Chapter 2: Marketing Strategies

    One of the concepts that I found interesting in Chapter 2 was the four marketing strategies that companies can utilize to expand. Throughout this post, I will choose a company, Starbucks, and explain how they used these four strategies to grow and include my insights.

    The first strategy is Market Penetration or Expanding Existing Markets. From what I have learned, this is usually done through sales or something similar and creative to draw in more customers from the target market. For Starbucks in particular, I found an example of a coupon they gave out. As you can see, it shows its meant for an existing customer, but it says to bring a friend in. This friend is the expansion that they are trying to get from this coupon and this sacrifice of a cup of coffee. They are assuming this friend that is brought in is a member of their target market and they are hoping this friend will return in the future.

    The second strategy is Market Development or trying to find a new geographic market or market segment. There are numerous ways companies can do this and I noticed that Starbucks used a billboard. This is a perfect way to reach loads of people and it also fits into their product as well because coffee and driving go well together.

    The third strategy is Product Development and this can be anything from Apple creating a new product such as the iPad or Chevy introducing a new vehicle such as the Volt. Starbucks utilized this strategy by introducing a new section to their menu: breakfast. Once again, this is a very smart and logical move for Starbucks. Since they serve coffee and many people go there in the mornings for their coffee, it makes sense to sell breakfast as well.

    The final strategy is Diversification. This is where a company can develop new products for new markets. This was a little bit difficult for Starbucks, but one thing I did find was Starbucks entering the music sales industry. Now they aren’t doing this in a huge way, however they do have their own playlists and they also sell many of these songs as Starbucks-type songs with their trademark. This isn’t exactly finding a completely new market, but it is a new product and if it manages to attract a whole new set of customers, it could fit this strategy quite nicely.

    Overall, it is clear why companies choose to utilize these strategies to grow and expand and its interesting how each company chooses to do it slightly differently than the last (or vastly different in some cases). This is what I find interesting and intriguing: the different methods, products, and ideas that companies employ to grow and the sheer amount of creativity involved.