Having Alternative Marketing Solutions Essay
Order Number |
636738393092 |
Type of Project |
ESSAY |
Writer Level |
PHD VERIFIED |
Format |
APA |
Academic Sources |
10 |
Page Count |
3-12 PAGES |
Having Alternative Marketing Solutions Essay
The purpose of this week’s forum is to actively discuss with your classmates the topic of having alternative marketing solutions. Locate an article on a company (like the two examples provided in this week’s lesson) that is using an Alternative Marketing Solution and analyze why the article is relevant and what the key takeaway(s) are to your classmates
Response #1: The alternative marketing solution that I have chosen to highlight for this week is Domino’s Pizza’s Paving for Pizza Campaign. The campaign was launched in 2018 using social media outlets and encouraged customers to call in and report nuisance potholes in their area that could possibly damage their pizza in transit.
In total, the campaign led to 137,000 pothole nominations from customers in all 50 states. Cities that won grants received the necessary supplies to fill the potholes along with stickers, signs, and magnets to further promote the Domino’s franchise. Workers also received a Domino’s Gift Card.
This would fall into the alternative marketing solution due to its original, unique and unexpected choice. (Lesson 6 Content, n.d.) No other company was as publicly willing to spend their own money to help out cities with improving their infrastructure at the possible cost of their bottom line.
Domino’s Pizza was able to connect with customers and got them to engage with the campaign by nominating potholes that plague their hometown streets. Having customers call in about potholes, a nuisance for nearly everybody, had a unique way of “multiplying the effect”. (Lesson 6 Content, n.d.)
Not only was it raising awareness for its own brands, it also forged better relationships with the cities that won the grants to fill in their potholes. They leveraged their relationships with these cities while still fulfilling the wants of their customers for better infrastructure and roads.
This relationship also made things better for their customers in the cities that won the grants by making the roads smoother to drive on. A tertiary effect of these road improvements would be decreased costs of auto repair, especially when it comes to alignment problems caused by nasty potholes. The Paving for Pizza campaign ended up having a further reach then just customers buying pizza.
The key takeaways from this campaign is that it is not always about only the bottom line for profits. Yes, paving streets would end up costing the company money. However, the relationships it ended up forging with cities will have a lasting effect on the cities and the customers within those cities. Domino’s pizza found a way to connect with customers over a common enemy – potholes.
Response #2: This week’s topic of alternative marketing solutions, again is very thought provoking and requires some creative, out of the box thinking. When researching alternative marketing solutions, I came across many different methods of alternative marketing.
Some of these methods are Buzz marketing, Guerilla marketing, Lifestyle marketing, Experimental marketing, and product placement. Guerrilla Marketing seems to be very popular now based on my searches. This is a creative content marketing strategy that prides itself on being unconventional. In your daily life, you may encounter examples of other business’ guerilla marketing tactics, without even realizing it.
I think a great example of alternative marketing could be the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.
“In 1936, Carl Mayer, nephew of hot dog scion Oscar Mayer, suggested a marketing idea to his uncle: build a 13-foot-long mobile hot dog and cruise around the Chicago area handing out his “German wieners” to stunned pedestrians. Crafted from a metal chassis, the vehicle was operated by Carl, who could usually be seen with his torso sticking out from the cockpit”(10 Frank Facts About the Wienermobile, 2019).
There are now 6 Wienermobiles that travel around the U.S. As odd as it may seem driving down the road, it definitely is an eye catcher and has become an icon for the company. The biggest take away from this marketing idea is how it delivers brand recognition to many both on and off the road. The Wienermobile was one of the original, most recognizable, advertisement on wheels and also created a following over the years.
Oscar Meyer used another alternative marketing solution recently by partnering with AirBnB to allow people to rent out and stay in the vehicle during concerts for $136 a night.
Over the years, you may have seen other companies fix up a vehicle for advertisement or recognition, but none have caught the eye like the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile
ASSIGNMENT: This week your challenge is to develop an alternative marketing solution. Go back and re-evaluate your marketing framework. Assume that your marketing strategy is not working. What changes would you implement to your marketing strategy in order to take an alternate approach?
Present your old marketing framework along with a one-page summary of what changes you would make and the expected outcome of the changes.
Minimum 2 pages
Minimum 2 scholarly sources
FORUM: You are to research and highlight an article which discusses how a retailer created an effective marketing campaign utilizing current technologies.
– What is relationship selling?
– What are some of the major tools in direct marketing?
Response #1: Virtual Reality or VR is a way to see a business online just as you were there. You can get detailed information and look at the products and store just as if you were in the store. There are advantages of VR technology because you can shop privately and in the comfort of your home and at any time that you want to.
As a result, the e-retail segment will profoundly benefit from virtual and augmented reality technologies (Joshi, 2019). Regardless of how the customer shops, it is the satisfaction and experience they get that is important because if the customer is happy and satisfied, they most likely will come back in addition to recommending the business to others.
Relationship selling is to bring the customer and retailer together by building a relationship rather than about the product. Build a relationship by asking and finding out what the customer needs and wants are then given some options and make the sale of a product that seems to fit them.
When a retailer starts in by just trying to sell a product without knowing the customer then it will take longer, and customers want to shop and get out. The goal of the entire process is to make a sale.
A couple of the major tools in direct marketing are internet marketing, advertising, barcode scanners, database, and even telemarketing. Telemarketing is just like the old-style cold calls from those paper slips that are put into a drawing box. Currently, those still go on, but the customer information is also sold from other sources that the customer uses their information
For the most part, technology has really become an essential part of retail marketing and in order for a retailer to demonstrate success is that the consumers are pleased and the retailers are able to make a profit. I was able to find quite a few articles marketing campaigns, but I wanted to make sure I chose the one that either myself or one of my family members had used.
The technology I am familiar with is the Kroger digital price tag, which is also known as Kroger Edge. This technology gives consumers the ability to see pricing and nutritional information for products. One good thing about this technology is it is updated in real time.
The other form technology is the Target Mobile Wallet; this technology allows consumers the option of paying for products before reaching the cash register. This technology cuts down on the amount of time consumers spent at the register. (Gilliland, 2019)
Relationship selling is the sales method that focuses on the interaction between the consumers and sales people. The focus is not on the actual price or the details regarding the products, it is about the personal communication. This is an important concept, because I have found consumers will return repeatedly if they have those personal relationships.
Some of the tools used in direct marketing are the different forms of advertising, such as coupons, loyalty programs, fliers, emails, social media, commercials, and direct mail. Internet Marketing is another form of direct marketing, in this format consumers receive emails and social media posts depending upon their shopping habits.
In internet marketing the costs are somewhat lower than extreme marketing campaigns and this strategy allows retailers to reach large amounts of consumers. The last form of direct marketing is telemarketing, I do not think this is an effective way to market, because people become annoyed with the amount of calls made and often time people will not consider what the product or service is.