How can a company's marketing organization ensure that it is able to identify newly
emerging competitors in time to plan by doing research. A lot of companies turn to
social media and tv now a days. I am a business owner and I have gone to social
media and have put advertisements out for my company, I own a roadside assistance
company. I know that I have competition out there and so I have to set my rates at
a competing rate so that I will get the business over the other companies that are out
there. Some of my business has been off the advertisements that I have put out but
most of my work is word of mouth and also, I work for insurance companies and
get my calls that way. Word of mouth is big for me, as long as you are going
quality work and have a good attitude and good to customers, they will tell their
friends and family and that is always a plus and help my company grow. I work in
the hospitality industry. Everyone has their own specifics that draw people to each
property. With hotels the biggest marketing strategy as with many other businesses is
price. Entangled in price is rewards. Each hotel has specific rewards design to attract
repeat business with the hopes of getting free nights and free upgrades. I feel that it
is a waiting game. Most of the time a brand will come out with a new marketing
scheme, and then in response to that other brands will come up with something
similar yet slightly better to try and beat the competition without hurting the profit
margin to much.You need someone in your company involved in social media,
someone who is specifically hired and trained to keep tabs on competitors and to let
the upper management know when it is time to change a policy or introduce a new
idea to beat the competition!. A company can ensure that it can identify newly
emerging competitors in time to plan and execute an effective marketing strategy by
leveraging environmental scanning. Companies can conduct an environment scan to
identify trends based on the five environmental forces which include- social,
economic, technological, competition, and regulatory. By identifying trends through an
environmental scan, the connection between the trend and the environmental force can
help get a company's marketing team get in front of its competitors. The example
that I would like to use is the law passes in CA to move to a state of just selling
all electric vehicles. After that law was passed the increase for the auto industry to
offer a form of an electric vehicle has increased. We have seen a huge increase to
go to electric, not just in CA, but across the US. This law set in place a sort of
domino effect in the auto industry, and most cars not being promoted are in fact
electric vehicles. Of course, hybrids and electric offerings were not new to the
industry, there was just a huge push in recent years due to CA regulation. I believe
that the media plays a huge role in marketing nowadays. Companies are constantly
paying attention to what goes on social media and tv. I remember it was around the
time of the Winter Olympics (can’t remember the year) Verizon put out a
commercial centered around the Olympics. It was these two skaters; a blue one which
represented AT&T, and a red one which represented Verizon. The two skaters were
speed skating and the skater that represented Verizon was faster while the at&t skater
fell behind. I feel like Verizon did this because they knew a lot of people would be
watching the Olympics and if they did a commercial centered around one of the
sports, they knew that it would catch a lot of people’s attitude. For this reason,
bigger companies with competitors have to stay on top of the media, otherwise their
sales will go down along with their stock value. This is my first marketing class so I
am solely going off what little background I have from communication classes prior
to this one. a company's marketing organization can come up with strategies in
response to competitors by watching the market and now at least, checking social
media. There's so much information that is transacted on, shared and spread through
social media any marketing firm worth its chops would have to take advantage of it.
For example we have the few commercials between Apple and Samsung coming to
blows and taking jabs at each other. Spoofing the competition's own commercials is
also a good way to call attention to the competition and what your product can do
much, much better. There is a certain more recent example that comes to mind. With
GMC releasing their Hummer EV soon, built into the car itself on the info-tainment
system, they have pictures of the car showing the Hummer climbing over, crushing,
and out speeding and doing donuts in the face of other EV trucks when selecting
modes. These kinds of playful jabs and Easter eggs hidden within a product are
genius especially in today's climate where everyone wants to over analyze and find
stuff like this. The best way for a company to identify newly emerging competitors
is by conducting environmental scanning. Environmental scanning shows organizations
information both inside and outside of their own and identify trends that may affect
long-term viability of the organization. One example of competitors would be the car
industry. There are so many car manufacturers all over the world who create cars.
Nissan and Ford for example are both competitors of each other because they both
produce the same product with only some slight varying differences. Same situation
for makeup brands, smart phones and so much more. Via conducting environmental
scanning, a company's marketing department can identify newly emerging competitors
in time to plan and execute an effective market strategy in response. Environmental
scanning allows organizations to acquire information happening outside of the
organization and identify trends. There are five environmental trends that a company
can monitor with competitive sources being one of those trends. Competition refers to
different companies who produce and sell a product or service that meets the needs
of a specific market. There are several different forms of competition, all of which
are important and should be considered when a company creates its marketing
strategy. Barriers to entry, power of buyers and sellers, and existing competitors and
substitutes all must be evaluated. One example is the smartphone industry. There are
manufacturers all over the world who produce smartphones, with Apple and Samsung
reigning at the top of the list. These two companies are constantly coming out with
new smartphones that tout the latest and greatest features. In order to have an edge
in this market, the two companies need to monitor their competition. They need to
see what one another is producing and offering, in addition to keeping an eye on any
new competitors who want to enter this market with a product even more appealing
to the consumers in this market. A company's marketing organization can ensure that
it is able to identify newly emerging competitors in time to plan and execute an
effective marketing strategy in response to competitors is by doing market research.
Look at the market for your product and evaluate which other companies are selling
a product that could compete with yours. You could talk with your sales team to
find out which competitors do they see come up often in their sales process. You
can check on social media because in this day and age a lot of customers look to
social media for references or products they are seeking. You can investigate the
conversations your customers are having on on websites to identify your competitors.
For example, when a customer leave a review on your product it can be either
negative feedback or positive feedback. That is a conversation you could pay
attention to because sometimes in a negative feedback they may compare your
product to another product that they may believe is better and that can help you
identify competitors as well. Social media is such a both positive and negative impact
on companies. I do agree that it can help a company figure out who their
competitors are and to see what they are up against. Commercials now seem to show
companies taking jabs at one another more than they have in the past. Apple and
Samsung are one of the most competing companies and it has been this way for
quite a while now.
