Social Media Marketing Effort Luxury Brands -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Social Media Marketing Effort Luxury Brands? Answer: Introduction Zappos is a leading shoes and clothing brand with massive online presence. Over 80% of the business is earned from the shoe business. The company was founded in 1999 under the leadership of Tony Hsieh (Bolman Deal, 2017). The brand is well known was its excellent customer service and unique organizational culture. Zappos was acquired by the Amazon Inc. in the year 2009. The companys culture is managed under 10 values which for the core of the Zappos culture. Zappos has worked hard at ensuring the consistency of their culture since inception days (Warrick, 2017). This has in turn led to increased effectiveness of their customer service and satisfaction. This report throws light on the external and internal environment in which the company operates. In order to understand the marketing strategy of any business, it is essential to understand the 7Ps of that firm. The report contains the details of the 7Ps of Zappos as well as the brands image, identity and positioning in the industry. External environment analysis External environment analysis helps in identifying factors that directly or indirectly impact the organization (Makos, 2015). These factors largely determine the ease with which the business can function in the given environmental scenario. Political There are various political factors that affect Zappos. The political state of the country always has a direct impact on the growth and development of businesses in the country. The recent election of Donald Trump and the introduction of new tax policies will directly impact Zappos. Economic Economic stability of any country directly impacts the businesses of that country. At present, the increasing inflation of USA and improving disposable income of people is a boon for Zappos. Social The behavior of people regarding the frequency of buying shoes is improving. The average amount of money that people spend on shoes has also increased. These social changes have proved beneficial for Zappos and have led to their increased sales. Technological The increasing population of internet savvy customers and continuous progression of online shopping among users is a major technological advantage that is positively impacted Zappos sales. There are various laws that Zappos is governed by and it is imperative that the brand abides to these laws. The hacking incident faced by the company resulted in them being charged by various law suits which adversely impacted the companys business and resulted in decreased brand equity. Environmental Consumers today are becoming largely aware about products that are socially accepted and environment friendly. Zappos has effectively tapped upon the changing environment and has been adopting various strategies to suit its current environment. One such example is the introduction of vegan shoes which were introduced by the brand to target its increasing number of vegan consumers. Internal environment analysis SWOT analysis is performed by organization to gauge a better idea about their internal as well as external environment. The strengths and weaknesses focus on the company as a whole and its USPs and areas of improvement. On the other hand, opportunities and threats refer to those existing outside the organization and into the immediate environment. Strengths Brand name: the strong brand name of Zappos is one of its biggest strengths. The name has now become synonymous to excellent customer service and holds a positive brand image in the minds of its consumers (Warrick, Milliman Ferguson, 2016). Organizational culture: Zappos is well known for its organizational culture which is fun and original (Burke, 2016). This has led to increased employee satisfaction and hence larger retention. Customer service: The brand is well known for its excellent customer service provided to all the customers including free returns, quick delivery and efficient after sale service (Henson, 2016). Information technology: Zappos manages its inventory in real time through an effective IT system which is 99% accurate. Social media presence: the brand has a very strong social media presence across various platforms including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Their CEO Tony Hsieh has over 2million followers on twitter. This has led to establishment of a strong brand positioning (Tuten Solomon, 2017). Weaknesses Amazon acquisition: Even though the brand name of Amazon has ensured that the deal is successful and that Zappos can function as an independent identity (Eremina Puhakka, 2017), but such steps adversely impact the brand positioning of the company. No offline presence: the lack of an offline presence marginally shrinks the target market of the brand as there are still many people who are not as technologically averse and hence find it difficult to shop online. Opportunities New product lines: Currently 80% of the Zappos business comes from its shoes. The remaining 20% comes from eye wear, bags and clothing. This evidences the huge dependency of the brand on its shoes business. Therefore introducing new product lines would prove to be fruitful for the company and lead to an enhanced customer base. Expanding geographies: The brand has an excellent opportunity to enhance their geographical boundaries by starting to ship at international locations and enhance customer base. This would lead to higher sales and increased brand awareness. Threats Cybercrime: Increased cybercrime has been posing a major threat to the brand especially after their website got hacked in 2012 which compromised the personal information of 24 million customers. Increasing competition: The online shopping industry is going leaps and bounds by the day. This has led to an increasing direct competition of Zappos. Marketing mix Product part of the marketing mix throws light on the basic offering of the company. 80% of Zappos business comes from shoes and 20% from bags, clothes, eyewear and other accessories. The company offers over 50000 variety of shoes including vegan shoes. The product line of Zappos is long enough to attract a wide target segment. Zappos ensures that the products sold on the website maintain a high quality. The company continues to change and mold its offerings to suit consumer demands. At present Zappos sells its products to United States of America and military APO/FPO addresses. Their international presence is nil and should be worked upon. Since the company is an online store, there are no offline stores of Zappos. Due to the large variety of offerings, Zappos follows a fixed pricing strategy. The products range varies from premium price products to competitively priced products. The brand offers free returns and offers to deliver the products to the customer with no shipping charge. However, people have noticed a slight appreciation in the products pricing in the recent past. Promotion strategies are adopted by companies to reach out to their target customers. Zappos has been promoting its products through advertisements across television, newspapers, billboards and social media platforms. Zappos billboard often contain catchy taglines that grab the onlookers attention. Zappos has been advertising on television and newspapers. Tony Hsieh has always insisted his employees on being active on social media platforms and provide a face to the organization (Hollensen Raman, 2014). People of Zappos includes its employees, customers, investors and all other stakeholders. Employees of Zappos are truly satisfied and the company has maintained an over 70% employee retention. Even when the organization shifted base, over 80% of the employees relocated in order to remain associated with the firm. Zappos also tries to ensure that their customers are truly satisfied. The brand goes an extra mile to fulfill the customer requirements. Process are means adopted by the business to achieve the desired outcome desired by the organization (Wirtz Lovelock, 2016). Zappos is an online platform. The website reflects products that are available with the brand. Once the consumer has made a purchase, Zappos then ships the product to the customer. In order to manage its inventory, Zappos has a highly effective tool which is 90% accurate and helps the firm in effective management of their inventory. Physical evidence The physical evidence for Zappos includes its office space in Nevada and other locations. The warehouse of the brand are also part of their physical evidence. The products delivered to customers as well as billboards placed across the country are physical evidences of the companys presence. Brand identity and image Brand identity of any company or brand stems from the company itself. This includes the core businesses of the brand, various processes they adopt as well as their short term goals and long term missions (Wheeler, 2017). Brand image on the other hand relates to the image that the consumers of the brand have in their minds about the brand. Brand image is the consumer perception and is superficial. While brand identity is the firms reality. Brand Identity of Zappos: The Company is an online platform to buy shoes, bags, clothes and other accessories. The brand has a significant presence in the US. The companys tagline is Delivering happiness. The company has followed a customer centric approach in their product offerings. Zappos offers a wide variety of products to its customers and has also ensured the high quality of its products. These products and their quality also form an important part of Zappos identity along with the effective technology of the business (Kissel Bttgen, 2015). Lastly, the company employees and all other direct and indirect stakeholders collectively form the brand identity for Zappos. Brand image of Zappos: The brand is well known for its large variety of shoes as well as its efficient delivery of products on time. Zappos has a customer centric image and that has led to an increased customer base. The trust and faith that people have shown in the brand owing to its quick delivery of products and effective after sale service have added to the positive image of the brand. Impact of brand identity, brand image and positioning Brand identity refers to the identity of the brand that has been created by the company itself. This includes the companys logo, tagline, product lines, and quality of products, targeted customers, pricing policy, employees and all other stakeholders of the business (Aschauer, 2018). Brand image on the other hand, is ideally created by the companys customers. A good quality of offerings, creative advertisements, impeccable services, timely delivery and a positive vibe of the brand creates its image in the minds of the consumers. Brand identity, image and positioning of any brand directly impacts its performance. The impact of these three aspects on Zappos are as below: Increased customer base One of the primary advantage of a positive brand image is an increased customer base. The word of mouth advertising of Zappos has had a large impact and enhanced the reach of the brand to numerous geographies within the USA (Armstrong, Kotler, Harker Brennan, 2015). An increased customer base in turn enhances further reach of the brand which in turn yields more customers. This circle is the effect of the positive brand image and identity of Zappos. Increased revenue Since the positive image of the brand yields more customers, the revenue of the company automatically enhances. Positive image and the right positioning of Zappos has led to an increasing demand among consumers. The increasing demand of Zappos products leads to higher sales for the brand which in turn leads to enhanced revenues. Acquisition by Amazon Even though getting acquired by another company is not always a profitable venture for a firm, getting acquired by and becoming a part of a brand as large as Amazon Inc. has its own set of advantages. This opportunity has been presented to Zappos only owing to its positive brand image and positioning in the market. Such an acquisition has profited the business and only led to an increased service reach. Loyal employees and customers Zappos is well known for treating its employees well which only adds to the already positive image of the firm. Such a culture and the excellent service offered by the band has yielded them a set of loyal customers. Loyalty in the customer base often results in repeat purchases and hence yearns an enhanced revenue for the business (Aruna Anitha, 2015). Brand equity Brand equity of any company refers to the commercial value of the firm that is driven from its consumers perceptions. Brand equity plays an important role in enhancing customer base and improving sales of any firm (Godey, B., Manthiou, 2016). Zappos has adopted various strategies to effectively build upon its brand equity. These strategies adopted by the brand are as below: Excellence in customer service Customer service offered by Zappos is truly class apart. The brand has been renowned for the timely delivery of its products, free returns and no additional delivery charges. Zappos website it user friendly and delivery executives as well as customer service representatives are polite, helpful and highly trained. This level of customer service has led to increased brand equity of Zappos. The extra effort Zappos has known for putting that extra effort in ensuring customer satisfaction. If the product demanded by any customer is unavailable, the company tries to recommend a similar product from three competitor websites. A few incidents that garnered media attention have also worked in the favor of Zappos brand equity. On one such incident, Zappos sent a flower delivery for a customer who called to return newly bought shoes. The customers husband had recently died and Zappos found it appropriate to send wishes. On another incident, a bunch of friends called the Zappos customer service center to enquire about pizza delivery in the area. The service executives responded within minutes with a list of late night pizza delivery places in the country. Such efforts have by brand have gone a long way in building an impeccable brand equity for the brand. High quality products The quality of Zappos products goes through a strict check and hence the final product received by the consumers is flawless. The CEO in fact wore the same shoes for a span of two years every day to personally demonstrate the excellent quality of Zappos shoes. They have also been working on enhancing their product line with an aim to make Zappos a one stop shop for all consumer needs. This brilliant quality of Zappos products has further added on to their brand equity. Market segmentation and targeting Market segmentation refers to dividing the market into various segments of customers with similar needs and demands. This segmentation can be done on the basis of geography, demography, income group, gender, lifestyle or psychographic preferences (Venter, Wright Dibb, 2015). Once the market has been divided into segments, the businesses, then make a choice about targeting a particular set of people from these segments. This process is better known as customer targeting. Market segmentation and targeting play a vital role in the success of any business. This division and focus allows firms to effectively cater the needs of these customers. Zappos has been clear about its target market since the inception of the business. The various segments into which Zappos has divided its consumers are as below: Geographical segmentation Geographical Zappos is only targeting consumers based out of USA. At the moment they are not exporting their products to international markets and hence the brand is fully capable of fulfilling the needs of US consumers. Demographic segmentation Demographically, the brand targets people belonging to a higher income segment. This is because, Zappos products are premium priced as compared to other brands. This is owing to the company not charging for delivery or return. Women are targeted slightly more than men as a lot of their promotional material is dedicated for women. Behavioral segmentation Due to an absence of any offline store, behaviorally, Zappos targets internet savvy consumers who frequently shop online. Zappos has a wide variety of shoes available. Therefore the target market of the brand is also large. Zappos caters to the needs of a wide audience owing to the availability of products ranging over different behavioral needs. Promotional methods Promotional tools are used by organizations to reach out to their customer segments and to enhance brand awareness among people at large. Recently, businesses have become largely innovative regarding their promotional tactics. Social media especially has become a blessing for brands as it allows them to reach out to a wide customer segment under a single roof at a much lesser price. Selecting the promotional tool is crucial for the success of any business and leads to having a direct impact to its brand equity and image. Promotional tools are ways of positioning the brand in the minds of the consumers. Zappos as well has adopted various strategies to ensure their reach to their customer segments. The four leading platforms used by Zappos to advertise their products are as below: Social media marketing This is a leading promotional tool used today. Social media marketing refers to business promotions conducted on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and recently even Snapchat. Leading brands today have found it imperative to mark their presence significantly on these channels to ensure they can target a wide audience. Any organization which is not present on social media automatically faces a competitive disadvantage. Zappos is widely active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Zappos Social Audit Facebook 2.3 million followers Approximately 1 post every day Instagram 103k followers 1943 posts Twitter 2.82 million followers 15.4k tweets Pinterest 33k followers 73k pins Zappos has been effectively utilizing the social media platform to ensure their higher reach to the consumers. The brand has effectively managed to make social media a two way communication by responding to its consumers as and when possible. The company has also depicted excellent social listening skills. Their consistent awareness about the social image of the brand and their continuous efforts in improving the same have helped the brand gain a large target market and an improved brand equity. Television advertisements Television advertisements are one of the most primary means of advertising used by organizations. Television ads are an efficient way to reach out to a nationwide audience in a span of a few seconds. Zappos also has various television ads mostly attributed to their shoe business. They also have high TOMA score (Top of mind awareness). This is due to the creativity and innovation of their TV ads. These TV ads are also available on YouTube. Television ads must be creatively designed, efficiently timed and effectively placed so as to ensure a higher viewership of the ad. Zappos has successfully accomplished this. Their ads are widely seen and often placed during peak hours at leading channels. This leads to increased brand awareness and hence a wider customer base. Word of mouth publicity Word of mouth publicity or word or mouth advertising is one of the primitive yet highly effective ways of advertising products that are used by leading brands. Word of mouth publicity simply refers to the process within which the consumers of the brand speak well of the brand to others and knowingly or unknowingly influence them into buying the products of the brand. This is one of the most authentic forms of advertising and cannot be bought by the business. The reason behind giving special mention to this form of publicity was the effectiveness and efficiency with which Zappos has gained ground throughout the USA by using this tool. Owing to the excellent customer service and high quality of products offered, Zappos consumers have always been promoting the products to others which has led to an increased customer base for the brand. Zappos has smartly tapped into and put efforts towards fulfilling consumer needs so as to ensure that they spread the word further leading to the brand attracting more customers. Digital marketing Digital marketing is widely used today and refers to companies marketing their products on any digital media platforms. This specially refers to search engine optimization and search engine marketing. Search engine optimization is the ability of a brand to enhance or optimize the brands presence on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing etc. Search engine marketing refers to marketing the product through these search engines. Zappos also has been utilizing digital marketing strategies and targeting potential customers based on their online searches and keyword uses on the internet. Zappos has been able to utilize the cookies stored in peoples computers and target them based on their internet usage history and customized needs. Besides social media marketing, digital marketing, word of mouth publicity and television advertisements, Zappos has also been promoting the brand and its products through various billboards and hoarding spread across the country. Zappos has also used the brand image and equity of various celebrities and associated with them through endorsements. The brand has also indulged actively in affiliate marketing which has yielded positive results for Zappos. Lastly, the organization has been strategically introducing event and occasion based discounts and offers to attract the wider customer segment. The strategies adopted by the brand have been highly effective in ensuring the brand name and image Zappos holds today. Conclusion Zappos is a leading online shoes brand which has now ventured into selling clothes, eye wear, bags and other accessories. Zappos was founded in 1999 and was acquired by Amazon Inc. after a decade of being independently in the business. The brand is renowned for its excellent customer service and wide variety of products available. The information technology of Zappos is also highly effective and 99% accurate leading efficient inventory management. However, it is the organizational culture at Zappos which is its true strength. The employees are motivated to be themselves. The positive work culture is evidenced in their customer service as well as high numbers of employee retention. The brand goes that extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction. These efforts by Zappos have been appreciated across the country and has led to the establishment of a large and loyal customer base. The strong brand identity, image and positioning of Zappos is a source of immense strength for the company. Zappos has competently used social media marketing, television advertisements, affiliate marketing as well as digital marketing to reach out to their consumers. The brand has clearly marked a significant presence in the US markets and is a leading name in the online shopping segment today. References Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015.Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education. Aruna, M. and Anitha, J., 2015. Employee retention enablers: Generation Y employees.SCMS Journal of Indian Management,12(3), p.94. Aschauer, D., 2018. An exploratory study on successful brand positioning of a. Bolman, L.G. and Deal, T.E., 2017.Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. John Wiley Sons. Burke, J.R., 2016. Zappos Company Profile. Eremina, A., Puhakka, V. (2017). Comparison of organizational structurescase Zappos.International Business Management. Godey, B., Manthiou, 2016. Social media marketing efforts of luxury brands: Influence on brand equity and consumer behavior.Journal of business research,69(12), pp.5833-5841. Henson, R., 2016. Building an Organizational Global Mindset Culture: Implications for Practice. InSuccessful Global Leadership(pp. 261-283). Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Hollensen, S. and Raman, A., 2014. Social Media Marketing.Marketing Canada-Journal. Kissel, P. and Bttgen, M., 2015. Using social media to communicate employer brand identity: The impact on corporate image and employer attractiveness.Journal of Brand Management,22(9), pp.755-777. Makos, J., 2015. What is pest analysis and why it's useful.PESTLE Analysis. Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2017.Social media marketing. Sage. Venter, P., Wright, A. and Dibb, S., 2015. Performing market segmentation: a performative perspective.Journal of Marketing Management,31(1-2), pp.62-83. Warrick, D.D., 2017. What leaders need to know about organizational culture?Business Horizons,60(3), pp.395-404. Warrick, D.D., Milliman, J.F. and Ferguson, J.M., 2016. Lessons learned from Zappos on what it takes to build high performance cultures.Organ Dyn. Wheeler, A., 2017.Designing brand identity: An essential guide for the whole branding team. John Wiley Sons. Wirtz, J. and Lovelock, C., 2016. Services marketing.People, technology, strategy. Eighth edition. New Jersey, London, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, Chennai, Tokyo: World Scientific. Google Scholar.