I need a discussion done and a respose to 2 other classmates for my Marketing in Global Environment

JWI518_WK5_LectureNotes_1204.pdf

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JWI 518: Marketing in a Global Environment Week 5 Lecture Notes

© Strayer University. All Rights Reserved. This document contains Strayer University confidential and proprietary information and may not be copied, further distributed, or otherwise disclosed, in whole or in part, without the expressed written permission of Strayer University. JWI 518 – Lecture Notes (1204) Page 1 of 6

The Buyer Journey What It Means Smart marketers strive to understand their buyers’ decision-making processes. Most buyers move through a process of learning about products, researching them, evaluating alternatives, and making their final decision. The term AIDA is an acronym that marketers have long used to describe the buyer journey:

§ Attention – The consumer becomes aware of products and services that can potentially meet their needs, often through advertising

§ Interest – The consumer becomes interested in the brand and researches to learn more

§ Desire – The consumer narrows down their alternatives and develops a favorable disposition towards a particular brand

§ Action – The consumer acts and ultimately makes a purchase In today’s digital environment, while the buyer journey includes similar stages, it has been changed in some significant ways by the online environment and the power of social media. Why It Matters

• In today’s digital environment, much of the buyer’s journey takes place online

• Effective marketing messages are tailored for different stages of the buyer journey

• Understanding the buyer journey helps marketers create compelling online content for their target customers

“Companies should map the customer path to purchase, understand customer touchpoints

across the path, and intervene in select touchpoints that matter.” Kotler, Kartajaya & Setiawan

JWI 518: Marketing in a Global Environment Week 5 Lecture Notes

The Digital Buyer’s Journey A New Customer Path In the digital environment of today, where the consumer is king and where referrals and recommendations are critical, a new customer path is warranted. According to Kotler et al., in Marketing 4.0, to succeed in the online environment, marketers must “focus their efforts – intensifying communications, strengthening channel presence, and improving customer interface – to improve critical touchpoints as well as to introduce strong differentiation.” Kotler sees a solid understanding of the buyer journey or customer path as an essential prerequisite for companies striving to design effective marketing materials that will resonate with digital customers and establish their brand online.

To understand and map the new customer path, Kotler proposes a new model, which he calls the Five A’s: Aware, Appeal, Ask, Act, and Advocate. The Five A’s Framework The Five A’s framework is a new model for the customer path, developed by Kotler et al. during their examination of the digital marketplace in Marketing 4.0. This model represents the phases that a digital customer goes through on their path from discovery of a new brand, to purchasing the item, to becoming a supporter and advocate for the brand. The five phases or steps of this customer pathway are explained below.

Aware Digital customers are exposed to information about a wide range of brands through marketing communications in the media and online, as well as via the advocacy of other consumers. Recommendations from other customers are the most powerful element of this initial introduction to new brands. Appeal Some brands attract customers and pique their interest to the point where they seek out more information. This engagement is reinforced by ads and messages that are memorable and succinct, as well as alignment of the brand with customer values and beliefs.

JWI 518: Marketing in a Global Environment Week 5 Lecture Notes

Ask Customers use their online connectivity to seek out the opinions of people in their circle of influence. This includes people they trust, including family, friends, and members of the online communities to which they belong. If they receive positive feedback from these sources, they will proceed to engage more with brand. Act Consumers now engage with the brand by purchasing products or services, requesting post-purchase services, and interacting with the company’s customer service function to resolve problems or answer inquiries. Ideally, they also become repeat buyers. Advocate If the consumer experience remains positive throughout their interactions with the company, they may develop a brand loyalty that, in time, leads them to become advocates. In addition to continuing to purchase the brand, when prompted by questions from their own online connections, they are willing to endorse and recommend the brand.

From Awareness to Advocacy: The O Zone As our examination of the new customer path has shown, consumers today have a much more active role in the marketing process than they did in the past. To succeed in promotion of their brands, marketing professionals and organizational leaders must have a good understanding of the motivations that drive consumer behavior in the digital environment. This leads us to consider more closely how the influences on prospective customers have changed as a result of online connectivity and consumer activism. According to Kotler et al., “the ultimate goal of Marketing 4.0 is to drive customers from awareness to advocacy.” This goal is achieved through three major sources of influence that modern marketers have at their disposal: their own influence, others’ influence, and outer influence. Kotler calls this new structure of marketing influences the O Zone. The three types of influence affecting consumers that constitute the O Zone are explained below.

Outer Influence This influence comes from multiple external sources, including advertising, sales outreach, and customer service interactions with current buyers. From the marketer’s point of view, this type of influence is still within their control, in that the company can

JWI 518: Marketing in a Global Environment Week 5 Lecture Notes

plan the messages to be sent, the media used for these communications, and the frequency of contact with consumers. Others’ Influence This influence comes from a source that is external, both to the consumer and to the company or brand. It comes from a close circle of friends and family and it also comes from online communities and social networks. Another source of this type of influence is communal rating websites, such as Yelp. Companies have little control over this type of influence, but they can have an impact on the conversation through their community marketing. To succeed in this influence zone, companies need advocates to promote their brands across the web of connections that makes up the digital marketplace. Own Influence This influence comes from within the consumer’s own self. It is affected by past experiences with the brand and its competitors, personal needs and desires that affect their evaluation of the brand, and individual preferences that are rooted in the individual’s worldview. The company cannot directly affect this type of influence, but they must work to affect it indirectly via the other two zones of influence, since those zones are the ones where they do have some degree of control.

Kotler et al. suggest that this model of the O Zone sources of influence can be a useful tool for marketers, helping them to work out effective strategies for successful outreach in today’s complex digital environment. The O Zone model of sources of influence can be related to the Five A’s model of the customer path, since there two steps on the pathway where consumers are most open to influence: the Ask and Act steps. Based on this connection, Kotler et al. conclude that those marketers who offer the best customer experiences during the phase where customers explore, purchase and make use of their brand will gain the most advocates. Thus, those brands will become the preferred or winning provider in that sector of the market. Personas As marketing campaigns become increasingly digitized, opportunities for human connection and interaction in the real world during brand discovery are reduced. Customers generally desire and feel a need for human connection and understanding, but this factor can easily be overlooked when the contact between marketer and prospective customer takes place online.

JWI 518: Marketing in a Global Environment Week 5 Lecture Notes

Lacking a solid connection, consumers in the digital environment may come to feel wary of marketing schemes and they may experience the hype about online brands as intimidating. As consumers are expecting more personalized products and services, knowing your target customers has become even more important. In digital marketing, marketers use personas to define their target audience segments. Simply put, marketing personas are characters designed to represent customer segments within your target audience. Examples of three very different personas are:

• Jill is an entrepreneur who is not afraid to take risks. She works around the clock to ensure her business is successful. She likes to be on the cutting edge of technology.

• John is a stay-at-home Dad who likes to work out every day. He puts his family’s needs

first and is always looking for ways to save money.

• Jackie is a millennial who likes to keep up with fashion and the latest trends. She recently graduated from grad school and she is just starting out in her career.

The messages that you would create to sell a product, such as a car, would be very different for each one of these three personas. Marketers reap great benefits from studying their target audience in depth; one way that they can express the results of their research is by describing these personas that represent significant customer segments interested in their brand. Content Marketing Once marketers create personas and know the key attributes of their target audience segments, they can start creating compelling content that will resonate with those consumers. Knowing your audience can drive the tone, style and language of your content, so that your consumers can emotionally relate to your brand. Different content and promotions will appeal to different audience segments. ‘Jane the Mom’, who is interested most in safety and reliability, will be attracted to a very different kind of content than ‘Jack the Daredevil’, who thrives on speed and adrenaline. Content will also vary across the different stages of the buyer journey. When customers are first identifying that they have a problem, it is best to create content that will make them aware of your product and help educate them. As the customer moves through the buying process, marketers need to create material that differentiates their product or service from the

JWI 518: Marketing in a Global Environment Week 5 Lecture Notes

competition, to encourage buyers to select their brand. As the consumer moves closer to the decision stages, marketers should provide compelling content that helps drive the decision, such as sales and promotional material. In a similar way, after the purchase, marketers will create content to engage with their customers, to keep them happy and loyal, and to encourage them to become brand advocates. B2B Marketing Business to Business marketing also uses personas and content marketing. Personas are often defined with the titles of the customer and the role they play in the company. Content that B2B brands would create for ‘Sally the Chief Information Officer (CIO)’ might focus on thought leadership on trends in their industry, while content designed for ‘Harry the Project Manager’ may focus more on the nuts and bolts of your services. As we have learned, in digital marketing, references and recommendations are compelling forms of marketing. This is also the case in B2B marketing as well. Frequently, case studies are created and posted on a company’s website to demonstrate their brand’s capabilities by showing how they have solved other companies’ problems. Looking Ahead In this lecture, we reviewed the buyer journey and the implications of the online business environment for marketers. We learned about a new model, the Five A’s digital customer pathway, and explored the progression through the five steps of the model. We also examined a new theory about how marketers influence customer opinions and behavior, called the O Zone. We discussed how marketers use personas to better understand their buyers’ behavior and how they create content to provide personalized experiences that resonate with those customers. In the next lecture, we will look at the need for new metrics to measure the success of marketing campaigns in the digital environment. We will compare the new metrics, focused on digital marketing activities, with traditional marketing metrics. In addition, we will examine how marketers collect data and analyze it to evaluate the Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) and report progress to stakeholders within and outside of their company.