Essential Marketing Strategies for Retail Marketing Coordinators

 High-growth companies usually have a pretty clear idea of who they serve and how they as a company can and will serve those customers better than the competition. Also, their customers have a solid positive ‘brand’ image for the retailer based on a combination of their experiences, and even the employees are able to express what makes their employer different and their own role in that result. While this may either seem obvious or the importance of it overstated, it is one of the most basic elements of success. The companies 

that grew had a plan in mind as to where they were headed and why, and built their actions around that. There are several key concepts that are fairly straightforward but which can be extremely useful when working to identify and create a competitive advantage for a given company. Managers at the biggest retailers are generally familiar with these concepts and are pretty good at using them, but even they occasionally make disastrous miscalculations (we 

will highlight several notable examples shortly). Thus, we feel it is important for us to briefly discuss these concepts and their application to success.Alignment refers to the fact that a company’s form (people, organization, location, materials) needs to support the function, the function needs to support what the company produces in line with its strategy, and the strategy needs to be developed based on what the competitors are doing and how the 

Has spurred the growth of communal 

rating systems such as TripAdvisor and Yelp. In such a context, a brand should no longer view customers as mere targets. In the past, it was common for companies to broadcast their message through various advertisement media. Some companies even invented a not-so-authentic differentiation to be able to stand out from the crowd and support their brand image. Consequently, the brand is often treated as outer-shell packaging, which allows for a fake 

representation of its true value. This approach will no longer be effective because with the help of their communities, customers guard themselves against bad brands that target them. A relationship between brands and customers should no longer be vertical but instead it should be horizontal. Customers should beWhen making purchase decisions, customers have typically been driven by individual preference as well as by a desire for social conformity. The 

level of importance for each of these two factors varies from one person to another. It also varies across industries and categories. Given the connectivity we live in today, the weight of social conformity is increasing across the board. Customers care more and more about the opinions of others. They also share their opinions and compile massive pools of reviews. Together, customers paint their own picture of companies and brands, which is often very 

Different from the image that

companies and brands intend to project. The internet, especially social media, has facilitated this major shift by providing the platform and tools. This trend will continue. Virtually everyone on earth will be connected very soon. It turns out that the solution for the internet laggards was not cheap laptops but rather cheap smartphones. In fact, it is projected by the UMTS Forum that mobile data traffic will jump by a factor of 33 from 2010 to 2020. With such vast 

connectivity, market behavior will become significantly different. For example, in many countries in-store research using mobile phones to compare prices and check reviews is trending. Mobile connectivity allows customers to access the wisdom of the crowd and to make better purchase decisions. In such an environment, customers conform more to social opinions. In fact, most personal purchase decisions will essentially be social decisions. 

Customers communicate with one another and converse about brands and companies. From a marketing communicationspoint of view, customers are no longer passive targets but are becoming active media of communications. A beauty products brand—Sephora —has been exploring communities as a new form of media assets. Sephora has built a social media community in which all communitygenerated content is incorporated into the Beauty Talk platform. It has become a trusted medium for customers who are trying to consult with other 

Members of the community

Embracing this trend is not easy. Companies used to have control over marketing communications, and they used to handle customer complaints individually. With community-generated content, companies have no control over the conversation. Censoring content will weaken credibility. They must also be prepared for massive social backlash when something goes wrong. That being said, companies and brands that have strong reputations and honest 

claims about their products should have nothing to worry about. But those who make false claims and have poor products will not survive. It is practically impossible to hide flaws or isolate customer complaints in a transparent, digital world. Summary: Horizontal, Inclusive, and Social Marketers need to embrace the shift to a more horizontal, inclusive, and social 

business landscape. The market is becoming more inclusive. Social media eliminate geographic and demographic barriers, enabling people to connect and communicate and companies to innovate through collaboration. Customers are becoming more horizontally oriented. They are becoming increasingly wary of marketing communications from brands and are relying instead on the f-factor (friends, families, fans, and followers). Finally, the customer 

Conclusion

buying process is becoming more social than it has been previously. Customers are paying more attention to their social circle in making decisions. They seek advice and reviews, both online and offline.We have always believed that the word marketing should be written as market-ing. Writing it that way reminds us that marketing is about dealing with the ever-changing market, and that to understand cutting-edge marketing, we should understand how the market has been evolving in recent years. The clues and trends are there for us to see. A 

new breed of customer, the one that will be the majority in the near future, is emerging globally young, urban, middle-class with strong mobility and connectivity. While the mature markets are dealing with an aging population, the emerging market is enjoying the demographic dividend of a younger, more productive population. They are not only young, they are also rapidly migrating to urban areas and embracing a big-city lifestyle. The majority of them are in the middle class or above and thus have a sizable income to spend. Moving  

from a lower socioeconomic status, they aspire to accomplish greater goals, experience finer things, and emulate behaviors of people in higher classes. These traits make them a compelling market for marketers to pursue. But what distinguishes this new type of customer from other markets we have seen before is their tendency to be mobile. They move around a lot, often commute, and live life at a faster pace. Everything should be instant and time-efficient. When they are interested in things they see on television, they search for them on 

their mobile devices. When they are deciding whether to buy something in-store, they research price and quality online. Being digital natives, they can make purchase decisions anywhere and anytime, involving a wide range of devices. Despite their internet savvy, they love to experience things physically. They value high-touch engagement when interacting with brands. They are also very social; they communicate with and trust one another. In fact, they trust their network of friends and family more than they trust corporations and brands.