Essay Example on Apple Inc.'s Marketing Strategies: Customers, Experience & Product Positioning

Introduction

Marketing is vital for the survival of any business. It is a crucial process through which a company avails and makes known its products to its customers. Apple incorporation is an internationally recognized information technology company that provides a variety of products, ranging from operating systems, mobile phones, televisions, computers, smartwatches, and tablets. This report seeks to review the company's customers, their experience, and that product positioning strategies as applied by the company. Further, the report aims to provide recommendations for the steps that can be utilized to identify customers and improve the product positioning for one the product, iPhone.

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iPhone

The Apple iPhone was presented by Steve Jobs in 2007 through a conference in Macworld. Wilson and Fenlon (2011) describe the iPhone as more of a palmtop device. It has advanced features and surpassed the regular cellphone. The iPhone has a lot of features that allow the user to receive and make calls, watch movies, play music, browse, and receive or send emails and messages. The mobile phone also enables the user to take pictures and record quality videos using the in-built camera as well as import pictures from any computer. It allowed users to organize photos through the designed software (Wilson and Fenlon, 2011). More improved versions of the iPhone have been created since then with better and enhanced features. For example, the launch of the iPhone 4 in 2010. The phone has front and back cameras with a retina, which was not in the past models. The phones operating system, iOS enables it to interact with the operating systems used in Apple desktops and laptop computers (Wilson and Fenlon, 2011). The proposed product positioning statement is; iPhone, worldwide connectivity.

Description Of The Customer

Apple incorporation produces high priced mobile phone products, iPhones, which allow the company to recover huge investments. This, therefore identifies that the main target customers are middle and high-income earners, professionals in design and media, as well as the youths and those who pride in prestigious items (Aljafari, 2016) earners who have substantial portions of disposable income (Gupta & Prinzinger, 2013). Therefore, the main target customers are the self-selected individuals who can afford the high- priced mobile phones (Aljafari, 2016). Al-Laham &and Huth (2011) stated that the price of Apple products is associated with the quality of the products. As a result, many are the times that middle- and high-income earning people will buy mobile phones because they are expensive for prestige.

Customer experience

Providing an excellent customer experience is very important since it allows the company to have a new competitive advantage (Meyer & Schwager, 2007). Apple Incorporation always has a better position of dealing with the competition due to its ability to provide an outstanding experience of the customers. Customer experience affects customer satisfaction, delivers customer loyalty, and influences expectations (Pullman & Gross, 2004). The customer experience of the product determines the happiness and commitment of the customer. Apple recognizes that all features of the purchaser experience are very crucial, and also brand reinforcement must involve all the brand touchpoints. Opening merchandising stores in leading cities across the globe in upmarket and quality shopping locations has led to the expansion and improvement of Apple's distribution capabilities. Besides, Apple has deliberated associations with other corporations to co-brand and distribute its services and products. It also offers Apple Mac-proficient retail floor employees to particular resellers. Through various retailers who are reluctant to adopt the Apple Macintosh systems, the accessibility of iPods has significantly increased. It, therefore, boosts the customers' purchasing experience.

The active Apple merchandising stores provide prospective buyers with thorough experience of its values. The visitors in the Apple Store usually enjoy an exciting environment that exposes them to more significant discoveries on Apple products. They try out certain products and obtain practical assistance on the usage of individual products. The retail employees are beneficial and informative since they are assisting the customer in knowing more about the product in terms of performance, durability, flexibility, and reliability.

Recommendations

For Apple Incorporation to improve on delivering better customer experience, it should plan and set direction. It involves the setting of objectives, assigning responsibility for the achievement of the sett objective, creating business cases and coordination, and overseeing the changes (Johnston & Kong, 2011). The Incorporation should also research and change the mindset of the customers by recognizing that to bring about desired improvements, and the ideas have to be driven by people involved themselves (Johnston & Kong, 2011). Apple Incorporation should undertake customer research to assist in developing informative approaches and activities which can lead to improvement. The Apple experience teams should develop customer experience statements based on the data collected from the customer research undertaken (Shaw & Iven, 2002).

Also, the development of customer experience should include involvement. The Apple experience team should identify the areas of change and assign priorities with the senior managers of the company. The team should also encourage and collect ideas to deal with issues that the senior managers acknowledged and assisted them in testing the concepts in various departments while obtaining feedback from the customers. Lastly, Apple should implement and embed the changes by changing the support schemes and the latter assessing the impact. Once Apple Incorporation has performed these steps, it is in a position to deliver a very positive customer experience.

Product positioning for iPhone by Apple Inc.

Brand name Apple

Product iPhone

Target customers The middle-income earners, professionals in design and media as well as the youths and those who pride in prestigious items (Aljafari, 2016).

Product advertising and sales promotion The salespeople focus their attention mainly on the wealthy people who are willing to pay higher prices to acquire an iPhone, such as consumers who take delight in using technology such as the youths, the rich and the professionals in design and media (Aljafari, 2016).

Product pricing Apple positions itself as a superior brand my maintaining the prices of its products high. Therefore, mobile phones are highly priced in the market (Aljafari, 2016).

Product placing The company avails the iPhone to the consumers through direct access of the salespersons and third-party interactions such as wholesalers, retailers, and network sellers (Aljafari, 2016).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the paper has elaborated on the Apple Incorporation. It has considered various aspects of the company, such as the description of the iPhone, product positionings such as typical customers of iPhone, the brand name, and product positioning statement for the target customers. The strategies of delivering a positive customer experience of Apple Incorporation have also been identified. The company should take into account the recommendations on how to achieve a positive customer experience. The company should use all the possible strategies to have a durable competitive edge and to meet the customers' needs always to keep them satisfied.

References

Al-Laham, A., & Huth, S. (2011). Strategic Repositioning of Apple Inc. In Fallstudien zumInternationalen Management (pp. 641-664). Gabler Verlag, Wiesbaden.https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-8349-6793-0_38

Aljafari A. (2016). Apple Inc. Industry Analysis Business Policy and Strategy. InternationalJournal of Scientific and Engineering Research, 7(3).https://www.ijser.org/researchpaper/Apple-Inc-Industry-Analysis-Business-Policy-andStrategy.pdf

Gupta, A., & Prinzinger, J. (2013). Apple, Inc.: Where Is It Going from Here? Journal ofBusiness CaseStudies (Online), 9(3), 215.https://www.clutejournals.com/index.php/JBCS/article/download/7797/7860

Meyer, C., & Schwager, A. (2007). Understanding customer experience. Harvard businessreview, 85(2), 116.https://www.academia.edu/download/35132402/FINAL_HBR_Understanding_Customer_Expeence.pdf

Pullman, M. E., & Gross, M. A. (2004). Ability to experience design elements to elicit emotionsand loyalty behaviors. Decision Sciences, 35(3), 551-578.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.00117315.2004.02611.x?casa_token=BoudzyHH8SwAAAAA:Kp7K1NA8ObmzlCorMc5o9l0uYqe4dDU9nqN6FsXA091W9sbA4BAcDXEXzMoSCELRIxT0YdRI94pNZW-A

Johnston, R., & Kong, X. (2011). The customer experience: a roadmap forimprovement. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal.https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/09604521111100225/full/html?ca_token=IqzDNyETMIwAAAAA:4jE1OXRCwg0M1Ct-8k_8jgXILQhNcerO7Xa4LYLCDJI4v6zN-xLoHWza5B6uUI9s3QIxOvOuK7uDcoEdhvYbhJUNMK_hCGGxwNCu1ei4nXdCq4DNiZuQ

Shaw, C., & Ivens, J. (2002). Building great customer experiences (Vol. 241). London:Palgrave. AL- http://www.academia.edu/download/46735190/263388584-Colin-ShawJohn-Ivens-Building-Great-Customer-Experience.pdf

Wilson, T. V., & Fenlon, W. (2007). How the iPhone works. Retrieved from: on Apr, 24(2009), 9.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall.http://www.tomax7.com/mcse/apple/How%20the%20iPhone%20Works.docx