Sub: Product Management

Topic: Marketing and Competitor’s Strategies

GROUP 1
 Contents
• Market strategies
• Market Research
• Types of strategies
• Market Segment
• Core strategy
• Value chains
• Marketing Mix
• Competitor’s strategies
 Marketing strategies
• A marketing strategy refers to a
business' overall game plan for reaching
prospective consumers and turning them into
customers of the products or services the
business provides.
• A marketing strategy contains the company’s
value proposition, key brand messaging, data
on target customer demographics, and other
high-level elements.
• Marketing strategies should ideally have longer
lifespan than individual marketing plans because
they contain value propositions and other key
elements of a company’s brand, which generally
hold consistent over the long haul.
• In other words, marketing strategies cover big-
picture messaging, while marketing plans
delineate the logistical details of specific
campaigns.
 Marketing strategies in hotel
• Live With a Great Website
• Follow The SEO Staples
• Differentiate Yourself From The Rest
• Get Recommended by Real Authority
• Promote Yourself With Online Travel Agencies
• Appoint a Sales Rep and Reap The Rewards
• Get Savvy With Social Media.
 Market Research
• Market research can be helpful in charting the
efficacy of a given campaign, and can help identify
untapped audiences, in order to achieve bottom-line
goals and increase sales.
E.g.-if you are gathering hotel information, you may
ask all of the hotels in your area for occupancy
rates, room rates, revenues, with this type of
information it can give you an idea of what is
happening in the market, such as whether or not
occupancy is growing, rates are increasing, and
local hotels are profitable.
 Growth Strategy
• Growth strategies focus on how much the company has
grown and how much further it can grow through
market products.
• The results of growth strategies might look at the
comparison between the introduction of products and
their success rate over time (horizontal and vertical
integration) .
• comparing this against the opportunities for
diversifying the audience for the product or intensifying
marketing within a certain target audience.
 Market Dominance Strategies

• Market dominance strategies simply look at

the company’s current role within the
marketplace, and ways to dominate in the
market.
• Market dominance strategies might result in
the company’s representation as the market
leader or focusing only on certain segments.
 Marketing Warfare Strategies

• Marketing warfare strategies utilize warfare techniques to

review market conditions and plan a marketing goal for a
company.
• For instance, a company might choose a marketing
offensive, in which that company focuses on achieving a
stronger competitive advantage in the marketplace.
• Additionally, marketing warfare strategies might include a
deterrence effort to prevent an up-and-comer from entering
the marketplace (thus securing the company’s current
position) or a counter-offensive to current attacks from
another company.
 Market segment
• One way of segmenting such a market is into
large, medium and small customers.
• Information regarding size, growth potential,
level of competitor activity, customer
requirements and key factors for success is
needed is needed to assess the attractiveness of
each segment.
• They even see it through SWOT analysis.
 Core strategy
• Core strategy focuses on how objectives can be
accomplished and consists of three key elements:
target markets, competitor targets and establishing a
competitive advantage
• A central plank of core strategy is the choice of target
market. Marketing is not chasing about any customer
at any price.
• A decision has to be made regarding those groups of
customers (segments) that are attractive to the
business and match its supply capabilities
 Comparing value chains
• A value chain is a set of activities that a firm operating in a
specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable
product (i.e., good and/or service) for the market.
• primary and secondary, are common to most organizations,
individual components of value activities will tend to be
company specific. The basic idea of the value chain concept is
that each activity can be categorized and analyzed with a view
to securing competitive advantage.
• value chains extend outside the organization itself
to include suppliers and distributors. For example, a
supplier through its own quality control activities,
enhance activities of its customers adding value for
its customers.
• It is important to recognize that the value chain is
not a set of independent activities. Each of the
primary and secondary activities is interdependent. .
 Marketing Mix
• Price refers to how much the product is worth. This is a factor of
production costs, competition, consumer demographics, supply
chain, and pricing strategy.
• Promotion refers to the work companies do to make people aware
of the product or service. That might mean advertising, media
coverage, contests, word-of-mouth, direct marketing, social
media campaigns, or other efforts.
• Distribution is the process of making a product or service
available for the consumer or business user who needs it. This
can be done directly by the producer or service provider, or using
indirect channels with distributors or intermediaries.
 Taj Hotels Marketing Mix
• Product: Taj Hotels is one of the leading hotel chain
based out of India consisting of 90+ hotels and resorts
in India and around the world as a part of its
marketing mix product strategy.
• While the brand was mainly into the hotel business, it
forayed into various other areas later.
• The hotels come under three main categories ,
Luxury, Business, and Leisure
• Price: Taj Hotels caters to a group of people who have
refined and luxurious tastes in their travel and business.
These are the premier group of hotels aimed at
providing an unmatched and unique experience to their
guests. They are priced higher than the hotels in the
same category. Taj Hotels are the market leaders in the
sector a
• Their target customers include the upper middle class to
upper-class individuals.
• Place: In India, Taj Hotels are present in many states
like Punjab, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil
Nadu, Goa, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh,
Rajasthan, West Bengal, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, and
Jammu & Kashmir.
• Outside the country, it is present in places like South
Africa, Zambia, Bhutan, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal,
Sri Lanka, Dubai(UAE), UK, and the USA.
• Promotion: Since Taj Hotels are a luxury brand, it
heavily relies on advocacy and also Word of mouth
giving them loyal customers.
• Taj Hotels have a membership for the group of Hotels
and provides promotional offers to their loyal
customers.
• They are also involved in TV advertisements, Direct
Marketing and Social Media advertisements. It also
provides training to individuals who are not well off.
•
 How to assess competitor’s strategies
• Competitive analysis is just a fancy way to describe the
process of checking out what your competitors are doing, or
not doing, and using that information to your advantage.
• Observing your competitors’ marketing strategies is a great
way to measure their strengths and weaknesses and gain
insight into your own.
• The first step into developing a solid competitive analysis
strategy is determining who your main competitors are.
• After you’ve established who they are, you can begin to
monitor and analyze.
Sign up to receive their email or newsletter
• Many companies make it easy for just about
anyone to sign up and receive email newsletters.
• Most link to a signup form on either their website
or Facebook page.
• Receiving emails from your competitors can help
you see things from the perspective of a customer
within your industry.
• You can get a good idea as to the tone of voice,
creative style and offer you want to include in your
email, and which ones you would like to steer clear
of.
• Explore their website – Visit competitors’
websites to see what they’re doing right and what
they may be doing wrong.
• For example, if you’re unable to find certain vital
pieces of information such as contact info, a simple
way to sign up or make a purchase, it may give you
some insight into what you can capitalize on for
your own website.
• Viewing a competitor’s website is also a great
method to get information on new products they’ve
released, positioning, special promotions and
discounts or other strategies you may not have been
aware of.
Like and follow on social networks
• ‘Like’ your competitors on Facebook, connect with
them on LinkedIn and follow them on Twitter.
• Many companies release special promotions on their
social networks, so if you don’t see their pages or
profiles, you won’t be aware of their social media
strategies.
• You can also check out competitors’ social media
networks to see how they position themselves, and how
individuals interact with their brand.
• Again, this gives you insight into what strategies and
ideas are effective and which to avoid.
Give them a call
• This strategy can give you insight into the way your
competitors do business, especially if you and your
competitors sell over the phone.
• You can find out how firm their pricing structure is
and whether or not they throw in incentives in order
to close a sale.
• The best part of this competitive analysis strategy is
that you can basically ask them anything you’d like
to know while you’re on the phone with them.
 Technology strategy
1. Technology selection or specialization
2. Level of competence
3. Sources of capabilities: internal vs. external
4. R&D investment level
5. Competitive timing: initiate vs. respond
6. R&D organization and policies
 Differential advantage analysis
• A useful way to examine competitors capabilities is to
divide the necessary information into five categories
Competitors Abilities
1. To conceive and design
2. To produce
3. To market
4. To finance
5. To manage
 Ability to Conceive and Design
• Management processes
• Technological strategies
• R&D funding
• Human resources
 Ability to Produce
• Physical resources
 Capacity
 Equipment
 Plant
 Processes
• Human Resource
 Workforce
 Key people and skills
• Suppliers
 Commitment
 Capacity
 Quality
 Ability Market
• Sales force
• Advertising
• Human resource
• Service and sales policies
• Funding
• Distribution network
 Ability Finance
• Long-Term
• Short-term
• Liquidity
• Cash flow
• Cost of debt
• Systems (Budgeting Forecasting Controlling)
 Ability Manage
• Key people
• Decision making
• Planning
• Staffing
• Organization
THANK YOU