Strong marketing plans Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Strong marketing plans - Essay Example Most of the successful companies owe their success to the strong marketing plans and marketing programs that they incorporate into their businesses. Here five companies have been chosen to study the possible improvements in their marketing programs. The aim of this paper is to identify at least two possible ideas that can be used by the company as a means to improve their marketing and their overall position in the markets. The suggestions made here are based on the promotional mix of the company as well as with a detailed view on the view point of the customers as well as the marketing managers. Rollerblade: Rollerblades is a well known company that deals with a wide range of roller-skates to meet the needs of all kinds of customers. The company has a website which has been developed with complete details of the retailers and the product range. One of the major areas that the company currently lacks is the use of an ecommerce website (Evans, O’Maley, & Patterson, 2004). Rolle r skates have a strong product line and this can be used to the advantage of the company. One of the first areas that the company can develop is an ecommerce website which provides the customers with an option to buy the products online. Secondly, it is important that the company invests in tools for better customer relationship management as this will help the company use the visits to the website as possible leads for revenue generating activities (Evans, Foxall, & Jamal, 2009). Using customer relationship management will prove to very beneficial for the company. As explained by McCabe & Wolfe (2000), â€Å"Making the Customer king is one way of improving sales. But a better one is making the right customer king. This discipline is called customer relationship management† (McCabe & Wolfe, 2000). Hence implementing the customer relationship management will help in identifying the potential customers and will also help in improved targeting as well (Evans, O’Maley, & P atterson, 2004). Specialized Bicycle Components: Specialized Bicycle Components is a company which deals with bicycle components and provides the customers with a wide range of bike accessories for specialized bicycle riders. The company presently caters to a wide range of customers across America, however clearly lacks a strong corporate strategy and strong marketing (Specialized Bicycle, 2011). Although the company has been able to develop a website, the website is not easy navigation and lacks the customer focus and user friendliness. The first suggestion to the company will be to focus on improving the website and making it more user friendly by improving the overall navigation style of the website and by ensuring that the website is search engine optimized (Specialized Bicycle, 2011). This will ensure that the company’s website is easily findable by the search engine which in turn makes it simpler for the customers as well. Secondly the company can focus on developing st ronger marketing and promotion strategies that the company can use to improve the overall position (Jobber, 2009). This can include more advertising in games and other events or also including advertisements on television and the local radio. This will help the company improve the brand awareness and will also assist in improved overall performance of the company as well. Specialized Bicycle  has a strong marketing mix and the company has a strong product line as well. The only area that the company is presently lacking in is the promotional activities (Kotler & Keller, 2008). Hence if there is a higher importance given to their area the company can improve the overall performance and also increase the overall revenues as well. BMW: Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft (BMW) is a world class car manufacturer which is known for the premium cars.

What do You Understand by Economic Protectionism Essay - 1

What do You Understand by Economic Protectionism - Essay Example On the contrary, a country that is in least need of a given commodity or produces the commodity locally will raise the rates of import tariffs for the particular product to discourage importation of the commodity (Korber 2000, p. 10). In the views of Riley (2006), economic protectionism can also be achieved through the imposition of quotas. A county in dire need of a particular commodity will actually lift import quotas to encourage further importation of the particular commodities. Conversely, a country that is capable of producing sufficient or relatively adequate amount of a given commodity for its economy may opt to lower the importation quotas of a given commodity (Riley 2006). Under serious circumstances, a country may impose embargoes declaring total ban on importation of a particular commodity (Riley 2006). Export subsidies for locally produced goods can also be used to encourage bulk production and importation of particular commodities into the economy (Korber, 2000, p. 9). Riley (2006) reports that, in the case countries are engaging in free trade, the government may opt to formulate preferential government procurement policy and state aid to ensure that it allocates spending that will only benefit domestic producers as opposed to foreign suppliers. This case is common in the member countries of the European Union, which award contracts to members of the organization. Similarly, governments may also structure the anti-dumping tariffs to protect the local producers and industries from the economic disadvantages that may be caused by high importation of cheap commodities. The European Union imposed anti-dumping tariffs to Norway against cheap exportation of reared salmon to the Scottish and Ireland market, which ruined domestic trade in the two importing countries. Another example of anti-dumping laws emerged when the European Union blocked inflow of Chinese television tubes, aluminium foil and zinc oxides that were believed to sell far below the averag e domestic price, thereby suffocating local producers. In a move to gain local economic advantage, China reduced the value of the Yuan far below the US dollar thereby resulting to low cost of Chinese products in the USA and international markets. This resulted to increased consumption of Chinese products in import countries, slowing the output of the individual importer countries. The need to protect the US economy saw the Congress pass protectionist bill that banned importation of foreign iron and steel for construction purposes (Mankiw 2009). Trade barriers otherwise known as economic protectionism presents positive and negative implications to the economy almost in equal measure. Krol (2008, p. 2) reports that the imposition of trade economic protection policies by the US economy in 1979 resulted to massive loss of jobs as most manufacturing companies were either cutting their production or facing automatic closure thereby raising the net cost of US economy. The principles of mar ket protectionism led to the abolishment of production activities that required unskilled labour and adoption of production activities that demanded skilled labour in the US economy. This action saw the US specializing in the production of high tech machines and electronics with increased export tariffs of the products while raising importation tariffs of products like clothes and shoes produced by the unskilled labour in the developing countries (Krol, 2008, p. 3). This resulted into low prices