question 8

Caesars Entertainment Corporation

Steven

Columbia Southern University

2016-07-06

E- Marketing strategic plan and situational analysis for Caesars Entertainment Corporation

Formerly known as, Harrah’s Entertainment, Caesars Entertainment Corporation has been actively involved in gaming and gambling industry. It currently has over fifty hotels and casinos. In addition, the corporation boosts valuable golf courses with several names and brands.

External environmental analysis

External analysis, also called PESTLE includes; political, economic, sociological, technological, legal and environmental analysis. Caesars Corporation has both internal and external politics (Gondra, 2016). Internal politics such as personal interests, inability to have cohesive team projects have seen ineffectiveness in communication and leadership in the firm since 2010. However, external politics such as trade restrictions and employment laws in the gambling industry has reduced the firm’s ability to expand.

In 2014, the firm registered significant improvements in revenues due to better trade tariffs and political stability in its markets. The economic environment factors involve issue such as wage rates, cost of living, interest rates and financing availability. The 2008-2009 global recession is one of the economic factors which affected the firm. Sociological factors such as corporate social responsibility has strengthened the firm.

The firm has improved its technologies, for example, the implementation of CRM technology in maintaining its customers and improved communication on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and other platforms (Gondra, 2016).Environmentally, Caesars has been affected by bad weathers which inhibit booking of hotels and vacation rooms. Further, natural calamities affect its business operations in the firm.

E-marketing strategic plan

The e-marketing strategic plan is based on four pillars; segmentation, targeting, differentiation and positioning. Segmenting the markets includes the significant characteristic of each market segment. For instance, the market could be segmented according to demographics, purchasing patterns and customer behaviour. Caesars can invest a lot of money in online advertising through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to the youth since they are frequent users of such platforms (Sweeney, MacLellan, & Dorey, 2015). E-market targeting, includes factors such as criteria size, accessibility of the market, money, difference between the segments and focus should be put on the different benefits since different segments must require different benefits. Positioning is the last step of STP. Positioning indicates the opportunities of the product or service in the market.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths · Strong corporate social responsibility · Trusted and reliable vendors, suppliers or distributors. · Sound, able and solid leadership both horizontally and vertically. · Steady financial performance.	Weaknesses · Debt reconstruction amounting to 23 billion dollars over the past years, weakening its financial base. · Work inefficiencies in operations management. · Weaker financial performance in some United States markets such as Las Vegas. · Communication ineffectiveness and inefficiencies especially in management.
Opportunities · Huge online market presence, and expansion of its markets. · Improved creativity and innovation in customer and asset management. · New and technology in advertisements and customer feedback sourcing (Fine, 2009). · Creation and development of new products and services.	Threats · Intense competition both from new entrants and old industry players. · Volatility in the economy and currencies, for instance the 2008-2009 recession (Fine, 2009). · Insecurity scares aware tourists from casinos and hotels. · Higher interest rates in bank loans increasing cost of doing business.

The importance of customer relationship management

The success of the corporation depends on its ability to nurture and manage the relationship it has with its clients and customers. Customer relationship management is a strategic tool for developing stronger relationships with customers by providing them with an avenue or platform through which they can access their individual behaviours and needs (Sweeney, MacLellan, & Dorey, 2015). CRM is therefore a business philosophy which depends hugely on the application of technology. CRM enables the corporation to effectively and efficiently manage its customers and provide them with the best services they may need.

CRM is an inexpensive way of mapping out the progression of the corporation’s relationship with its clients through the nurturing and meeting process. CRM offers to its users a segmentation feature which is able to make the specifications according to different fields which is very useful in comparing the performance of different business units (Sweeney, MacLellan, & Dorey, 2015). Lastly, CRM can be used in understanding the information about particular clients or customers allowing their full position.

References

Fine, L. G. (2009). The SWOT analysis: Using your strength to overcome weaknesses, using opportunities to overcome threats. S.l.: Kick It.

Gondra, A. (2016). Head external analysis, head raising analysis or matching analysis? Let's ask experimental syntax. Lingua.

Sweeney, S., MacLellan, A., & Dorey, E. (2015). 3G Marketing on the Internet: Third-Generation Internet Marketing Strategies for Online Success (Vol. 1). Marketing Publications.