Download Innovations of Marketing Methods Based on Consumption Upgrade

Innovations of Marketing Methods Based on Consumption Upgrade
JIANG Wenqin, ZHANG Lin
School of management, Shandong Institute of Business and Technology, P.R. China, 264005
[email protected]
Abstract: China has entered the era of consumption upgrade. To follow up this consumer upgrade trend,
enterprises should update their marketing methods as follows: Firstly, use scientific and overall planning
marketing decision-making method; secondly, pay attention to knowledge marketing method which can
improve marketing level; thirdly, conduct systematic marketing method which is satisfaction-oriented;
fourthly, develop relationship marketing method that can create a harmonious environment; fifthly,
cultivate green health marketing method closely following times; sixthly, implement electronic network
marketing method helpful to innovation. Enterprises will face the challenges of the new market
environment with these innovations of marketing methods.
Keywords: consumer upgrade, marketing method, update
1.
Introduction
China has entered the era of consumption upgrade. Boston Consulting Group recently released a
research report which concluded: by 2010, China will be the third largest consumer market in the world
and consumers are showing strong desire for consumption upgrade. Over the past 15 years, growth in
consumer wealth in China is 3-5 times that of developed countries, nearly 60% of Chinese consumers
want to improve their consumption levels. By 2008, Engel coefficients of Chinese urban and rural
residents have reached 37.9% and 43.7% respectively. According to the international economic practice,
this means that the consumption structure of Chinese residents enters a new stage, changing from
survival type consumption which focuses on food and clothing in the past to development type
consumption and enjoyment type consumption. There are three main reasons causing the consumption
upgrade of Chinese consumer: Firstly, with income increase and economic growth, consumers desire for
newer and better products; secondly, for most Chinese market share is occupied by mass product, the
room for upgrade will be much larger than that for degrade; thirdly, consumers are pushed by worry for
the safety and quality of cheap products. For the consumption upgrade trend of Chinese market,
companies need to make innovations on marketing methods to cope with the arrival of new market
environment.
2.
Scientific and Overall Planning Marketing Method
In the environment of Consumption upgrade, overall planning and coordination of internal and external
marketing resources should be done well by enterprises. Firstly, several things such as the grasping of
consumer demand, market research and forecasting, environment analysis, target market selection and
product market positioning should be executed systematically. It is the base to select the best marketing
strategy and conduct a visit on the meeting of customer demand. Secondly, the relations among various
parts of the system should be balanced. For example, market research, market forecasting and market
analysis are the premise and base for market positioning and decision-making. Thirdly, every element in
the implementation of marketing decision should be overall arranged and reasonably allocated. For
instance, both marketing public relations and advertising are vital marketing tools; media advertising,
car advertising and literature advertising, etc, are more and more widely applied by enterprises. These
promotional elements must be coordinated well before they can play an overall impact on consumers.
It should be noted that scientific and overall planning marketing method needs to be started firstly by the
decision-making level and to be enforced by each department and every staff of the enterprise. It also
needs to be carried out through marketing activities from the beginning to the end. That is full
comprehensive marketing and full employee marketing. It is also the need for enhancing cohesion and
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centripetal force and developing ownership spirit and morale of the staff.
3.
Knowledge Environment Marketing Method
，
With rapid growth in knowledge and technology brought by knowledge economy which leading new
products to emerge in an endless stream in the market, consumer’s spending in many areas began
upgrading to knowledge and spirit consumption. Faced with market situation in knowledge economy,
enterprises should aware that knowledge exists in the fields such as market competition, consumer
demand and technical innovation and plays a decisive role. Companies must establish a dominate
position for knowledge service in marketing. To achieve this, companies should meet following
requirements: (1) during marketing process, establish union of knowledge collaboration and
communication system according to the requirement of knowledge marketing in several fields such as
technologic innovation, production management and market development, which can realize risk and
benefit sharing; (2) on marketing method, emphasize technological content and supply and knowledge
service in the marketing propaganda to expand the coverage of “knowledge marketing”; (3), for
marketing resources, pay high attention to the exploitation and use of knowledge resources and keep the
track of new knowledge, new information and new trend by information network, make full use of the
fortune of knowledge and spirit of human beings to accelerate self-development; (4) to marketing object,
lay stress on the special training of customer and help the potential consumers to screen knowledge,
information and product , telling them how to use the product in a proper way. All of this will contribute
to the eliminating of customers’ uneasy and let customers purchase products without apprehension; and
(5) for marketing force, take the development of competence and potential creativity as the foothold and
core of human-oriented value and make more investment in human resources to promote the knowledge
and integrated competence of employees, which will improve the knowledge structure of marketing
teams. By meeting these requirements of “Marketing knowledge” in new trend, enterprises will have
stronger competitiveness and get rapid growth.
4.
Systematic Service Marketing Method
The only way to show honest for customer and to obtain customer is satisfaction-oriented service.
Customer service is a systematic project, which need the providing of coordinated-process service
mechanism based on systematic service theory. Through the detailed thinking and skilful arrangement in
every stage, customer will have a happy experience while they are shopping. To achieve this, following
steps need to be followed:
4.1 Provide Before-sale Service for Customer Education
Before-Sale Service is a process that leads the consumers to better understanding the products. It
includes several items: the inquiry of potential demand, product design, packing and sanitary inspection;
proper promotion and introduction of new consumption concept; creating a facilitate and comfortable
shopping environment, arranging field visiting and introducing its products to customers by themselves;
encouraging early trial and helping them make purchasing plans, and so on. Through these service items
before sales, companies can keep the track of demand and motive of customers which in turns help
communicate product information and promote the interest of customers. Thus a good feeling for the
company and its products will be formed.
4.2 Provide Help in-sale Service
In-sale service accompanied by customer’s purchasing process is the extension of before-sale service.
Service contents include: providing hospitable reception for customers; unpacking inspection, goods
selection and function demonstration introduction of features and using and maintenance methods;
assisting in the selecting, testing, debugging and packaging; answering queries with enthusiasm; helping
to solve specific problems (such as capital financing, goods delivery and insurance); commitment to
product quality and service to reduce the risk of shopping. By making customers purchase with relative
；
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knowledge, in-sale service activities can greatly enhance customer’s business identity and strengthen
customer's buying motives.
4.3 Provide After-sale Service for Customer Reservation
After-sale service starts when consumer begins his consumption process. It is the best way for the
company to show its sincerity and care for the customers. It consists of: providing doorstep delivery,
installation and the arrangement of all kinds of procedures; setting up service network; supplying spare
parts; training of application technique; calling on customers itinerantly; handling customer complaints;
feeding back information; evaluating the level of service effectiveness; improving service quality;
sustaining customer relationship and so on. After-sale service is the key to build good corporate image
and credit. In the era of emotion-oriented consumption, enterprises could have "people on one’s own
side effect" and win public praise by after-sales service.
5.
Coordinated Relationship Marketing Method
In the times of consumption upgrade, consumer’s demand frequently changes for the influence from
many aspects such as politics, economy, cultural fashion and personality. With the technological
revolution of knowledge economy, the whole market has entered into the Internet and the information
highway. The market boundaries in areas, behaviors and time have been broken. Competition among
enterprises has extended from the domestic to the world. In every market transaction, the buyer can use
the network at maximum range (global range) to freely search for the ideal seller. Therefore, consumers
are easily inconstant and this requires "relationship marketing" to build and maintain customer loyalty.
The coordination of relationship marketing can be divided into three basic levels: (1) relationship
between enterprise and customers, (2) relationship between corporate and its staff, and (3) relationship
between the corporation and its suppliers, intermediaries, competitors, governments as well as social
organizations. Relationship marketing means that if a company wants to carry out its marketing
activities smoothly, it must put harmony in the first place. Harmony brings wealth. An environment
beneficial to its own development will be created by the setup of high-efficient and high-quality
relationship network. Philip Kotler, a famous professor in marketing, pointed out that in this new
changing world, the only competitive advantage that a company can maintain is the good relationships
with customers, business partners and internal staff. The core of relationship marketing is the
relationship with customers, other relations all serve for it. The corporations in western developed
countries have already carried out database marketing and membership card system. Promotional
activities are based on the information stored in the database with the objective to build a harmonious
relation between them and to make them be honest and trustworthy to each other. The implementation
of customer relationships can not only create a stable market, but also bring some new commercial
opportunities for the corporation. This is the so-called win-win situation for enterprises and their
customers.
6.
Green Health Marketing Method
With great changes taking place in the world brought by science and technology revolution, returning to
nature and pursuing green become the greatest preference for people. It is also a fashion in consumption
upgrade. The improvement of the life quality, the enhancement of consumption levels and the pursuit of
the living space arouse the green consciousness of consumers. For instance, people prefer to purchase
vegetables and food without pesticides and fertilizers; they admire the kind of cooking style without any
pollution and nutrients destroyed; they concern more about the emission of harmful gases and radiations
from their room’s decoration; and they would like to purchase the Freon-free refrigerators and try their
best to use paper boxes instead of plastic packaging and etc. At the same time, they take the
responsibility of protecting the environment consciously or unconsciously from the perspective of social
ethics and responsibilities. A global survey shows that seventy percent of the United States consumers
consider themselves as environment protector. They would rather spend more money on the
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pollution-free products and the reusable packaging. Sixty-six percent of the British would like to pay
more money to purchase the green products. Eighty percent of the Germans and sixty-seven percent of
Dutch take the environmental issues into consideration when shopping. Moreover, the proportion of
such consumers is still growing. In China, although the concept of green
consumption has not yet
widely adopted, more and more consumers’ consciousness of green consumption is being awakened and
some of them have already had the desire to buy green products. Facing the rise of green consumerism,
enterprises have to carry out the green health marketing strategy. Green is associated with health. Green
health marketing means that enterprises provide consumers with scientific, healthy, pollution-free and
clean products and services which are beneficial to resource reservation and ecological balance, which
reflecting the environmental awareness, resource awareness and social awareness in the process of
marketing. In decision making, enterprises should consider not only business interests but also social
and environmental benefits. The cultivating of green corporate culture should be taken as an important
task. The formation of green corporate culture can unite the thoughts and actions of the internal staff up
to the business development goals, which makes the staff to take the responsibility of environmental
protection and integrate its objectives into business goals.
7.
Electronic Network Marketing Method
The information technology has developed rapidly in the era of knowledge economy. The formation of
Internet opened the curtains for marketing revolution in the twenty-first century. After that, Internet
marketing appeared in the world. Moreover, people’s consumption patterns upgrade, too. Compared
with traditional marketing, the customers from Internet can contact with corporations without any
distance. They can browse and make comment on goods at any time. All in all, Internet will bring a
revolution for marketing.
7.1 Revolution of Communication Ways
Information communication between businesses and consumers has changed from indirect ways mainly
through intermediaries or mass media into direct ways by Internet, which can link production and
demand more conveniently, timely, fast and efficiently. Business can master the science and technology
and market conditions more accurately. With the increase of Internet speed and its users, enterprises can
build human-computer interaction systems to display goods and exchange information by using maps,
text, sound and image at the same time. Then “one-to-one” marketing or customized marketing will be
realized. There are many kinds of online communication activities such as online querying and
consulting, online researching and testing, joining online forums, newsgroups and bulletin boards,
online advertising, using of e-mail, providing e-marketing and online after-sale service. Companies can
open the new world of marketing communications in many ways according to their own situations.
7.2 Revolution of Distribution Channels
With the revolution of information technology based on microelectronic and the formation of the
Internet, the global economy has shown networking and digital features. The traditional contacting
trading ways based on good exchange will be placed by the invisible ways based on digital exchange.
Marketing enters into the "no EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) no order" era. The use of EDI will
significantly increase the transaction volume, lower transaction costs, and increase customer reach. The
development of the Internet has created a new online marketplace; therefore, e-commerce came into
being. E-commerce has changed the traditional business models through electronic communications,
including computers, telephones, fax machines, televisions, credit cards, automatic teller machines and
Internet. The United States takes e-commerce as a new growth point for keeping sustainable economic
development. Through the network, enterprises establish the "one-to-one" relationship with customers,
which can meet the personalized needs of consumers and achieve
zero-distance contact with
customers. Thus, enterprises will take the preemptive opportunities and win the lucrative market by the
enhancement of responsive capability to market.
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8.
Conclusion
The needs of customers are always the center of marketing. If customers’ demands change and
enterprise’s marketing concepts keep unchanged, the enterprise will gradually become obsolete.
Therefore, companies must correctly understand the upgrade trend in consumers’ demands, make full
market researches in time, explore actively, create new ideas on marketing conceptions and take new
marketing measures. It is very important both for the development of enterprise and the improvement of
social economy.
Acknowledgements:
This article has got support from Soft Science Project, Shandong Province (2009RKB402) and
Humanities and Social Sciences Project, Shandong Province (N0. J08WF13).
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