USE INFORMATION TO DRIVE MARKETING DECISIONS 1
Marketing Management Individual Project: Use Information to Drive
Marketing Decisions
Savannah Schaefer
School of Business, Liberty University
Author Note
Savannah Schaefer
I have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Savannah Schaefer
Email: sschaefer@gmail.com
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Marketing Management Individual Project: Use Information to Drive Marketing Decisions
Q1. Discuss your use of marketing research to gather information on present or potential
customers. Which forms of marketing research would be best in gathering consumer
information relating to the product/service?
When conducting research regarding Liberty Mutual Insurance Group’s present and/or
potential customers, it is important to understand the demographic of customers. Since Liberty
Mutual offers both personal and commercial insurance policies across multiple countries, their
demographics and purpose for using their services can vary greatly. Unlike some companies that
specifically target a certain group of people, in an industry such as insurance where almost every
individual needs at least one type of policy, their marketing is going to be less specialized to a set
of people and more towards a set of needs. Due to this, using descriptive research would be most
beneficial to better understand why someone would be choosing Liberty Mutual over another
corporation rather than understanding the need or desire for their services (Marshall & Johnson,
2019).
Q2. Explain several external forces that affect your marketing planning and strategy.
There may be many external forces that affect Liberty Mutual’s marketing as the market
changes and the thought process behind consumer’s decision in insurance. One large external
factor that can affect sales is that of the economic conditions of the country. While small
economic changes may not affect sales too greatly as most times people are not selling assets in a
time of small economic decline, large and drastic changes may negatively affect sales. If the
country goes into a long term recession that affects the number of assets the average household
or company possesses, there may be less insurance policies causing a decline in sales. Due to this
a marketing department will need to advertise towards the policies people are keeping.
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Additionally, competition will drastically change the way a company may need to market. If
another company is doing well at selling similar products at a lower rate or bringing in more
customers rapidly, this can greatly affect how Liberty Mutual would want to advertise to current
and prospective customers.
Q3. Discuss the aspects of your customer relationship management (CRM) program.
Within customer relationship management (CRM), there are three main objects: customer
acquisition, customer retention, and customer profitability (Marshall & Johnson, 2019). For
Liberty Mutual, it is important not only to acquire new customers but also the ones that will be
most profitable. If a new car insurance policy comes from a customer with many accidents and
tickets, this may not be the most profitable person to insure. Secondly, to be able to retain
customers, it is important for a CRM program to establish good customer relations as give
customers a satisfied experience with agents and pricing. Finally, to have customer profitability a
company must be able to increase customer use and providing products at the right time. For a
company such as Liberty Mutual, simply having a customer may not be enough as people often
have multiple insurance policies. By providing services across many different areas such as
property, auto, renters, and many other types of policies, it can increase profitable as a customer
brings more and more business to the corporation with each asset they possess.
Q4. Explain which consumer characteristics (personal, psychological, cultural, situational,
social) matter most in the purchase decision.
For prospective and current consumers of Liberty Mutual products, there is a vast variety
of characteristics and demographics that will be purchasing their products. Due to the nature of
insurance, almost every adult has at least one insurance policy whether that be home, auto,
property, renters, and many more. Due to the vast variety of personal characteristics of
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consumers, Liberty Mutual must look more closely at psychological attributes as this will be the
deciding factor for consumers to choose their insurance policies over a competitor. The
psychological attributes that may affect consumer choices are motivation, attitude, perception,
learning, and personality (Marshall & Johnson, 2019). One of the strongest motivators for
consumers to choose Liberty Mutual is due to their lower prices in comparison to other large
insurance companies as well as the uniqueness and flexibility of their policies. Consumers will
also be affected largely by their perception of the company. Liberty Mutual is known for their
good reputation and fairness with customers. Due to these factors, Liberty Mutual would and
does very well to focus in on their unique policies and care for their customers.
Q5. Explain how the product/service is positioned in the market. Create a position for the
product/service and explain its rationale.
In the past decade, television and social media advertisements for large insurance
companies have been far more popular and impressionable. Due to this, how an insurance
company positioned themselves in the market will greatly affect their new sales and return
customer rates. For Liberty Mutual, they have positioned themselves to be attractive to the
everyday American as a unique and affordable choice in insurance company. In their current
most popular advertising campaign and slogan, Liberty Mutual makes it a point to show they
believe in “only pay for what you need.” Like many other insurance advertisements, Liberty
Mutual uses humor to help sell their products while also showing that they offer unique and
personalized policies. By positioning themselves in this way, it allows for current and
prospective consumers to feel that they are not overpaying for their products and are being
treated fairly by their insurance company.
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