to fulfil this objective

Research Question

1. What are the suggested approaches for attracting new customers in the startup of
business?
2. How should a firm design their programs to manage its relationships with different
customers?
3. How High-performing companies have a more balanced focus on the emotional and the
rational aspects of CEM (customer experience management)?
4. What are the ways to make our product eye catching for customer?
5. How to develop strong bonding or relationship with customer?

Methodology

Methodology of the research will include all the research designs, research methods that have
been adopted to identify, collect and analyze relevant information. Since it was supposed to be an
explanatory research so it is used to get reasons, explanations to get an understanding of
relationship between different elements discussed earlier and to get additional information. Such
as: What other aspects are related to this issue? What should we take in our consideration vice
versa while getting understanding of the phenomenon. All these questions are explained and
answers are supposed to be collected via questionaire.

Research Design

The research is designed to test the applicability of previously existing theories regarding to
investigate the problems caused in organizations when employees do procrastination and need to

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find out the ways to resolve it and to what extent have those theories changed with advent of
time. Closed end questions are supposed to be asked in that questionaire at order to perform
statistical calculations via SPSS to find the corelation between different research elements.
Questionaire to the employees of nearby organizations are supposed to be send and filled in the
presence of a researcher by the emplyees which lies atleast in the middle of the hierarchal
structure of that organization. Questionaire are supposed to be send to the employees of
organizations of far off places via internet (email). Semi-structured interviews of the top
management of the selected organizations are also planned to be conducted in order to get
understanding of the proposed phenomenon which will help the researcher later, when the
analysis on the collected data will be performed. So basically it is mixed research which will use
both the qualitative data and quantitative while having primary focus on the quantitative data but
little of the qualitative data will give boom in understanding the research generally.

Participants

Weve chosen 10-12 different scaled organizations, the names of which will be kept anonymous.
The management of the organizations has agreed to give us access. We are currently in
correspondence with the Human Resource department of respective organizations in order to
finalize the dates for distribution and collection of questionaire, moreover at the time of
distribution of questionaire in an organization, questionaire will be distributed at the same time
among all the candidates and a short briefing will also be given to them in order to clear the
ambiguities in case, if any. Email & contact no. of the researcher will be given at the end of the
questionaire so that the participant of the research can contact him later, if he have any query. We
will send questionaires to the distant organizations via email, by involving the HR of the
respective organizations, we are expected to get a better response rate.

Hypothesis:

Relationship Selling makes strong bonds to attract new customers

Variables:

There are two vriables in the research proposal

Relationship Selling

Independent Variable

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Marketing Strategies

Customer Attraction

Dependent Variable

Relationship Selling has positive and direct relation with Customer Attraction. If Relationship
Selling increase Customer Attraction will also increase and vice versa.

Ethical Considerations

The goal of ethics in research is to ensure that no one is harmed or suffers adverse consequences
from the research activities (Cooper and Schindler, 2001:112). The researcher will undertake to
protect the rights of the respondents by:

i. Ensuring that none of the respondents will be named during the research.

ii. Making sure that the respondents will be selected to participate without compulsion.

iii. Informing the respondents about the reason and purpose of the research.

iv. Informing the respondents that consent was sought from the management of the selected
company before the commencement of this research initiative.

Reference

Blanding, M & S Teixeira, T. (2016). Transforming zero to one thousand customer. How a
startup commercial enterprise attracted their first thousand customers, 4(6), 12-18. Retrieved 20
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Garbarino, Ellen and Mark S. Johnson (1999), "The Different Roles of Satisfaction, Trust, and
Commitment in Customer Relationships," Journal of Marketing, 63 (April), 70-87.

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Ho, T.-H., Park, Y.-P. Zhou. 2006. Incorporating satisfaction into customer value analysis:
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