Many people often hear the word
marketing
when it comes to doing business. To put it simply, marketing is “creating a system that will sell.” This article provides an overview of marketing and explains companies that have succeeded in marketing.
What exactly is marketing?
Marketing has many different definitions. Broadly defined, marketing is “all the activities a company undertakes to satisfy customer needs.” In order to sell a product or service, you need to think about how to provide it. In order to sell products and services efficiently, it is necessary to accurately approach and communicate to the consumer group.
Therefore, by approaching them, it is possible to acquire customers and increase sales. Also, when actually doing marketing, you need to think about your target. Each customer has different
needs
, so by narrowing down your customers and clarifying their needs, you can clarify your strategy. When deciding which customers to target, perform “
segmentation
” and “
targeting
.”
Segmentation is the process of understanding the market structure by dividing the market (=customers) into smaller segments. Evaluation axes for segmentation include industry type, business type, sales scale, region, age, hobbies, and past behavior data.
On the other hand, targeting means deciding on a segmented market as a target. When conducting targeting, it is important to consider such things as “the needs of the market can be felt urgently as one’s own issues,” “the company can make use of its strengths,” and “the company can maintain a clear advantage compared to its competitors.” .
Additionally, there are roughly two types of marketing: regular marketing and web marketing. Here, we will explain the difference between marketing and web marketing.
What is marketing?
Introduction Marketing includes market research and analysis to explore customer needs, product planning, development, advertising activities, promotions, etc. Nowadays, marketing itself is often thought of as ”
digital marketing
.” Digital marketing refers to marketing that broadly utilizes various
IT
technologies. Relationships with customers will become closer through the accumulation of behavior history on smartphones, apps, etc., and data collection through IoT products.
Difference from web marketing
Web marketing
is a method of “efficiently selling” your own content on the Web. Therefore, it is important to understand that by responding to user needs on the web, you can work to spread content.
Basically, it is characterized by effective marketing through the use of SNS such as blogs,
homepages
, and online advertisements. The difference from regular marketing is that everything from marketing measures to results is completed online, which has the advantage of keeping overall costs low.
In addition to BtoC, there are also increasing opportunities for BtoB marketing to be conducted via the web, so web marketing is the mainstream these days. Please also refer to the following materials, which explain web marketing in detail.
Related materials:
What is marketing strategy?
Marketing strategy refers to sales promotion activities that are carried out after clarifying “what to deliver to whom”. It indicates the direction for an organization to increase its performance and profits, and it refers to thinking about how to achieve what is good and desirable for the organization. When planning a marketing strategy, you can implement effective marketing measures by performing segmentation, which subdivides the market and extracts needs, targeting, which determines targets from the market, and positioning, which determines your company’s position within the segment. You can hit it.
Importance of marketing strategy
Marketing strategies, such as “increasing the number of prospective customers” and “connecting prospective customers to sales results,” are important for growing your business and demonstrating competitiveness in the market.
For example, when using web media for specific measures,
-
Optimize the structure of web media to increase potential customers, enrich content, implement
SEO
measures such as smartphone measures, and use operational advertising such as listing advertisements,
retargeting
advertisements, and SNS advertisements.
- Accurate approach to prospective customers and continuous communication to connect prospective customers to sales results
Possible measures include:
Marketing strategy steps
mentioned earlier
- segmentation
- targeting
- positioning
is very important.
segmentation
Segmentation is the rough classification of markets based on specific criteria when selling products. The conditions mainly used in segmentation are as follows.
- age
- Household annual income
- Area of residence
Note that performing segmentation is called “segmenting” or “segmenting.”
targeting
Targeting is the process of deciding in more detail who to sell products and services to within a segmented market. For example, after segmenting based on the three attributes mentioned above, you can create a target such as “late 20s, annual household income of 6 million yen, living in Tokyo’s 23 wards.” This will make it clear what kind of customer you should appeal to. As a result, effective marketing measures can be implemented.
positioning
Positioning means clarifying the position of your product in the overall market. When deciding on positioning, make sure it is appropriate for the targets determined in the targeting process mentioned above.
It is important to differentiate your products based on your target’s purchasing intentions, psychology, and the situation of your competitors.
Related materials:
Useful frameworks
A framework
is a framework that can be commonly used for decision making, analysis, problem solving, etc. By applying it to a framework, it is easy to find the optimal solution when identifying issues and making decisions.
The seven typical marketing methods are:
- STP strategy
- 3C analysis
- five force analysis
- SWOT analysis
- PEST analysis
- value chain analysis
- 4P analysis
I will explain each in turn.
STP strategy
STP strategy
is
a framework
for considering sales promotion strategies for your own products from the three perspectives of segmentation, targeting, and positioning mentioned above.
By performing these analyzes from a customer’s perspective, you can not only create an appropriate product promotion strategy, but also clarify the points of differentiation from your competitors.
STP strategy is very important in
persona
setting, which is important for the entire marketing strategy, so when thinking about marketing strategy, first consider the STP strategy.
3C analysis
3C analysis
refers to strategic planning by analyzing the following three things from a third-party perspective.
- Customer
- Company
- Competition
By performing the above three analyses, you will be able to clarify the reasons why your products are selling or not.
3C analysis allows you to analyze the internal and external environments at the same time. This makes it possible to create and implement effective marketing strategies.
Related materials:
five force analysis
Five forces analysis
is an analysis method that identifies five factors and clarifies the barriers to selling your own products.
- New entrants
- buyer
- seller
- replacement product
- existing competitors
Check whether your product has a competitive advantage by performing the five analyzes above. Then, based on the results of the STP strategy and 3C analysis, you can plan and execute appropriate marketing measures to efficiently promote your products.
SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis
is the analysis of internal and external factors surrounding a company’s products. A SWOT analysis clarifies the following four elements:
- Strength
- Weakness
- Opportunity
- Threat
After conducting these analyses, it is important to take into account both the internal and external environments and take appropriate marketing measures.
The process of combining internal and external environments to identify the position of your company’s products and areas for improvement is also called a ”
cross SWOT analysis
.”
Related materials:
PEST analysis
PEST analysis
is the analysis of the macro environment in which a company’s products are sold based on the following four factors.
- Politics
- Economy
- Society
- Technology
By performing PEST analysis, you can understand the macro environment and clarify what is beyond your control. This allows for more efficient 3C analysis and SWOT analysis.
Related materials:
value chain analysis
Value chain analysis is the analysis of how much value is added to a product from its production to the time it reaches the consumer.
Many people and companies intervene before a product reaches the consumer. By checking how much value is added in which process, you can clarify the strengths and weaknesses of your product.
Additionally, by conducting value chain analysis, it becomes clear which processes should be invested with resources such as personnel and budget when formulating a marketing strategy.
In other words, value chain analysis is extremely useful for efficiently allocating resources.
4P analysis (marketing mix)
4P analysis is a framework used to consider “what,” “how much,” “where,” and “how” to sell, and is also called
the marketing mix
. In 4P analysis, the four elements analyzed are:
- Product: What kind of product do you offer?
- Price: At what price will you sell it?
- Place: How will the product be delivered to the consumer?
- Promotion: What methods will you use to get consumers to buy?
In fact, when considering marketing measures to sell products, we perform a 4P analysis. By performing 4P analysis after performing STP analysis and 3C analysis, marketing measures can be made more specific.
8 corporate marketing success stories
Here, we will introduce eight examples of companies with successful marketing.
- Procter & Gamble (P&G)
- Uniqlo Co., Ltd.
- SmartHR Co., Ltd.
- Classicom Co., Ltd.
- starbucks coffee
- Sansan Co., Ltd.
- Tsuchiya Bag Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
- Salesforce Japan Co., Ltd.
I will introduce each one in turn.
Procter & Gamble (P&G)
P&G
is an abbreviation of the company name Procter & Gamble. Although P&G is a major company, many people may not remember the products that P&G sells. Examples include Pampers disposable diapers, Ariel laundry detergent, Lenor fabric softener, Pantene and h&S shampoos, Febreze disinfectant products, and BRAUN electric shavers.
P&G’s basic philosophy is “Consumer is Boss.” Consumer means consumer. P&G employees’ bosses represent the values of being consumers, not bosses or shareholders. In other words, when selling a product, it should be understood that the focus is on the consumer’s psychology.
One of P&G’s success stories is that the failure of low-priced Pampers led to the success of high-priced Pampers. The reason for the failure was that we did not actively advertise, and because we changed the color of the package, it was not recognized.
By changing the price from low-priced to high-priced Pampers, it can be said that more people bought Pampers because they felt a sense of security and safety. In other words, marketing is successful by understanding the psychology of consumers.
Uniqlo Co., Ltd.
Uniqlo
, a casual wear brand with global expansion, has one successful example of successful marketing using O2O. O2O is an abbreviation for “Online to Offline” and is a marketing strategy that connects and guides customers who have contact online to offline stores.
As the usage rate of social networking services (SNS) continues to increase in recent years, many of the places where companies and consumers have “contact” are now on the web. Therefore, strategies such as O2O are aimed at attracting online users to offline stores, such as issuing coupons and preparing gifts.
UNIQLO’s O2O uses app advertising to distribute coupons exclusively to members. Therefore, if you display a coupon when paying at a store, you can purchase products at a special price.
In addition, when a customer scans a special barcode, they are connected to an online app where they can read product reviews, an “omnichannel” strategy. This is a success story of attracting customers online while also working offline.
SmartHR Co., Ltd.
”
SmartHR
” is a cloud human resources and labor management software company that has won the No. 1 share in the labor management cloud for four consecutive years. We make various labor procedures such as employment contracts, joining procedures, and year-end adjustments paperless and accumulate data.
SmartHR’s marketing organization focuses on gaining “awareness and interest” from service planning and development to support, and in order to improve awareness, we place importance on the following activities.
- Always send information on small updates
- Opportunities for presentations, appearances, and interviews will be accommodated as much as possible.
- Actively participates in pitch events
-
Hosting events to spread and educate HR technology and BtoB
SaaS
SmartHR led to final results by measuring honest communication with all external stakeholders based on the company’s vision and mission.
Classicom Co., Ltd.
Classicom Co.
, Ltd. is a company that develops businesses related to life culture, such as producing and distributing columns and videos related to daily life, as well as providing marketing support to companies. Classiccom has a successful example of conducting ”
content marketing
“.
Content marketing is a set of marketing methods that aims to nurture the needs of potential customers through the continuous dissemination of content that is valuable to readers, and ultimately to convert them into fans.
Classicom’s homepage displays content such as “Shopping”, “Reading Materials”, and “SPONSORED” that allow visitors to understand the content at a glance, without having to open the article. Therefore, the UI prioritizes the user and fosters user trust through careful consideration.
Related article:
“Content marketing” is once again attracting attention as sales and marketing go online. Four common characteristics of companies that produce results (WACUL survey)
starbucks coffee
The famous coffee shop
Starbucks Coffee
uses a marketing method called “Marketing Mix (4P)” as a success story. The marketing mix (4P) is a method and process for combining and implementing the typical elements of the framework: “product, price, distribution, and sales promotion.”
“Product” refers to the value of your company’s services and products, and it is important to differentiate yourself from other companies in terms of quality and functionality. Next, “Price” is a setting that takes into account cost and profit.
“Place” refers to the channels (sales channels) used to reach users and their efficiency. Finally, “Promotion (advertisement)” is a means of appealing to acquire users. It can be said that Starbucks achieved success by successfully combining the 4P elements to achieve corporate growth.
Sansan Co., Ltd.
Sansan
is a company founded in 2007 by Mr. Terada, formerly of Mitsui & Co., and its main business since its founding has been the provision of business card management software services.
The company’s philosophy is that “Our mission is to help companies improve their productivity and evolve their activities by focusing on business encounters that occur through the exchange of business cards,” and the company focuses on community marketing. It will be the company you chose. The main marketing methods are:
- Community marketing success story in BtoB SaaS
- Prerequisites for starting community marketing
- Community marketing practice analysis
- Community marketing example at “Sansan”
Sansan gradually increased its points of contact with customers by selecting keywords according to the customer’s usage and placing advertisements. Therefore, we succeeded in community marketing in BtoB SaaS.
Tsuchiya Bag Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
Tsuchiya Kaban Seisakusho
is a manufacturer that engages in “content marketing” and produces and sells high-quality leather products.
Content marketing is a marketing method that involves creating and distributing content that is valuable to customers in order to encourage them to make a purchase. The company aims to contribute to profits over the medium to long term by distributing content and acquiring its own fans.
One of the characteristics of Tsuchiya Bag Manufacturing is that they create content that showcases the high quality of their products as if they were works of art. In other words, they have gained fans through the high level of creativity in their photos and web pages.
Salesforce Japan Co., Ltd.
Salesforce.com, Inc.
is a company with the top market share in the world, providing customer management
CRM
platforms and other services. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, and has offices in six cities in Japan, including Tokyo. Salesforce operates the Salesforce Blog,
an owned media that
disseminates content useful for business, and has achieved lead acquisition. Therefore, the company primarily uses content marketing.
It is also worth noting that the quality of the downloaded materials is high, so they are of high value to users. Please note the following points.
- We stock a wide range of downloadable materials tailored to your needs to acquire leads.
- Both article content and downloaded materials are high quality.
- Creating materials that never make users feel like they have lost money by registering their personal information
What are the key points to keep in mind for marketing success?
Here, we will explain the key points to keep in mind for marketing success. In conclusion, the points are as follows.
- Determine the target of your service
- Organize your external and internal environment using a framework
- Set appropriate goals (KGI, KPI) and review
- Continuing to improve while implementing the PDCA cycle etc.
I will explain each in turn.
Determine the target of your service
We set product targets based on the results of market research. When targeting, market segmentation is often used to divide the market into customer groups with similar attributes, behavioral characteristics, psychological characteristics, etc.
Therefore, if you segment the market, you can develop strategies that address common needs within the group. In addition, by identifying specific targets within a segmented market, the most effective approach can be taken.
Set appropriate goals (KGI, KPI) and review
Setting appropriate goals is most important when it comes to web marketing measures. Set your goals in two parts: KGI and KPI. This is because by determining the final goal and interim performance evaluations, the steps can be made clearer.
KGI is an abbreviation for “Key Goal Indicator” and is translated as “Key Goal Indicator”. For example, if the management issue is “sluggish sales,” set a specific value for KGI such as “sales 160% compared to the previous year.”
On the other hand, KPI is an abbreviation for “Key Performance Indicator”, which is translated as “Key Performance Indicator”. In other words, when clearing the final goal, it is an indicator that measures how much you have achieved the smaller goals. For example, set a specific KPI such as “Acquire 75 new members every week to achieve a KGI of 160% sales.”
Continuing to improve while implementing the PDCA cycle etc.
The final point is to continue making improvements while implementing the PDCA cycle. PDCA is an abbreviation made up of the following initials:
- Plan: Plan
- Do: Execute
- Check: Evaluation
- Action: Improvement
PDCA is a framework for improving work content and efficiency, and increasing productivity. Therefore, work and verification are performed in the order of “P → D → C → A”, and when the process is completed up to “A”, return to “P” again. By performing PDCA over a long period of time, your goals and tasks will become clearer, which will bring you much closer to achieving your goals.
summary
In this article, we provided an overview of marketing and explained various methods. In conclusion, the following actions are important for marketing success:
- Determine the target of your service
- Organize your external and internal environment using a framework
- Set appropriate goals (KGI, KPI) and review
- Continuing to improve while implementing the PDCA cycle etc.
Furthermore, there are specific measures and strategies for marketing methods. The following materials explain effective marketing such as webinars, so please refer to them in conjunction with this article.