Introduction
The marketing mix includes the product, promotion, price and the place. They are an important tool for making effective strategies for the long-term success of the companies (Martin, 2014). In this competitive and complex business world the technologies are changes rapidly and this put high pressure on companies who deal in technology-based industries like Laptop manufacturing companies to introduce the innovative products and features in their laptops and also make effective marketing strategies in regards of promotion, distribution and the prices of the products for attracting a large amount of the people in the global world. In this report, we analyze the marketing mix of the laptops 2018 for examining who different brands differentiate their marketing and product strategies for attaining the competitive edge and high sales volume in the international and local markets.
Marketing mix analysis of laptops (HP, Dell, Lenovo, Macbook ) 2018
Product:
The products include the physical and the tangible goods and the intangible services that the companies offer to the global consumers for the sake of earning profits and for capturing the huge market shares through making innovative and high quality of products and services as compared to the competitors.
Here in this marketing analysis, the product that is selected is a laptop which is one of the most usable electronic gadgets nowadays. It’s not used only in offices but also at homes and educational institution. After the high adoption of the e-learning, the demand for the laptops raises in the market that enhance the number of companies who manufacture this product, and also they make constant modifications and adding useful features in it to attract a huge volume of the target audience and to enhance their competitive position in the global market. The laptop is considered as the portable pc that fits well on the lap of the user and is highly convenient for the people to move it from one place to another and also to carry it to the place where they want to take it because of the portability feature that makes it more efficient than the traditional desktop PC.
In the section of the products, the consumers have numerous choices related to the various level and features of the product because in market different company’s laptops are available that different in regards of the size, style, price, portability, and memory space etc. In fact, the same company offer many different version of the laptop like Dell Inspiron, dell 8th gen, dell laptop i7, Dell laptop i5 generation 6 etc. are some of the examples of laptop products that are offered by Dell Corporation in the global market (Corporation, Dell, 2018).
Laptop Brands
The consumers can also find the laptops in the market with the different brands like Dell, Sony, Apple, HP, Acer, Lenovo, Orient, Haier, Vaio, Asus, Razer blade, LG, Toshiba, and Samsung and several more companies’ laptops in the global market with different unique features. (Techbargains, 2018). All of these corporations have launches a variant of the laptops products that are different from each other on the bases of their styling, safety, functionality, repairs, packaging, warranties, accessories, services and the supports.
Laptops Market 2018
As different companies make different packaging and offer products in different styling and accessories to attract customers and also for making their products different from the competitors in the market. For example, the Z series of the Del Inspiron will be compared with the Lenovo think pad series of the laptops both have some common features, but their styling, packaging and warranties are different according to the policies and strategies of the company marketing and designing team (PCMag.com, 2018).
The corporations who deals in laptop industry introduces the variety of the series of the laptop products and make some modifications in the new launches according to the current and future demands of the market and customers for catering each day developing the customer’s segments.
The companies also introduce different series of products for the different market segment. For example the Dell company launch the Vostro laptop for the small businesses computing, XPS performance for the large and medium scale businesses because it offers more unique features like high-speed Ram etc. and the Dell OptiPlex is also launched for the business segment with the features that fulfill the demand of the business users for ensuring the high efficiency of their work performance.
Whereas the XPS line of the laptop of the Dell is launched to target the gamers segment or the graphics professionals like G series includes gaming laptops, Alien ware is also gaming laptop of dell company (Corporation, Dell, 2018). The Market share of HP is most high in the market because it offers durable products at reasonable prices (Statista, 2018).
In contrast to the Dell Corporation varies series of the Laptops the competitors in the international laptop market like Apple, HP, Samsung, Acer and Lenovo etc. also have their own laptop series lines like Apple I core 3, I core 5 etc. and they launch their unique products differ from one another to grasp the attention of high target audience and for becoming the leader in this market (HSN.Com, 2018). The purchasing decisions of the consumers will be directly influenced by a few main factors that are important for them and considered highly while making the decision regarding purchases.
These factors might be speed, memory size, graphics quality, weight etc. For Example, if the businessman wants high memory, they considered the memory space in mind while making the decision when the gamer wants the high quality of the graphics they see this and purchase the laptop that is most popular in respect of the gaming features and graphics. The build quality and the design of the laptops are considered as the essential factors that influence the process of the decision making of the consumers in the global market, and they are the features that all target segments considered for making purchase decision related to laptops (Techbargains, 2018).
Place:
The place is considered the second major factor for the marketers of the company. For the success of the products, the place plays the most important role. If the product is available and located at the place where people see it easily, this raises the sales volume, but if the product is not available at good stores, this might reduce the sales volume. So, it’s much important for the marketers of the company to select the appropriate place for the laptop where they are easily available and visible for the target audience for ensuring its high sales volume (Richter, 2012).
For this, companies use different alternatives like laptop outlets, websites, personal stores, and supermarkets etc. The website is considered as the medium from where the consumers can easily view laptop and its features and compare it with other laptops of same and different companies and make their purchase decision more effectively. So, for attracting more customers, the companies post videos and pictures and also give information related features of their laptops on their website and also post them on third-party sites by making a contract with them to grasp the attention of more target audience.
The laptop corporations also organize the authorized dealers and make sound relations with them for giving the reliable platform to the consumers to visit and purchase their laptops (Accessoriesmagazine.com, 2016).
Have you Missed;
Pricing
Price is also one of the most important factors because most of the customers in the market make their decision on the bases of the prices of the products. The companies have to set their laptop prices on the bases of the fact that how much sensitive their target market is in respect of prices. Like if the target consumers are low and middle class who purchase the laptops which are lower in prices but are durable that they stay with them for longer period then to capture them more discounts will be offered low-cost price strategy will be used for attracting more customers like the Dell use (Corporation, Dell, 2018).
While Apple targets the upper-class society, so their laptop prices are higher as compared to other competitors (HSN.Com, 2018). The companies of the laptop also use seasonal pricing, wholesale pricing, and the volume discounts. The strategies of the pricing of the companies are changes for responding effectively to the market and consumer’s needs (KB, 2018).
Promotion
Different companies’ offers different promotions to attract high customers because customers are more price sensitive and low prices attracted them. The Apple Company uses the various promotional strategies for attaining high market share. The company at start launch their products at high prices, but after some time it offers a promotional discount that lower the prices and grasp the attention of the customers (Dunn, 2017). The company also advertise their products effectively on social media, magazines, and events. HP Company also advertises their products effectively and offer many discounts that enhance their sales volume and make it the leader company in the laptop industry (Statista, 2018).
References
Accessoriesmagazine.com. (2016). Macy’s unveils ‘the apple shop’ in its herald square flagship. Retrieved from https://www.accessoriesmagazine.com/macys-unveils-apple-shop-herald-square-flagship/
Andrews, B. (2018). The best photo-editing laptops in 2018: top laptops for photographers. Retrieved from https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/buying-guides/best-laptops-for-photographers
Corporation, Dell. (2018). Dell Laptops. Retrieved from https://www.dell.com/hr/p/inspiron-laptops
Dunn, J. (2017). Here are the companies that sell the most PCs worldwide. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/top-pc-companies-sales-idc-market-share-chart-2017-4
HSN.Com. (2018). Apple Laptops. Retrieved from https://www.hsn.com/shop/apple-laptops/ec0033-8682
(2018). Buyers’ Guide. Retrieved from http://kb.doit.wisc.edu/showroom/page.php?id=3045
Martin. (2014). Marketing Mix | Place in Four P’s. Retrieved from https://www.cleverism.com/place-four-ps-marketing-mix/
PCMag.com. (2018). The Best Dell Laptops for 2019. Retrieved from https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407159,00.asp
Richter, T. (2012). International Marketing Mix Management. Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH.
Statista. (2018). Market share held by the leading personal computer vendors worldwide in 2017. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/267018/global-market-share-held-by-pc-vendors/
Techbargains. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.techbargains.com/?r1=1
