subject: Developing marketing strategies and plans [print this page] Connecting with customers Connecting with customers
Atlas must consider how to best create value for its chosen target markets and develop strong, profitable, long-term relationships with customers. To do so, Atlas needs to understand consumer markets. How many house holds plan to buy cameras? Who buys and why do they buy? What are they looking for in the way of features and prices? Where do they shop? What are their images: different brands? How does the digital segment differ from the 35 mm segment? Atlas also sells cameras to business markets, including large corporations, professional firms, retailers, and government agencies. Purchasing agents or buying committees make the decisions. Atlas needs to gain a full understanding of how organizational buyers buy. It needs a sales force that is well trained in presenting product benefits.
Atlas will not want to market to all possible customers. Modern marketing practice calls for dividing the market into major market segments, evaluating each segment, and targeting those market segments that the company can best serve.
BUILDING STRONG BRANDS
Atlas must understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Zeus brand with customers. Is it so strongly associated with certain technologies that it could not be used to brand new products in related categories? Is its 35 mm film heritage a detriment in the digital camera market? Suppose Atlas decides to focus on the consumer market and develop a positioning strategy. Should Atlas position its cameras as the "Cadillac" brand, offering superior cameras at a premium price with excellent service and strong advertising? Should it build a simple, low-priced camera aimed at more price-conscious consumers? Should it develop a medium-quality, medium priced camera? After launch the product's strategy will need modification at the different stages in the product life cycle: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Furthermore, strategy choice will depend on whether the firm is a market leader, challenger or follower. Atlas must also pay close attention to competitors, anticipating its competitors' moves and knowing how to react quickly and decisively. It may want to initiate some surprise moves, in which case it needs to anticipate how its competitors will respond.
