Managing and Optimizing Brand Equity
Hello, and welcome to today’s presentation on managing and optimizing brand equity.
There is a need for Sales, marketing, and operation functions to align in this organization, just like any other organization. These departments must align first to improve marketing return on investment (ROI). When these three functions work collaboratively, efficiency leads to more profitability (Holmes, 2021). The three functions should align to help eliminate inefficient processes that waste time and resources. There is a need for the departments to align to nurture consumer connections; the firm needs to connect with customers and keep an excellent transport system to make them come back for the park recreation services (Trask, 2014). The sales, marketing, and operational departments should align to increase revenues and shorten the sales cycle. If they work together, there are high chances of boosting revenue for the firm because of the efficiencies and making the sales task less involved. These departments should work together to avoid data duplication and ensure data validation; data duplication makes every process unnecessarily long and leads to role confusion (Holmes, 2021). The department should align to achieve shared metrics between the functions; it will be easier for them to work if all departments have one common metric.
Sales, marketing, and operational departments must align to help drive sustainable improvements in every process. If the departments are non-aligned, the sustainable improvement process will not give better results (Holmes, 2021). The three functions should align to improve mutual communication among functions. Communication among departments is vital because it enables each department to get informed and be updated on various issues and, thus, move together as a team (Trask, 2014). There is a need for the departments to align to have a joint action on data management, leading to the safety of the firm’s data. The three departments need to align to have joint expectations and responsibilities for each department. Aligning the three functions will help the firm achieve aligned plans to drive joint performance, increasing the chances of achieving its goals (Trask, 2014). Moreover, there is a need for alignment of the three functions to have shared sales, marketing & operational goals. Each department will work hard to ensure collective success if there are shared goals.
Like in many other organizations, the sales function in this firm has several duties. First, the sales function is responsible for making sales. The department will interact with customers who want to visit the park and convince them to make decisions (Frederiksen, 2022). Secondly, the sales function is responsible for growing business through making sales. If the department works hard to sell its services to the customers, it will mean that the firm will earn more revenue and grow. Thirdly, the sales function tends to attract and retain existing customers; this is one of the main duties of the sales team. Attracting first-time customers to try our park services is not a big problem (Frederiksen, 2022). The problem is to make the same customers come back for the services. Thus, the sales department uses some customer retaining strategies to ensure that customers come again, apart from retaining customers. The sales function also has a duty of maintaining good relationships with customers. A good relationship with customers will make them return and refer other potential customers to the firm’s services (Frederiksen, 2022). Moreover, the sales function effectively plans and budgets for available resources.
The marketing department has its roles. First, this function promotes product promotion; for instance, our marketing department advertises our services at our parks to customers in different regions. Promoting our services aims to create awareness among the customers about the kind of services we provide in the parks (Frederiksen, 2022). The Marketing function has the responsibility of pricing the services we provide. The pricing depends on the service and the demand for the service. The marketing department must study and understand the targeted market to know how to deal with the targeted market segment. The marketing function is responsible for carrying out marketing research to understand the dynamics of our business (Frederiksen, 2022). The marketing function analyzes competitors’ strengths to use the information to strategize how the firm can develop competitive advantages. Lastly, the marketing function is involved in making future marketing and promotion plans so that the company can maintain touch with customers.
The operation function plays a crucial role in this company. Its main roles include planning, directing, and controlling all the activities to ensure things flow as they should. According to marketing trends, the operation team is solely responsible for designing a product we offer to the customers at the parks. It ensures that customers get services that satisfy them. It also forecasts by estimating customers’ demand, especially during peak seasons, such as holidays (Frederiksen, 2022). Commonly, customers at the parks fluctuate depending on the season. Therefore, the operation function is responsible for forecasting the demand and using resources that could suit the number of estimated customers. Operation function ensures quality management through supervision; customers often want quality services at the parks. To ensure this, the operation department has quality management strategies used to maintain high-quality standards to attract customers (Frederiksen, 2022). The operation function optimizes the resources to have a competitive edge. The operation function performs strategic management by analyzing and assessing the market situation to make decisions that will help the company.
There are many ways the sales, marketing, and operational functions could improve the brand equity of this company. First, the operation function should ensure quality products to the customers. For instance, our operation team should strive to offer our customers high-quality park services to the customers (Jhajharia, 2022). Secondly, the marking team should conduct a competitive analysis to identify weak areas. The marketing function should continue displaying a consistent brand image so that customers who have not tried our services desire to try them. All three functions should listen to customers and tailor products according to customers’ preferences (Wang Et al., 2016). The sales function should foster relationships and build customers’ trust to attain customer loyalty. Marketing and sales functions should build brand awareness to ensure that many customers can identify and choose the company’s brand from many.
The three functions should communicate values to customers through a brand story. The brand story allows the customers to learn about a particular company’s history, beliefs, and values. The functions should invest heavily in the customer experience to leave great memories for customers wanting to return. The functions are instituting a brand equity management system that maintains the company’s value (Jhajharia, 2022). The operation department can design future marketing programs to preserve the brand equity of this company. The functions can continuously innovate to stay ahead in innovation and technology. Maintenance of brand equity may also involve conducting a market brand audit which establishes the value of the brand equity (Wang Et al., 2016). Brand equity maintenance may also entail identifying customer retention marketing trends so the company can adopt such trends. Maintaining and protecting brand equity is vital because it gives the firm some reputation.
‘Holmes, D. (2021). Why Sales and Marketing Alignment Leads to Satisfied Clients (and Staff). https://www.leadwithprimitive.com/blog/sales-and-marketing-alignment
´Frederiksen, L. (2022). The Role of Your Marketing Department — And What You Should Expect From It. https://hingemarketing.com/blog/story/what-you-should-expect-from-your-marketing-department
´Jhajharia, S. (2022). Four ways to improve your brand equity. https://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing-strategy/branding/four-ways-to-improve-your-brand-equity
‘Trask, M. (2014). Four Critical Areas of Marketing and Sales Operations Alignment. https://www.forrester.com/blogs/four-critical-areas-of-marketing-and-sales-operations-alignment
´Wang, Y. Et al., (2016). The Roles of Brand Equity and Corporate Reputation in CRM: A Chinese Study. Corporate Reputation Review 9(3):179-197. DOI:10.1057/palgrave.crr.1550027
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Question
Managing and optimizing brand equity is one of the long-term goals of any organization, and thus, it is a joint responsibility of all the functional departments. Brand equity is the set of assets linked to the brand. These assets include brand awareness, brand loyalty, and brand associations. Appropriate alignment of key departments with marketing is a key element in the brand management and optimization process.
As the regional marketing director leading a phased marketing strategy to reopen parks after a safety incident, you must ensure key functional departments in the organization coordinate for a smooth reopening of the parks. There is a need for clear, concise, and frequent communication to help departments understand their responsibilities and their interdependencies with other departments. As a part of your initial analysis of the brand implications, create a presentation to help the departmental heads understand the alignment needs and the roles and responsibilities of the cross-functional departments.
Prompt
In this assignment, you will identify the responsibilities of three functional departments of the organization in the course scenario: sales, operations, and marketing. You will also share the need for alignment between these functional departments to ensure the smooth reopening of the park and to improve brand equity.
Specifically, it would be best if you addressed the following rubric criteria:
Describe the need for alignment among the sales, operations, and marketing departments to ensure the successful reopening of the park. Consider the following key elements (1–2 slides):
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- Interdepartmental communication
- Knowledge and feedback sharing
Identify and describe the roles of these cross-functional departments and how they can improve brand equity. Consider the following points for your description (3–5 slides):
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- Sales
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- If the sales department’s primary role is to create individual and group sales for the company, what strategy can they undertake to grow sales considering the current situation? Ground your response in research and rich detail.
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- Operations
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- Suppose the operations department’s’ primary role is the safety of the guests and employees. What strategy can they undertake to ensure a safe experience for both guests and employees? Ground your response in research and rich detail.
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- Marketing
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- If the marketing department’s primary role is to attract, retain, and grow revenues from the park’s target audience, what strategy can they undertake considering the current situation? Ground your response in research and rich detail.
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