MK4S34 : Reflective Essay on Strategic Marketing : Amazon Case Study

The indicators of a good reflection are:
It is personal to you
It is clear how the learning relates to your role or prepares for a future role
It outlines the content and method of the learning activity
It describes how your knowledge, skills and attributes have developed as a result of the learning activity.
It identifies any further gaps or learning you did not cover and how you might fill these.
It describes how your current practice might change as a result

You can approach your Self Reflective writing as per the four stages below:
1. What did I expect to learn?
2. What did I learn?
3. What will I do differently going forwards?
4. My actions and next steps

A strong Assignment Critical Reflection Requires addressing to the following issues:
High personal effectiveness:
- Critical self-awareness,
- Self-reflection and self-management;
- Time management;
- Sensitivity to diversity in people and different situations and
- The ability to continue to learn through reflection on practice and experience.

Answer: 

Reflective Essay on Strategic Marketing

Marketing is a critical aspect that determines the survival and success of any business organization. The current business environment all over the world is dynamic thus strategic marketing has become a very vital tool in any business regardless of its size or nature. Marketing is a term that refers to the process of developing services or products that are valuable to customers and they fulfill the wants and needs of their customers, (Gronroos, 2006). Strategic marketing is very essential in business organizations since it facilitates the growth in the sales capacity, customer satisfaction as well as the development of innovative products and services. This paper is my personal reflective essay outlining what I expected to learn from the case study, what I actually learnt, what I will do differently going forwards and my actions and next steps. This reflective essay should be considered as a way of demonstrating my truthful and critical self-awareness, self-reflection, my ability to learn through reflection as well as demonstrate my sensitivity to diversity in people and different situations.

In the case study, I expected to learn a lot about marketing strategies in this case study. I expected to learn data collection and analysis as this is a major part of marketing in business. I expected to learn how to develop effective communication and marketing tactics that will help me become a competent professional in developing strategic marketing. Learning strategic marketing is something that I really anticipated since I consider it a way of preparing myself for my future career. I expected to learn so many principles and aspects of marketing such as promotion, public relations, branding and advertising. Since marketing is really continuously changing in the business world I expected to learn the personal skills and professional skills required in order to formulate a strategic marketing plan to ensure the survival and success of any business organizations.

I actually learnt a lot about strategic marketing from the Amazon case study. The case study has mainly demonstrated to me that the best marketing strategies are not top-down; they are outside in, starting with the customers' needs and wants. The Amazon case study has proven that there are so many stakeholders involved in the business but the customer is the most critical when it comes to strategic marketing. The customers' wants and needs are very important in formulating a strategic marketing plan since the wants and needs change continuously with time. The spending and purchasing habits of customers are highly associated with the changing demographics and population size, (Perreault, Cannon, and McCarthy, 2015). As in the Amazon case study, after analyzing their annual reports and realizing they had a lot of customers visiting their site but more than half of them not purchasing any product they restated they restated their marketing strategy. This is to ensure that they consider the new needs and wants of their customers.

I realized that strategic marketing should also involve attracting new customers. Attracting new customers may is not easy in the dynamic global and local business environment this requires employing innovative and creative advertising tactics, (Weinstein, 2018). One of these tactics includes identification of a market segment that the business organization will focus on.  For instance, in the Amazon case study, the organization had identified a segment of the market which they have classified as "the hard middle". The organization had analyzed this segment carefully and came up with the most effective way of advertising to reach them. They have come up with such tools and related features that help the organization to connect their products with the needs of these customers, (Chernev, 2018). This helps in creating products and services that attract customers since they are connected with their wants and needs. I also learnt that in advertising to attract new customer the Amazon business organization has employed online advertising. Online advertising is a very upcoming marketing tool that is growing so rapidly and it is almost outshining the conventional media advertising. Thus analyzing their market segment helped them in selecting online advertising as a medium to reach their potential customers.

In the case study, I also learnt that promotion is also a crucial advertising tool. Amazon had to come up with a promotion service that will attract their potential customers and they decided to offer free shipping options for their worldwide customers. Although such promotional activities increase the advertising cost the come with more merits including increasing the sales and gaining new customers, (Proctor, 2014).Therefore, I realized that promotion is actually an important aspect that organizations have to consider to help them attract new customers and create or maintain a competitive advantage over their competitors in the market. Competitive advantage is an asset that organizations strive to have since this is a crucial determinant of survival and success of any organization. Segmentation is one of the strategic marketing aspects that as a professional I have to understand as a way of preparing me for a future career (Schlegelmilch, Bodo, 2016, 65). Segmentation helps in targeting specific people in the population and this facilitates producing innovative products and services as well as promotes efficient advertising.

In the Amazon case study, I learnt that strategic marketing involves understanding the continuously improving customer experience in the organization. Customer retention entirely relies on customers satisfaction therefore many organization include customer satisfaction among their key organizational objectives (Tanner, Jeff, and Mary Raymond, 2015). This is very essential in gaining repetitive buying from customers. In order for an organization to be able to retain their customers, they have to consider several factors but customer satisfaction is very important. The customers have needs and want that expect the business organization has to solve them through the goods and services they offer (West, Ford & Ibrahim, 2015). Once the customers' expectations are met by the organization them the customer will always be loyal to the business organization or even refer other potential customers.

There are several market analysis tools that come handy when analyzing the market of any organization. These tools include SWOT analysis that has been used in the Amazon case study. This analysis identifies the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities as well as the threats that a business organization is facing, (Leiber, Theodor, Stensaker, and Lee Harvey. 2018). This market analysis is very crucial in strategic marketing since it helps in assessing the business organization position and help in coming up with innovative mechanisms to maintain a competitive advantage. The SWOT analysis helps an organization to understand the market dynamics comprehensively and this helps in formulating strategic marketing techniques.

According to what I learnt, what I would do differently and my next step in strategic marketing is concentrating in online social media advertising as a way of reaching most of my potential customers. Social media marketing is growing so rapidly and almost all the potential customers in the Amazon market segment are connected to a social media platform. Social media is so important since it allows interactive interaction and offers a better way of understanding the customers with their changing needs and wants.

In conclusion, I personally agree with the statement that the best marketing strategies are not top-down; they are outside in, starting with the customers' needs and wants. Strategic marketing is based on a comprehensive understanding of the changing customer wants and needs in order to attract and satisfy them.

Bibliography:

Amazon, 2018 Our Leadership Principles. Available at: https://www.aboutamazon.com/our-leardership-principles

Chernev, A. 2018. Strategic marketing management. Cerebellum Press.

Gronroos, C, (2006) On defining marketing: finding new a new roadmap for marketing. European Journal of Marketing, Volume 3, Issue 2352-60

Leiber, Theodor, Bjørn Stensaker, and Lee Colin Harvey. 2018 "Bridging theory and practice of impact evaluation of quality management in higher education institutions: a SWOT analysis." European Journal of Higher Education (1-15).

Perreault, W. D., Cannon, J. P., & McCarthy, E. J. (2015). Essentials of marketing: A marketing strategy planning approach. McGraw-Hill Education.

Proctor, T. (2014). Strategic marketing: an introduction. Routledge.

Schlegelmilch, Bodo B. 2016. "Segmenting Targeting and Positioning in Global Markets." Global Marketing Strategy. Springer, Cham, 63-82.

Tanner, Jeff, and Mary Raymond.2015.  Principles of marketing. University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing.

Weinstein, 2018. Superior customer value: Strategies for winning and retaining customers. CRC Press,

West, D. C., Ford, J., & Ibrahim, E. 2015. Strategic marketing: creating a competitive advantage. Oxford University Press, USA.