Audience Analysis and Segmentation †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Audience Analysis and Segmentation. Answer: Introduction: Samsung Electronics Ltd is one of the leading Korean based company which is primarily involved in manufacturing and distribution of wide range of electronic products. Samsung Electronics Ltd was established in the year 1969 (Lee and Lee, n.d.). Samsung Electronics Company manages and operates its widespread global business through three different verticals. The primary segment is the Consumer Electronics (CE) Segment that is mainly involved in the manufacturing of high end technological devices such as printers, monitors, colour televisions (LCD and LEDs), refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioners etc. The second most important segment is named as IM (Information Technology and Mobile Communications), which is mainly responsible for manufacturing of network systems, computers, digital cameras and handhold phones (HHPs) etc. Lastly, the third segment of operation is (DS) Device Solutions segment and is into the manufacturing of various display and semiconductor parts suc h as, flashes, DRAMs (Dynamic Random Access Memory), and TFT LCDs etc. Samsung Electronics Limited has its business presence active in domestic as well as in overseas markets (Reuters, 2017). With more than 70 years of active global business management, Samsung Electronics Ltd expanded its business verticals to petrochemicals, plant construction, hotels, medicine, and finance etc (Samsung, 2017). Just like the innovation in their products, Samsung Electronics Ltd has been using innovative marketing strategies in diverse types of promotion. In order to attract potential customers, Samsung Electronics is using advertising as the major promotional strategy. Apart from advertising, Samsung Electronics makes use of other approaches as their promotional strategies and makes customers to buy their products. These promotional tactics include sponsoring events, discounts on product range, public relations, personal selling, direct marketing and engaging in national and global festivals etc (White, 2015). Considering a survey conducted in the year 2013, it can be seen in Figure - 1 that Samsung Electronics Ltd is the leading company to invest highest budget for marketing activities in comparison with competitors. Also, Samsung makes use of push marketing strategy management using spot placements and celebrity endorsements on important events such as entertainment shows and sports (Yeun g, 2016). Target Audience Segment Analysis As a part of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Plan, target audience segment analysis is carried out to understand the potential customers to buy Samsung products in large scale. Demographic segmentation analysis is one of the effective and most efficient ways to target audience. Considering the previous customers and sales of Samsung Electronics Ltd, it is quite clear that the users of Samsung Electronics products are mostly from urban localities and are in age group of 20 to 50 years. Smart phones and televisions (LEDs) are among the highest selling Samsung products around the globe (Teresita and Ramos, 2017). Target audience or customers are both males and females and are from middle class and higher class category. Considering the occupation of target audience, they come in category of school / college students, working professionals etc. Another segment analysis to identify target audience is the buying frequency of customers. Customers in age group of 25 to 35 often change their electronic products and buy the latest ones. Marketing strategy of Samsung Electronics Ltd must focus on this segment of customers to attract them to buy products (Smallbusiness.chron.com, 2017). Communication (advertising) Objectives As an IMC Manager for Samsung Electronics Ltd, it is very important to develop effective communication (advertising) objectives as a part of IMC Plan. In this section, three most important communication objectives have been developed and presented for Samsung Electronics Ltd. Developing brand awareness Though Samsung Electronics Ltd has good social media presence in various sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram etc, the strategy to develop brand awareness is by creating online forums in the social media sites and asking users about their favourite Samsung products and related questionnaire. It is very important to ensure that the online forums/ survey / questionnaire are engaging and entertaining for customers. Users providing the best answers or feedback in these forums can be provided with discount vouchers on their next purchase in Samsung Electronics. This strategy works the best as customers are more attracted to such discounts and sale offers (Smallbusiness.chron.com, 2017). Not only modern tools, Samsung must also use the traditional communication tool to create brand awareness. Samsung Electronics Ltd must choose newspapers as their medium to develop brand awareness by printing attractive and eye catchy ads in them. Samsung Electronics m ust ensure to display their premium products in all stores, malls, and also participate in events and sponsor them (Romaniuk et al., 2004). Developing product image Developing product image in market and among the existing and potential customers is one of the challenging tasks in marketing communication as there is tough competition in market and competitor products can easily takeover the sales of company. To develop effective product image among target audience, it is important to understand the product positioning in market. having researched on the mindset of customers (existing and potential), it has been noticed that customers tend to develop their opinions towards products they come across in day to day life (MaRS, 2013). Thus, Samsung Electronics Ltd must ensure bridge the gap between positioning and communication by taking effective steps in developing product image. This bridge gap can be reduced or eliminated by explaining the customers few key points about the product, the benefits from product, the effect of product and the motivation towards the product. Apart from these factors, Samsung Electronics will also focus to explain the product packaging, product contents and features, pricing of the product, media recommendations, references and product performance etc. These factors will definitely help the company to develop an effective brand image (MaRS, 2013). Influencing the purchase intentions There is no doubt that Social media plays an important role in increasing companys purchases by influencing the customers purchase decisions and intentions in an effective manner. Samsung Electronics must take advantage of the social media extensively to influence the purchase intentions of their customers. Customers already using the products must be allowed to post and share their experience of using Samsung product in online forums and social media sites (Lim et al., 2016). This generates a great value for Samsung as well as for the potential customers. Also, it has been found that customers are more encouraged by companies to rate and review their product range online. This type of word of mouth generated via social media, help customers to make purchase decisions and influence them to buy the products (C S, 2015). Thus, customer reviews must be provided utmost priority in online forums, social media sites and e commerce sites as well as in C ompanys official website. Creative advertising strategy and justification for advertising objectives Developing creative advertising is one of the most difficult tasks in marketing and advertising domain. Product quality and performance, brand image and overall brand reviews etc are some of the factors that affect the overall effectiveness of the advertising process. As already mentioned in the previous section of report that online product reviews posted by customers, and social media presence of company etc are a major part of advertising and promotional activities. Thus, considering these elements of advertising for Samsung Electronics, the strategy is to show the presence of Samsung Company and its high end products in one of the online media channel. Web series are in big trend now and many online sites such as YouTube, Amazon Prime and Netflix etc broadcast web series. The creative advertising strategy is to use Samsungs electronic products in these web series such as smart phones, televisions, and other appliances. Viewers will have a huge impact of the Samsung products as the unique features of the products will be presented in web series in the form of humour or any social message. Also, Samsung Electronics Ltd can sponsor the web series which will also be highly effective for the companys creative advertising strategy. Having formulated the creative advertising strategy, it is equally important to consider the advertising objectives and understand if there are any ethical issues arising as a part of the Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Plan. The first advertising objective is brand awareness, and through creative advertising strategy, Samsung will promote and advertise their products in web series and do not intend to focus or hurt sentiments of any tribe or group. The creative advertising will mostly cover humour and great social message and thus, there will not be any ethical issue in this regard. Similarly, the creative advertising strategy aims to develop good product image in each of their web series episode and do not intend to use the opportunity for negative publicity. Purchase intentions among customers will be influenced through the creative advertising and thus, considering both the advertising objectives and creative advertising strategy, it will be ensured that there are no eth ical issues arising from the advertising plan. Media Plan Considering the previous parts of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Plan developed for Samsung Electronics Ltd, it is quite clear that digital media or internet has been given utmost priority in addition to the traditional forms of advertising. The media plan under IMC will make use of most effective and recently trending media vehicles to ensure high level of advertising for the existing and potential customers for Samsung Electronics Ltd. The media vehicles that will be used in media plan are as follows: New Media: In the recent times, technological advances are also seen in new media and have increased significantly which are available for various advertisers to effectively communicate with their respective customers as well as prospects. The IMC Plan for Samsung Electronics Ltd considers new media as a form of higher level of interactions between the customer and advertiser. The new media for Samsungs IMC Media Plan will include SMS and internet (Drypen, 2008). The main purpose for choosing new media for Samsung Electronics Ltd is because the advertisers can easily target the tightly clustered potential customers or audiences with well defined and structured messages. Also, blogs, Twitter and online news channels will be used under new media for media plan development (Sudhakar, 2011). Internet Advertising: Internet advertising will be carried out in forms of ads in web series, sponsoring web series, displaying ads in online blogs, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc. Advertising the web series in creative manner to attract audiences to the web series and connect them to the Samsung products (Drypen, 2008). Also, online forums will be developed and customers will be encouraged to participate in the forums and share their experience and reviews of Samsung products that they use in day to day life. Evaluation Strategy to measure effectiveness of IMC plan Evaluating internet based Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Plan can be a difficult task. The strategy here is to develop pilot projects as a part of IMC and Media Plan for Samsung Electronics Ltd and implement these advertising and media projects for a smaller group of people or audiences. Evaluating the effectiveness of these pilot projects becomes very easy and thus, considering the response, the IMC plan can be implemented for a larger audience group. Also, as the media presence of Samsung Electronics Ltd will be showcased in various media vehicles, a third party company will be hired to evaluate the effectiveness of each of the media vehicles and understand audience involvement, their preferences and perspective towards the creative advertising strategy developed by Samsung Electronics (E. Belch and A. Belch, n.d.). Also, in addition to these methods, an online survey or questionnaire can be developed to understand audience perspectives and reviews on the advertising strategy of Samsung Electronics Ltd and the conversations can be easily tracked (such as website traffic, twitter comments and followers etc) and also certain effective actionable metrics can be collected such as email subscribers, event registrations, and email engagement rate etc (McPhillips, 2014). 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