Strategic Marketing Plan Template

Use the business you selected in Week 1 and complete the prompts provided for Parts A, B, and C in the weeks they correspond to. Delete the provided prompts from each section when you finish each part.

Complete the References section as you progress through Parts A, B, and C.

Include your name in the document’s file name when you submit it.

Wk. 2 – Part A: Environmental Analysis and SWOT Analysis

Business Description

The plan is for Apple Inc. The company’s vision is “To bring the best user experience to customers through innovative hardware, software, and services” (Apple, n.d.). The company’s vision is “To make the best products on earth and to leave the world better than we found it”: Strategic Marketing Plan Template.

Apple has been ranked among the top five smartphone companies since 2009. With the decline of former market leaders such as Nokia and RIM, Apple emerged as the top smartphone seller, jostling for the opposition with strong rivals such as Samsung. Currently, Apple ranks second in smartphone sales, with a market share of 17.7% in the second quarter of 2024 (Laricchia, 2024).

Environmental Analysis

Competitive Forces

Apple’s main competitor in the computer hardware industry is Dell. The Chinese group Lenovo also competes with Apple in this industry. Besides, Hewlett-Packard (HP) gives Apple significant competition because the company has notable global operations outside the US.

Notably, Apple’s main product is the iPhone smartphone, which faces significant competition from Samsung, which manufactures various products with varying price ranges. It is worth noting that Samsung has a slightly higher market share than Apple in the smartphone market, mainly because it caters to customers from all socioeconomic classes. With their entry-level phones, Samsung caters to low-budget customers.

Apple differentiates its iPhone from competitive pressure by focusing on design and functionality. The iPhone has unique features, including a sleek design, attracting a young demography that values cosmetic features. Similarly, Apple invests heavily in research and development, producing an innovative product with top-notch functionality features.

Economic Forces

The economic stability in developed countries where Apple has a significant presence has helped the company expand successfully. Further, the rapid economic growth in developing countries such as China has helped Apple grow its sales significantly. However, unstable disposable income among the target customers is a threat since such customers avoid upgrading or acquiring new Apple products when faced with economic difficulties.

Political Forces

One of the political factors facilitating Apple’s growth is the free-trade policies with EU countries, allowing the company to export its products to the country and, hence, generate higher revenue. Also, the political stability across the North American market and Europe has contributed to Apple’s success. On the flip side, trade disputes between China and the US will likely threaten Apple’s expansion strategy. The trade wars may lead to increased tariffs on imported electronic components, increasing the cost of production. Notably, Apple’s core manufacturing processes take place in China.

Legal, Regulatory, and Ethical Issues

A key regulatory requirement that has affected Apple’s processes is the privacy requirement. Most governments, particularly the US, have implemented regulatory requirements to protect citizens’ data in the digital age. The privacy requirement will likely increase the production cost because the company has to adjust its production processes.

Another legal challenge facing the company relates to its after-sale services. Regulatory agencies in the US, the EU, and Australia have expressed reservations about Apple’s policy of using third parties to offer customers repair services (Jin et al., 2023).

Technological Forces

According to Jahan and Sazu (2023), the rising demand for cloud services has influenced Apple’s product expansion strategy. Today, Apple offers iCloud services to a limited extent, including its cloud storage business segment. Also, the growing demand for technology integration services promises to help the company expand its product offers.

Additionally, the growing demand for mobile services has contributed to the growth of Apple’s business portfolio. To that end, the company offers Appstore services and related digital content distribution through iOS and iPadOS platforms. However, technological advancements have provided an opportunity for new entrants who will give Apple stiff competition in the relevant markets.

Social Forces

The increasing penetration and demand for mobile services offer Apple growth opportunities. The demand for tablets and smartphones is rising globally these days, and Apple is among the businesses that will profit most from this societal trend.

However, the increasing anti-Apple sentiments, especially regarding the company’s reliance on third-party repair services, pose a significant social threat. With the increasing lawsuits against third-party repair arrangements, Apple risks a tainted brand image. These sociocultural factors require Apple to implement solid CSR interventions for its key stakeholders, including customers and governments.

Current Target Markets

Apple’s primary target market is young to middle-aged adults, with its products being popular among women. Demographic characteristics of the target market include middle to high-income earners. Although the company initially focused on North America and Europe, it has since expanded to the rest of the world.

In particular, recent developments show that the company is making inroads into emerging economies, especially in Asia. A significant portion of the market is skewed toward entry-level phones, but Apple has made significant gains thus far.

Current Marketing Tactics

Apple’s popular products are at the centre of its marketing strategy. The company leverages corporate events to announce upgrades, new product launches, and the entry into new service industries. For instance, the company creates a buzz on social media to market new iPhone upgrades. Apple uses this marketing strategy to emphasize innovative and functional features incorporated in its devices to appeal to the premium market.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Apple Inc. is one of the strongest and most valuable brands worldwide. The company leverages its strong brand image to successfully introduce new products into the market, including a new mobile phone series (Doan & Nguyen, 2022). The latest series of its iPhones is the iPhone 16 Pro Max, which has attained significant social media buzz and high sales, similar to the earlier versions. Another strength is the premium pricing strategy, which ensures that the company makes profits even with low sales.

For instance, MacBook sales have been notably low, but the high prices charged for the device ensure the company makes profits and continues to sustainably manufacture more MacBooks. Additionally, Apple’s aggressive research and development initiatives have ensured that the company manufactures highly innovative products that give it a competitive edge.

Weaknesses

One of Apple’s weaknesses is its exclusive distribution strategy. The company carefully selects third parties to distribute its products, especially MacBooks and iPhones, limiting access to such devices in some locations (Doan & Nguyen, 2022).

Another weakness is the company’s overreliance on the high-end market. With a premium pricing strategy, only middle- to high-income range customers can afford its products. Thus, the company misses sales to the low-income segment since it does not offer entry phones.

Opportunities

As stated earlier, Apple has a limited distribution network due to its exclusive distribution strategy. This presents the opportunity to expand its distribution network to reach more customers. Another opportunity for Apple is the potential to expand its mobile device distribution. The opportunity is based on the worldwide social trend in which customers demand more digital mobile devices.

Threats

The threats facing Apple include stiff competition in various business segments. In the consumer electronics and online services industry, Apple faces competition from Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Sony, and Amazon. Besides, Apple TV Plus faces competition from players that offer streaming services such as Netflix, Meta, and Disney (Doan & Nguyen, 2022).

Another concern is the possibility that local firms can partially imitate its products, especially the iPhone. If the trend continues, the company risks losing sales to companies that imitate its products and sell them at relatively lower prices. Additionally, the rising cost of production, particularly in the company’s manufacturing plants based in China, threatens to increase the overall production cost.

Converting Weaknesses and Threats to Strengths & Converting Strengths to Opportunities

The lack of sufficient distribution networks means the company can strengthen its distribution by easing the exclusive distribution strategy. By partnering with reliable third-party distributors, the company will ensure it attains more sales (Doan & Nguyen, 2022). Another weakness was the premium pricing strategy.

The company can consider introducing entry-level devices to cater to the low-income market. On the other hand, the company can address emerging competition by bolstering its investment in research and development. This will prevent new entrants from edging out Apple due to investment in advanced technology.

Marketing Objectives

Apple will expand its consumer electronics by easing its exclusive distribution strategy and partnering with reliable third-party distributors by December 2025. By expanding distribution, especially to developing countries, the company will enhance its consumer electronics sales by 20% by the end of 2025.

Moreover, the company should leverage its strong brand image and invest in innovation by increasing the R&D budget by 50% by December 2025. This strategy is expected to help the company launch new products to increase its revenue. This will also help Apple stop overlying on iPhone sales as its core business portfolio. The strategy will help Apple expand its revenue by 20% by December 2025.

Wk 4 – Part B: Marketing Data Analysis

Internal Data

Internal Data Table

Source	What it Measures	Data Type	Potential Data Usage
Customer Relations Management systems (CRM)	Purchase history of a certain product	Levels of brand loyalty will be indicated by how frequently certain clients have bought products from the company.	CRM data can be leveraged to help personalize ads, measure brand loyalty, and enhance customer retention strategies.
Operations data	Operational efficiency and the quality of business operations	Process completion times; for instance, how long it takes the business to replace a product on warranty	The data can help the business cut wastage by streamlining operations
Website and digital analytics	User behavior, for instance, what set of products specific customers view whenever they visit a website	The number of page visitors who become customers per 1000-page visitation	Digital analytics data can be leveraged to improve digital marketing strategies and facilitate the company to segment online target audiences.

Primary Data

Primary Data Table

Source	What it Measures	Data Type	Potential Data Usage
Interviews	Individual experiences and insights about the business	Qualitative	Understanding customer pain points and motivations
Surveys and questionnaires	Customers’ behavioral patterns and satisfaction levels	Qualitative and quantitative	Collecting data regarding specific product aspects and designing customized customer targeting strategies.
Observation	Measures customer interactions with the business, such as the number of times customers visit the business.	Both qualitative and quantitative	Analyzing the effectiveness of the business’s customer service strategy

Secondary Data

Secondary Data Table

Source	What it Measures	Data Type	Potential Data Usage
Statista industry reports	Performance trends in respective industries, including competition and market trends.	Consumer preferences that give a brand a competitive advantage	The reports can be used to analyze industry-level competition and leverage the benchmarks to improve the business
Federal Reserve	Economic performance variables such as the level of disposable income	National trade data such as the average disposable income	Assessing economic conditions to help make key decisions, including whether it is viable to expand the business
Facebook Insights	Consumer sentiment toward a specific product	The product with the highest levels of engagement in terms of likes, comments, and shares	Facebook insights can be leveraged to monitor the brand health and its public perception

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CRM Touchpoint Table

CRM Touchpoint	Purpose and CRM Objective	Data Type	Potential Data Usage
Data from email campaigns	Used to monitor customers’ interaction with the business’s	Rates of email bounces, click-throughs, conversion rates	Depending on engagement metrics, the business can leverage the data to improve emails’ content and timing
Customers’ Purchase history	Monitoring customers’ interactions to determine their preferences	Purchase dates, frequency of purchasing, and service bought	By analyzing buyers’ behavior, the business will be able to predict future purchasing patterns
Customer service interactions	Monitoring customers’ interactions with support channels to bolster response times	Satisfaction rating by customers, resolution times	Identify issues that seem to recur and resolve them permanently, improving customer service employees’ training to enhance their efficacy.

Wk 6 – Part C: Market Strategy, Marketing Channels, Implementation, and Monitoring

New Customer Segments

One of the new customer segments that Apple should target is health and fitness enthusiasts. This new target customer segment particularly relies on Apple watches to monitor workouts and track performance for fitness enthusiasts (Millington, 2016). The focus on this area is relatively novel, but it promises to give the company a competitive edge as more people adopt digital devices to help them attain better workout performance. To provide more value for this customer segment, the company should incorporate advanced features to help customers exercise better.

Another segment that promises great returns in the market is students and educators. Targeting this segment is necessitated by the fact that technology is increasingly being adopted in classroom learning (Pasnik, 2007). Apple should target this segment with products such as Apple pencils, iPads, and educational applications.

Marketing Mix for New Customer Segments

Health and Fitness Enthusiasts

The appropriate product adaptation should be designing a more advanced version of the Apple Watch that includes features for measuring heart rate, blood oxygen measurement, and hydration monitoring (Millington, 2016). Also, integrating fitness-focused apps will come in handy. On the other hand, Apple should adopt a tiered pricing strategy, such that fitness products with more advanced features have premium pricing, while those with limited capabilities attract a lower price.

When it comes to distribution, the company should adopt a specialized store experience, such that products health and fitness products are placed in specific sections to bolster customer experience. The best traditional promotion for Apple’s fitness and health-related products is to adopt celebrity endorsements. On the other hand, the company will leverage influencer marketing to promote the products to this new customer segment.

Students and Educators

One of the adaptations Apple should implement for educators and students is ensuring the products contain features that make them effective in a classroom setting. For instance, iPads should be lightweight, have a longer battery life, and include productivity tools (Pasnik, 2007). For pricing, Apple should consider extending significant discounts, especially for institutions that purchase multiple products, as this will encourage return customers. To ensure effective distribution, the company should create a dedicated section on its website targeting students and educators with education-related applications and devices.

Marketing Implementation

Apple should organize its marketing strategy by markets rather than geography to target these new customer segments. To that end, the company’s chief marketing officer (CMO) should take charge of the overall marketing strategy, including aligning respective marketing campaigns with the company’s vision and goals. Segment-specific marketing managers will be responsible for respective customer segments and report directly to the CMO.

Other key players in marketing will include product teams, content and creative teams, and digital and social media teams. Firstly, the product teams, in collaboration with the marketing departments, will ensure that the product aligns with segment-specific needs. In the long run, this will ensure that the specialized features for products targeting fitness and health enthusiasts, educators, and students are met.

On the other hand, content and creative teams will develop visuals and messaging for each segment. Finally, digital and social media teams will conduct online marketing by posting marketing messages on channels frequented by the target customers, including TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, among other digital and social media platforms.

Marketing Communication Channels

Marketing Communication Channels Table

Channel	Target Market	Advantages	Disadvantages
Social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok)	Health and Fitness	Highly visual and interactive	Heavy competition from other marketing brands.
Email Marketing	Health and Fitness	Offers an opportunity to communicate with highly engaged users.	Risk of emails being ignored.
Educational webinars	Students and educators	Offers value-added content	Difficult to track conversions

Strategic Actions

Strategic Actions Table

Strategic Action	Date for Completion	Person/Role Responsible	Standard or Metric to Indicate the Action is Complete
Design flyer for direct mail campaign	1/2/2025	graphic designer	Approval by senior marketing team and legal
Launch a fitness-related campaign	1/6/2025	Content Team	Engagement (likes, shares, comments)
Posting of user testimonials	1/12/2025	Content creators	Tagged mentions of Apple

Strategic Action Monitoring

Strategic Action Monitoring Table

Action	Overall Target	Person Responsible	Inter-measurement
Direct mail flyer	Generate 1,100 new inquiries.	Regional Manager	Generate 500 new inquiries during the first month of the campaign
Fitness-related campaign	At least 5 fitness-related video posts on each platform	Social Media Manager	Increase engagement by 20% in the first week
User testimonials	Generate user engagement that exceeds at least	Community Manager	Generate 100+ Apple tags for each story in the first month

References

Apple. (n.d.). Vision and mission of Apple Inc. – Apple Community. Discussions.apple.com. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251301665?sortBy=rank

Doan, T. N. T., & Nguyen, H. H. (2022). Value creation and value capture: Analysis of Apple Company. International Journal of Current Science Research and Review, 5(4), 1089-1095. https://doi.org/10.47191/ijcsrr/V5-i4-30

Jahan, S. A., & Sazu, M. H. (2023). Role of IoTs and analytics in efficient sustainable manufacturing of consumer electronics. International Journal of Computing Sciences Research, 7, 1337-1350. https://doi.org/10.25147/ijcsr.2017.001.1.105

Jin, C., Yang, L., & Zhu, C. (2023). Right to repair: Pricing, welfare, and environmental implications. Management Science, 69(2), 1017-1036. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4401

Laricchia, F. (2024, April 19). Apple iPhone market share 2019. Statista; Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/216459/global-market-share-of-apple-iphone/

Millington, B. (2016). Fit for prosumption: interactivity and the second fitness boom. Media, Culture & Society, 38(8), 1184–1200. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443716643150

Pasnik, S. (2007). iPod in education: The potential for teaching and learning. Apple Inc. Cupertino, CA.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

---

This week you will complete your strategic marketing plan for your selected business by identifying customer segments, developing an implementation plan, evaluating communication channels, and determining metrics. You will submit all 3 parts of your strategic marketing plan you have worked on in this course in 1 document.

Access the Strategic Marketing Plan Template that you submitted in Week 4 that contains your completed information for Parts A and B.

Review your faculty member’s feedback on your Wk 4 – Apply: Summative Assessment: Part B: Strategic Marketing Plan assignment and incorporate feedback into your plan.

Complete Wk 6 – Part C: Market Strategy, Marketing Channels, Implementation, and Monitoring of the Strategic Marketing Plan in the same document that contains your completed Parts A and B.