Walton Smart Phone - Group 6

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MARKETING REPORT ON WALTON SMART PHONE

Prepared For:

Asst. Professor Dr. Mohammed Tareque Aziz Course instructor

Marketing Management (MKT 501) MBA Program

BRAC Business School BRAC University

Prepared By:

Group 6 Spring 2014, MBA Program

STUDENT NAME STUDENT ID ATTEMPTED TOPICS SIGNATURE

Muhammad Tanvir Hossain 13164042 Pricing and Positioning

Strategy, Retention Strategy

MD. Ishtiaq Ahmed 12364066 Product and Unique Selling Proposition

MD Mahabubur Rahman Tamim

13164002 Conversion Strategy

Ahammed Riaz 13164009 Distribution Plan

Arunima Das 13164056 Promotion Strategy

Anika Tabassum 13164058 Online Marketing Strategy

Mahbuzzaman Bhuiyan 13164064 Target Market

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Executive Summary:

“Walton Mobile” is one of the leading newcomer mobile companies of Bangladesh, “Walton” itself was a sister concern of RB group and it started its journey with mobile phone the year 1999 with feature phones and later after brought smart phone on 2006. It has a very competent sales team, which promotes the specialties throughout the country. The company virtually covers every single corner of Bangladesh. It also has smart zones and plazas. It has its own large distribution network having exclusive distributors and sub dealers, it also have smart zones and plazas. It has 47 mobile service centers and plan to have in every major area’s in Bangladesh in future. Their main plan is to have 450 service centers as they have 450 distributors in Bangladesh. Each distributor one service center. Its main competitors are Samsung and symphony. Walton Mobile has market share of 30% and Symphony has 37% of market share and the company’s goal is to achieve 50% of the market shares. Having target customers of 18-25 years young generation they are very much prompt to come up with newer sets at a small price. But Walton is facing problem from grey product, non-brand Chinese products and cross products. They have stated after sales service and quality as their strength as their fault rate is only 4% whereas the competitors have 7% of fault rate. Sales growth is also upright as they had imported 400,000 units and sold 300,000+ units in the last 6 months. The company has a clear vision to become a leading mobile manufacturing company and the product will be wholly our own Bangladeshi product.

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Introduction:

Marketing is a process, where good marketing is no accident but result of using state-of-the-art tools and techniques carefully planned and executed.

The Business Dictionary define marketing management as “The application, tracking and review of a company’s marketing resources and activities”. Marketing manager is responsible for allocating the resources to the marketing funds.

Marketing management also “both an art and science” by Dr. Philip Korler. Because it strive marketers to find creative new solutions for often-complex challenges in ever changing 21st century marketing environment. Marketing is very important for firms to prosper financially and survive the unforgiving economic environment.

Walton has taken marketing seriously as mobile subscriber increased in Bangladesh past decade. Currently there are 114 million mobile subscriber in Bangladesh, 1.042 million of which added last December according to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC). Low cost mobile set, third generation mobile broadband and reduction in SIM tax have virtually played a vital role to the booming growth in subscription last year.

In this report we are going to briefly discuss about Walton Smart Phone’s Target Customer, Product and USP, Pricing and Positioning Strategy, Distribution Plan, Promotion Strategy, Online Marketing Strategy, Conversion Strategy and Retention Strategy.

Target Customers for Walton Smart Phone

We use two broad groups of variables to segment consumer markets. We try to define segments by looking at descriptive characteristics: geographic, demographic, and psychographic. Then we examine whether these customer segments exhibit different needs or product responses.

On the other hand we try to define segments by looking at behavioral considerations, such as consumer responses to benefits, user status, loyalty status and attitude toward cell phones. We see whether different characteristics are associated with each customer response segment people want quality rather than low price.

Geographic segmentation- The size of the geographic markets is an important consideration

while deciding the concentration of marketing efforts. This is where the market is divided into region, city, rural and urban areas. Walton smart phone mainly focuses those customers who are living in city areas like, Dhaka, Chittagong, comilla, Rajshahi, Sylhet, Bogra, Barisal and other major cities. We emphasis our focuses mostly in Dhaka city because here are living more than 15 million people. Regardless of the price of Walton smart phone it is viewed as a high end mobile phone and therefore, the higher quality and higher price of Walton smart phone would be mostly distributed where the middle and higher end class of individual’s lives.

Demographic segmentation- This is where the market is divided on criteria such as:

Age, Gender, Family size, Income level, occupation, education.

Walton target customer is youth generation. Teenagers, college and university students from middle to high income families are also targeted by Walton smart phone. These customers use Walton smart phone for many reasons some of these reasons are to socialize with friends, listen to music and go on face Book, Mail Checking, MSN, Twitter etc. There are also many gaming apps that appeal to them.

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We have twenty three different styles of smart phones with different configurations and specifications. The cheaper Walton smart phone price ranges from taka 4,750 to taka 11,990 targets the middle class income earners youth family members, on the other hand taka 12,190 to taka 23,900 targets the higher income earners youth family members.

Psychographic segmentation- This segment involves splitting the market into: Lifestyle,

personality, attitudes and benefits, social class.

Walton smart phone primarily used psychographic segmentation to identify its target market. Walton takes in to consideration the socioeconomic status, lifestyle and personality variables of its consumers. The focus here would be on persons belonging to all different social class – middle to upper class, some who are very price sensitive buyers and some who are technologically conscious. There are also those whose attitudes and beliefs are “people who own a Walton smart phone to the youth educative class”.

As Walton smart phone has already built itself a respectable reputation from its previous release PrimoX2, this is an advantage as, there is already a sense of anticipation for the Primo ZX release and the new improvements and features that it will have in comparison to the original Primo X2.

Behavioral Segmentation- This involves dividing the market in groups based on customer

knowledge and behavior towards a particular product using past behavior as a guide to future behavior.

Based on a small survey to achieve market share of 50% it showed Walton smart phone owns approximately 30% of the market share and main competitor Symphony has 37% market share. Last six month Walton smart phone sell 300,000+ units which is 130% up from last year. 20% of the market preferred other brands such as IPhone, Samsung, Sony Ericson and Nokia because of technology, Social class, etc. 13% who preferred the simple mobile phones and the lower class who could only afford the cheaper brands of phones.

Recommendations:

● Walton smart phone should focus on their market in rural areas, because Majority of the population 71.6% still lives in villages in rural areas.

In order to effectively improve the performance of Walton smart phone intention is to build long lasting relationships with their customers in an attempt to provide them with the product that better satisfy their needs over the competitors in the market.

Product and Unique Selling Proposition:

Walton is a Bangladeshi electronics product manufacturer and distributor. Walton do not

produce mobile in Bangladesh although they produce freeze. They imported the mobile and

they distributed their mobile as the brand name of Walton. Basically they imported product

from china. At the first time of their mobile business they imported and distributed only 2G

mobile phone. They do not import only feature phone in this present time. But now they are

import only 3G smart phones. Now Walton has different type of mobile phone in market. The

product price of the Walton mobile is depending on the product quality and facilities. In bellow, there is some products description of Walton mobile:

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Walton Primo RX

Walton Primo X2

Walton Primo N

Walton Primo X1

Walton Primo NX

Android 4.2.2 (jelly bean), 28nm Quad-Core 1.2GHz,RAM: 1GB ;Storage,space: 16GB ; Expandable memory up to32GB, Screen size: 5 inch

Android 4.2.1 (Jelly Bean), 1.5 GHz turbo, Quad Core, RAM: 1 GB; ROM: 16 GB, 4.5 inch HD (1280X720)pixels,

Android 4.2.1 (jelly bean), 1.2 GHz Quad Core Processor, RAM: 1 GB ; Storage space: 4 GB ; Expandable memory up to 32GB, Screen size: 5.5 inch

Android OS 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean), 28 Nm, 1.2 GHz Quad Core, Dual Sim, RAM: 1 GB; ROM: 4 GB, 4.65 inch & HD Super AMOLED

Android 4.2.1 (Jelly Bean), 28 Nm,1.2 GHz, Quad Core, Dual Sim (GSM+UMTS), RAM: 1GB DDR; ROM:4GB,5.3 inch qHD(1280X720)pixels

Price- 17960 taka

Price- 17960 taka Price- 12150 taka

Price - 16990

Price - 17990

Walton Primo G3

Walton Primo D2

Walton Primo E2

Walton Primo X2

Walton Primo D4

Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean), 24 Nm, 1.2 GHz Cortex A7, Quad Core, Dual Sim (UMTS+GSM), RAM: 512 MB; ROM: 4 GB, 4.5 inch, FWVGA(480X854)

Android 4.2.2 (Jellybean), 1 GHz Dual Core, Dual Sim ( UMTS + GSM), RAM: 256 MB; ROM: 512 MB, 3.5 inch; HVGA (320X480)

Android 4.2.2 (jelly bean), 1.3 GHz Dual Core Processor, RAM: 512 MB ; Storage space: 4 GB,

Android 4.2.1 (Jelly Bean), 28 Nm, 1.5 GHz Turbo (Quad Core), Single Sim, RAM: 2 GB; ROM: 32 GB

Android 4.2.2 (jelly bean), 1 GHz Dual Core Processor, RAM: 256 MB ; Storage space (ROM): 512 MB

Price- 11990 taka Price- 4650 taka

Price- 5990 taka

Price- 23990 taka

Price- 4700 taka

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In this current time Walton has 20 model mobile available in the market. The targeted customer

of Walton is young generation. So the features of Walton mobile make in that way so that

Walton can attract the young customers. Also their price is reasonable. The color, design of

Walton mobile is different than its competitor. They use android operating system in their entire product.

Unique selling Proposition (USP): It is an important factor that differentiates a product of on

producer than the product of other producer such as lowest cost highest quality, good service,

warranty, guarantee, after sales services etc. Now a day’s, USP treated as “what you have competitor don’t”.

A successful USP focused on the customer benefits, which can attract new customers. The

USP of Walton design in that way so that they can attract new customers for their business

growth. It also focused on that, to make their business unique and valuable their target market.

Before making USP for Walton the designer of Walton asked them this following question:

How do your business services benefit your clients better than anyone else. Walton tried to

incorporate the answer of that question in their USP. The head of marketing told us in our

visiting time in his office that 18 to 25 years old people are their targeted customers. So that

they design their USP based on their customers need and comparing with their competitor.

According to the head of marketing of Walton the USP of Walton is follows:

1. Available service center

2. Provide bundle offer with the mobile operators.

3. Quality product- Less price.

Above mention point are the main wings of Walton USP. Walton mainly gives focused on this above mentioned facts to make Walton exceptional from their competitor.

Available service center: Walton has highest number of service center than its others

competitor like nokia, symphony, Samsung etc. Walton has service center at every district of

Bangladesh. So that customer can easily get after sales services. One survey was conducted

by the Walton; it said that the Walton customers are pleased about the Walton after sales service.

Provide bundle offer with the mobile operators: Walton introduce bundle offer for its

customers with the collaboration of the mobile operators. Under this package customers can

buy Walton mobile with less prices than the market price. In average customers get 1000 to 2000 discount on the actual rate of that particular mobile.

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Quality product- Less price: Walton provide quality product with less price which makes

Walton unique than others. The Walton mobile get ISO and UKAS certified. The price of

Walton mobile is less than its competitors. Walton has strong quality control tem to deliver

best product to their customer’s hand. Walton follows zero tolerance policy about their product. A survey said that, only 5% to 10% mobile need to provide after sales service.

The head of marketing of Walton also told us the steps which they follow to make Walton’s USP. According to head of marketing, the following steps Walton follows to made their USP:

Step 1: Describe Walton Target Audience

Step 2: Explain the Problem Walton Solve

Step 3: List the Biggest Distinctive Benefits

Step 4: Define Walton Promise

Step 5: Combine and Rework

Step 6: Cut it Down

CCDVTP by Philip Kotler:

Philip Kotler is a well-known marketer and professor at Northwestern University in Chicago.

He has written and co-written multiple books and textbooks for thousands of students. The Strategic Marketing mantra that Kotler talks about is "CCDVTP":

C: CREATE.

C: COMMUNICATE AND

D: DELIVER.

V: THE VALUE.

T: TO THE TARGET MARKET. P: AT A PROFIT.

Create: Create means creating the value for the customers. We can write creating value =

product management. Walton try to bring the new product with new technology and new

facilities. Walton smart phone use the android operating system in their smart phone which is

latest operating system.

Communicate: we can say communicate value = brand management. Walton is a trusted

brand name in mobile market. Walton creates the brand name with delivering quality products,

good services, smart price, attractive packaging etc. Walton has the promise to the customer to provide quality smart phone.

Deliver: We can say deliver = customer management. Walton creates a strong customer data

base. By using the data base they communicate with the customers and try to include the customers demand in their smart phone.

Value: Walton supply the quality smart phone in the market.

Target: Walton target market is the youth people who have the ability to by a smart phone.

The age of the target customers is 25 to 28.

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Profit: Walton introduces their smart phone newly in market. So their market share is not like

that Samsung or symphony. But Walton is a rising smart phone brand in Bangladeshi market. Good news is that Walton is making profit every year.

Recommendation:

1. Walton should focus on available customer service center as their USP.

2. Walton should introduce more attractive looking smart phone.

3. They can provide more warranty service than the other competitors

Positioning Strategies:

When Walton started back in 1999, our telecommunication industry was rising. With almost 100 million customers Bangladesh mobile market were full of imported products. They started bringing in the market “Feature Phones”, which were cheap compare to its competitors and provided a good value to the end users. In 2006 Walton started selling “Smart Phone” in the market, designed by Walton and manufactured by China.

Walton has successfully created customer-focused value proposition through the years to their target market.

Table 4.1

Examples of Value Propositions

Company and Product

Target Customers

Key Benefits

Price

Value Proposition

Walton (Mobile) Quality seeking youth consumers of Smart Phone

All Smart Phone Features

15% premium

A sleek stylish smart phone with all the features at a moderate price

Above table closely reference with the Walton’s target market decision. Walton’s target market is youth generation, segmented age group between 18-25, which define the nature of competition. Most of Walton’s competitors targeted youth as their target market.

Walton identifies its competitors for brand positioning with Symphony and Samsung in Bangladesh market. Symphony and Samsung offers wide range of products which are direct substitute to Walton’s Smart Phones.

Walton has analysed its competitors by conducting Porter’s Five Forces and SWOT analysis. Table 4.2 shows the results of Walton’s survey on customers how they rate their main competitors on the market, which are Samsung and Symphony.

Samsung is well known and respected for their high-quality products and after sale service, which is mainly focuses on major cities in Bangladesh. On the other hand Symphony providing good value products with poor product availability and technical support.

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Table 4.2

Customers’ Ratings of Competitors on Key Success Factors

Customer Awareness

Product Quality

Product Availability

Technical Assistance

Selling Staff

Samsung E E G F F

Symphony G G F P P

Note: E = excellent, G = good, F = fair, P = poor

Competition is very high in Bangladesh for smart phones. Some of the major brands now target Bangladesh as a big market, i.e. Nokia. Nokia’s features phone market still very much a major force in Bangladesh but they are pushing for smart phone market which will eventually rule the world. New entrants such as Micromax also a threat for Walton.

Walton is trying to benefits the consumers positively with some attributes that could not be found at the same extent with its competitive brand. The point-of-difference Walton trying to provide to its consumers are design, quality, value and performance.

Walton’s plan (my plan) is to differentiate the brand with its competitors in future in these dimensions in Bangladesh which will be more attractive to the consumers:

Employee differentiation: Walton is providing training to its employees but plan is to

train them better so that they can deliver rich customer service. With better trained employees and rich customer services Walton will get customer satisfaction, which is lacking to its competitors. It will bring more customer and Walton target is to achieve 50% of Smart Phone market share in Bangladesh.

Channel differentiation: Right now Walton has 450 exclusive distributor and 1500

sub-distributor in Bangladesh, 150 of them are mobile distributor. For more effective and efficient distribution Walton has a plan to increase its mobile distributor in major districts. In this way consumer will get more expertise, performance, coverage to make buying process easier, reliable, enjoyable and more rewarding.

Services differentiation: Walton is planning to establish more service center in

Bangladesh, currently it has 47 service center. Walton’s future plan is to have a service center under every distributor to ensure fast service for any inconvenience that may consumer face.

Pricing Strategies:

In marketing mix price is the element which produces revenue and the other elements produce costs. Price is the easier to adjust then other program in marketing; product features, channels and communications. Price also communicates to the market the company’s intended value positioning of its product or brand. A fine-designed and marketed product can bring a price premium and capture big profits.

Setting the Price:

Walton setting its smart phones price by selecting pricing objectives:

Purchase value: Walton’s first pricing objective is purchase value. What are the

purchasing value of different components and the end products?

Overhear cost: Walton also add its current operation cost to its smart phones.

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Profit: Walton has minimum profit level for each smart phones, which is Tk. 1000.

Feedback or responding to competitor’s price change: Walton should take consideration of feedback policy to its pricing objectives. Competitors may launch a similar product line or substitute in less price before Walton’s launching the similar line of product. If they do not consider feedback from market they might lose market share and low volume of sale.

Price has operated a major determinant of buyer preference, traditionally. Below figure shows Walton has taken mainly four pricing strategies to compete with its competitors to keep in the mind of pricing objectives.

Figure 4.1

Penetration pricing: Walton set its price low to ‘penetrate the market’. Low price

secure high volumes. Compare to Walton’s main competitors Walton selling same configuration smart phones in less price. For example, Walton’s Primo X2 to Samsung’s Galaxy SIV, price BDT 23,990 and BDT 40,000 respectively. Last 6 months Walton sold 300,000+ smart phones in the Bangladesh with a market share of 30%.

Psychological pricing: One of Walton’s pricing strategy is psychological pricing.

Walton charges its consumer BDT 4650 to 23,990, which is below to the round figure. It help customers to think they are not paying BDT 24,000 but they are paying BDT 23,000.

Mark-up pricing: Walton has decided to yields its mark-up of return 20% on

investment. For example; Walton has invested BTD 100 million in the business and wants ROI BDT 20 million.

Promotional Pricing: Walton should take some pricing techniques to stimulate early

purchase:

Low-interest price: Walton should offer consumers low interest financing to increase

its sale volume rather than cutting off price. They should introduce new instalment deals with Banks, for example; customer can purchase Walton set from BRAC Bank with monthly instalment. Monthly BDT 1050 for Primo X2 for 24 months instalment, which actual price is BDT 23,990 but after 24 months they are actually paying BDT 25,200 which only BDT 1,210 more.

Pricing Strategies

Psychological Pricing

Target-return Pricing

Promotional Pricing

Penetration Pricing

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Psychological discount: Walton should take strategy to set an artificial high price and

then offers the product at substantial savings: for example, “Was BDT 12,990, now BDT 11,550”.

Recommendation: Currently Walton has no special event going on and in future they should

take some step to introduce special invents in Bosundhara City or Jomuna Future Park, where many potential buyer visit every day. They can offer smart phones with some of their other products, such as Freezer or Air Conditioner (AC) etc. If a customer buy an AC they will get 10% from its particular smart phones.

Distribution Plan:

R. B. Group sell 50000+ Smart phone monthly. They currently distribute smart phones in three ways. Such as_

Exclusive Dealer Mobile Distributor

Walton Plaza

Exclusive Dealer: Exclusive dealer of R. B. Group (Walton) sales all products of Walton. In

Bangladesh Walton has 450 Exclusive Dealer. All of them are not the distributor of Walton smart phone. Only 100 dealers distribute Walton smart phone. They get 6-7% commission from Walton Company. The distributor distributes 5-10% smart phone of total smart phone sales. Exclusive dealers have sub dealers who get the smart phone from exclusive dealers and sale the product to the customer. Sub dealers get 3.5-4.5% commission from the exclusive dealers.

Mobile Distributor: Mobile distributor are assigned to distribute mobile phone only. Walton

has 140 mobile distributors in the current market. Mobile distributor sells 80% of total sales. So it is the main concern for Walton mobile. Walton has 140 mobile distributors. They get same percentage of commission as exclusive dealer from the company. They get yearly or quarterly commission for the fulfilment of target sales. It is 1-2% on the amount. Mobile distributors have sub dealers like exclusive dealers. Walton company motivate mobile distribute to open “Smart Zone”.

Smart Zone: Smart Zone is the retail shop where only smart phones sell. In smart zone smart

phones displayed in a way that the customer can operate dummy phones before purchase. There are 21 Smart zones in Bangladesh. Smart Zone is owned and operated by the mobile distributor.

Walton Plaza: Walton Plaza is the show rooms of Walton Company. Walton plazas are

operated by company. In Walton plazas all the products of Walton sell. Walton has currently 150 Walton plazas. Employees of plazas are the employees of R. B. Group. In an interview Senior Assistant General Manager of Sales & Marketing department of R. B. Group said,

“Plazas are more costly then distributor but we are operating the plazas for the purpose of promotion of the product”.

Recommendation:

Exclusive dealers are less motivated to smart phone compare to other products of Walton. Because selling of mobile phone time costly compare to other products. For large amount of selling they need to conduct many sell for which high time is needed. Price of smart phone

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varies from Tk. 7000 to Tk. 25000. On other hand other product of Walton starts from Tk. 30000. So, the dealers like to deal with other electronics products.

Walton can reduce the number of exclusive dealers for smart phone. Currently there are 100 exclusive dealers for smart phone distribution. It can be reduced to 50-60 dealers. These 50 or 60 dealers will be from the potential areas. They will distribute 10% product of total sales. So they should be capable to do that.

As Mobile distributors are main channel for Walton smart phone distribution the company should emphasize on them. Walton should increase the number of mobile distributor to smooth their distribution. In selection of mobile distributor the company should follow some important things such as available product to customer, capability and capital of distributor, potential areas and expansion of distribution area.

Mobile distributor should get credit facility from the company. Credit facility will be given to distributor where the area is potential area for the company. Credit facility may be given to distributor where competitor’s distributor is stronger.

Smart Zone should increase because it promotes the product. It increases the sale of the product. Smart Zone will increase to 60-70. If every district has at least one smart zone it will be better for the company. As our targeted customer is 18-25 age groups they like to purchase from the smart zone.

As Walton plaza promotes the product it should continue in spite of it is costly. Walton plaza can be increase to 200 to cover the whole market. After reaching 200 plazas they should not go for new plaza. Plazas should establish in the areas where mobile distributor are not available. It will smooth the distribution of the company.

Walton should introduce online selling. Online selling will increase the sales of Walton smart phone. As Walton’s targeted customers are youth generation they will to purchase from web sites.

Promotion Strategy:

Promotional strategy is the most crucial aspect of every brand to sustain for long term, even for life time existence. Walton has emerged in market with some new creative outlook. Walton smart mobile set has established in an elegant line of mobile phone handsets. It is distinctive by its long durability, and eye-catching look. Walton maintains a strict quality control process to ensure unblemished quality. It provides different types of mobiles as market offerings. Some important promotional strategies that have been undertaken by Walton in terms of branding their Smart phone are mentioned below.

Segmentation: The target group of Walton Smart phone is young generation, the people who are aged between 18 to 25.

Attracting large number of people: Walton attracts the large number of people through online advertisement like Facebook, YouTube, paper advertisement, television ad, billboard and so on.

Differentiation: Walton tries to differentiate the brand over it competitors by the features, reasonable prices for young generation so that they can afford the standardized smartphone as well as their services.

Competitors: the main competitors of Walton are symphony and Samsung. Because according to them if any customer does not purchase Walton either they move to Samsung or Symphony.

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Strategy of garbing market share: Walton smart phone is trying to grab the market share over its market share by their product quality, services and reasonable prices. Beside this, Walton is encouraging entrepreneurs to invest with the help of their financial assistance to establish them as distributor (stated by Marketing Executive Director Emdadul Haque Sarker).

Sales Volume: At present Walton only sales smart phone. In last six month their approximate sales volume of smart phones is over 300000. Right now their market share is 30% where as the market share of Symphony is 37%. From this volume it can be identified they are moving very fast to grab the market share of symphony. It is the matter of time to see in near future that how much better way they can establish their brand over its competitors. In last 6 months their sales growth is 130%.

Customer service facilities: Walton has 47 mobile service centers in whole Bangladesh, which are largest in Bangladesh and product fault ration is only 4% where competitors such as symphony has 7%, (this is also their USP.) Problems in terms of branding: Some problems that have faced by Walton in terms of branding their smart phones and those are from Cross products, non-brand products, and grey products. Cross products means, suppose Samsung has their own brand shop, but some language party bring no warranty Samsung mobiles from China or Arab states and are being sold by the local shops at cheap price. As customers can get branded mobile sets with such low prices then they may not feel interest to buy Walton brand. Non branded product means some Chinese brand which are being sold with low prices and and convert customer’s attraction toward these non branded products. These thing create problems in branding. Brand Equity: According to Marketing Executive Director Emdadul Haque Sarkar of Walton, their brand equity is positive till now since market growth is 130% in last six months and in Bangladesh, their market share is 30%. So everything is going under their control. Though their target is to achieve 50% of market share and accordingly they are moving forward. Walton Smartzone: Smart zone means franchise where franchisee will take the contract to keep only Walton smart phones in the show room to sell. Walton imported 400000 units and sold more than 300000 units in last six months. Whereas 10% of units were being sold from smartzone in last year and 25% in this year. Currently Walton has 21 smartzone but it has plan to establish 120 smartzones across the country. Some promotional plans that Walton should undertake

Walton should come up with new plan and new strategy to attract customers for their upcoming new products. Television advertisement and online advertisements are getting so common now a days. These medias will help to spread the information regarding the new products near to the customers. But these are not enough to make customers buy these products. They should do campaigns, road show, and game show for young generation to attract the market for upcoming new mobile sets. They should make contract with different television or movie directors, convincing them to use only Walton smart phone in the movie or any bangla natok and thereby they can promote this brand and reach to the vast population. They should contract with renowned directors for this promotion. As well as Walton should also assign brand promoter or brand endorser to promote their brand. For example, taking Shakib Al Hasan as brand promoter of Walton smart phone to influence customer’s mind as most of people in Bangladesh are cricket lovers. Walton is selling their products in Qarter, Sudan and UAE. Apart from this Walton is thinking to sell smart phones in Nepal and African nations in terms of expanding their market and making more profit. They want to make recognition of their smart phone brand internationally.

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Before that they should get established strongly in Bangladesh market. From Marketing Executive Director of Walton we come to know that in future Walton will try to expand their business in Nepal and African nations. Walton should continuously bring new plans and products to hold the market in a better manner. They should change the strategy as the demand of the market. They should give more value in customer services and ensure the quality of their products. Walton should make proper market research regarding their upcoming mobile sets. They should come to know about the customer’s preference, what other benefit that customers expect, so far their expectation and satisfaction of Walton Smart phone mobile and so on. Through the proper research so many things may get explored what may help marketer to make different strategy or ideas to achieve goal. Walton should make an agreement with Robi, Grameen Phone or any other telecommunication company for their upcoming high quality and high priced mobile sets i.e. Primo ZX, Primo V1 and so on. Walton’s agreement with telecommunication company is like, for example Banglalink itself offer to buy Walton smart phone from their showroom in an installment basis. The price of these sets are high, almost 30000 taka. As the target customers of Walton are belong to middle and lower middle class so it will be difficult for them to afford it. And the customer who can invest 30000 taka for mobile set then S/he would buy foreign branded mobile sets. So this agreement facilitates customers to afford high priced local brand. Side by side Banglalink also can get involved with promoting Walton smart phone brand.

Online Marketing Strategy:

Now-a-days Online Marketing Strategy is a must for almost every product as customers are

so much conscious about what they are buying and customers are very much technology oriented at this era. Walton Mobile has chosen 18-25 years youth generation as their target

market who are very much internet dependent and searches for everything in internet before buying. As a new comer in the smart phone industry Walton Mobile has not started its online marketing in that much vast manner.

It has an official fan page called “WaltonBD”. This page has 430790 fans and has started its

journey in Facebook from 10th January, 2011. Here features of different types of upcoming smart sets and also features of its existing sets are putted for the ease of the customers. Different types of discount offers are also putted down in this page.

Other than this fan page Walton does not have any official online strategies. But according to get up –to-date with the business world and to compete with competitors Walton Mobile should take some initiatives officially. Some of our recommendations are:

1. Online Purchase: “Walton Mobile” should start online purchase system for the

customers. They can introduce a system like the customers will be able to choose products from the online purchasing site and will be able to purchase smart phones through Credit Card and Debit card. The customers will also enjoy free home delivery service if they buy Smart Phones above 10000 taka.

2. Customer Relationship Management: Customer relationship management is a process which is implemented to strengthen the relationship with the customers. “Walton Mobile” should keep a database where every single data of the customers

will be kept. Then the company can send SMS to the customers on Eid days, on their birthdays, can send E-mail and ask them to buy new arrivals and can also can ask them to visit their repairing centers so that “Walton Mobile” can fix their products which have been bought 1 year back. This is for building a strong relationship with the customers to make them loyal and apostle customers.

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3. Blogs and updates in Social Sites: “Walton Mobile” should post blogs, features,

and articles in the online social sites. Today’s era is completely online based; they love to visit online sites before any other media. So blogs, posts and ads should be posted on different online sites in a regular basis.

4. Popped up ads: In different online sites it can put popped up ads, but not in an irritating manner but in decent way and a very attractive approach so that the customers will be interested to know about the product and can get motivated to buy the products.

5. Social sharing of the contents: “Walton Mobile “should share its contents features

in a regular basis and in a huge number. Social shares can serve as a stamp of approval, if people see that it has thousands of shares, they will think that it has something of value. The more people are sharing a content its position should increase within the search engine result pages, so like the other businesses “Walton Mobile” should install social share plugins and encourage customers to share as much as possible.

6. Walton Mobile Technical Support Page: “Walton Mobile” must have an official

“Technical Support Page” where different problems related to smart phones will be posted and solutions of those problems will be given by the technical department of “Walton Mobile”.

7. Youtube page: It should have a Youtube account also. Where” Walton Mobile” will

post videos of its upcoming smart phones and features of those phones and subscribers will be able to watch those videos. It is one of the most effective marketing policies because here the customers can watch the videos and can know more about the phones than the still photographs.

8. Instagram : It should have account in ” Instagram “ , “Walton Mobile” will upload

photos along with the features of the mobile sets , so that the customers can know about the products and can decide to purchase Walton Mobile phones.

9. Twitter Account: “Walton Mobile” should open an account in “Twitter” and will post in a regular basis to stay tuned with the customers to increase its sales.

10. Buy E-mail addresses: The company can buy e-mail addresses of the customers

from different mobile companies, car companies and many others and can send them attractive mails to make them interested for the smart phones.

11. LinkedIn groups: Can create a linked in group, where Walton Executives, High

ranked personnel and customers will be altogether and can discuss about their products and problems and will get different types of offers and discounts if they are linked into this group and quick solutions of every problems will be given here. It’s more over an official site where the employees, high officials and customers will be linked

together.

These are some online marketing strategies “Walton Mobile “can follow in order to grab more

market shares.

Conversion Strategy:

Conversion is the act of converting prospects into active customers. The efficiency of

conversion is measured by conversion rate.

No of Goal Achievements

Conversion rate= -------------------------------------

Visits

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Conversion marketing can add 20% to the gross sales without any extra advertising cost. As Walton mobile Bangladesh has two very close competitors - Symphony and Samsung so

application of a strong conversion policy is very important for them.

Present Conversion policy of Walton Mobile:

Walton mobile is using their own Website as their conversion tool.

Walton mobile have Facebook fan page and forum to extend their conversion.

They also have a Youtube tunnel

The conversion rate of Walton Mobile Bangladesh in last year was 6% but now it has

improved to 10-15%.

The conversion policy of Walton includes better specification of products with low cost.

“It’s our product” the logo of Walton. As Walton is a Made in Bangladesh product so

this one of the present conversion policies.

Recommended conversion policy for Walton Mobile Bangladesh-

Conversion team:

Walton mobile should establish a powerful and efficient conversion team who will work specially for increasing the conversion rate.

The conversion team will identify the potential customers.

The team will work for Customer Response Optimization (CRO).

The team will build up and maintain commercial relationship with the customers.

Website development:

Walton mobile should modify their website to a powerful, attractive and interactive

one to make a better and efficient conversion. Guide each visitor through the website showcasing all the product and services of

the company. Bounce rate of the web page visitors should be decreased with the help of a user

friendly web design.

The webpage should be regularly updated. The online usability of Walton mobile’s present website should be improved.

A conversion funnel can be used and feedback about the overall website can be

taken from the visitors and improved if necessary. Free shipping can be an attractive conversion policy.

Statistical database:

A statistical database should be made out of the website visitors details.

Database should include the personal informations like: Date of birth, Anniversary,

Favorites etc. In the special days like Eid day, New Year celebration and in the important days of the

person personalized message should be sent.

Special invitations can be sent to the person in different occasions.

Email / sms can be sent about the summer, winter & Baishakhi sales offer.

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Showroom management:

Special arrangement for the target customers (Youth generation-Age limit 18-25

should be made in the showrooms. All the Smart zones should be decorated in such a way that Youth generation gets

attracted to it.

Campaigns in the different University campus can be a great conversion idea.

Feedback:

Management should take feedback about each and every policy should be taken at regular intervals and updated or changed when necessary.

If the above mentioned conversion policy is adopted by Walton Mobile Bangladesh then the conversion rate will be improved and Walton’s sale as well as profit will be increased.

Retention Strategy:

Walton is developing greater capabilities in maintaining primary business process such as new-product realization, customer acquisition and retention and inventory management. By maintaining these primary process Walton is creating marketing network.

Walton is working on treating their customers well, identifying satisfaction factors and changing operations and marketing as a results. Customer satisfaction is one major key to retain customers. A highly satisfied customer more likely to say loyal longer and buy more when company introduce new products and services. Walton is providing less defective products in market, the number is just 3 to 4%, where the fault ration rate to the other smart phone companies in Bangladesh are around 5-10%. This allows Walton to give customer more mental satisfaction and almost hassle free products to use.

Walton should promise good delivery to its customers. Good delivery means early delivery, on-time delivery or order completeness. Online or in store order delivery must be a “highly satisfactory” level in order to customer retention.

Walton also working on building customer loyalty: long-term marketing success depends on creating a strong and tight connection with customers. Walton has opened a Facebook fan page where customers can ask questions or any inconvenience they are facing while using Walton’s smart phones. Admin and customer service representative working on 24/7 to provide customers the necessary solution immediately. In return customers provide valuable feedback on what Walton is doing and thinking of doing. It is also helping Walton to develop their upcoming products, craft the look and packaging. Walton should also integrate software to view its customer activities across online and direct sales channels. It could allow Walton to enhance product margin by 3 percent, improved customer retention by 10 percent.

Walton also focusing on customer equity perspective for bottom-line financial value. It is offering clear benefit of quantifiable measures of financial performance. Now Walton attracting higher quality employees which prompt strong support from channel and supply chain partners.

Recommendation: Walton must take some customer retention strategies to benefit

customers financially. Walton could offer its existing customers exchange value. For example; if a customer already using the old version Primo X2, they would get BDT 5,000 off to buy the new Primo X3, which will allow the customer pay only BDT 18,990. Same goes for the flagship

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smart phones they have in the market. Right now Walton has merely 30 percent customer retention as stated by marketing executive director Mr. Emdadul Haque Sarker, by applying exchange value Walton could improve customer retention by 50%. No other smart phone company which operating in Bangladesh offering exchange value.

Recommendation:

1. Walton should focus on all ages people because 15-64 years male and female living in a country more than 61.4%.

2. Walton should offer low interest financing on their smart phones. Which could increase sell up to 10 percent.

3. Walton should focus on mobile distributor and smart zone.

4. Walton should give some campaign on patriotism. Being a patriot, people should buy their own nation’s product. Walton should create some awareness for nation and give some emotional attachment in every of their advertisement. They should get involved with Corporate Social Responsibility to make it highlight among people.

5. “Walton Mobile“ should offer “online purchase” and should be more active in Facebook, twitter and other social sites and must try to post blogs in a frequent way.

6. If Walton Mobile Bangladesh can reach the youth with their great features at such low cost then there will be a boost in the conversion rate.

7. In current Walton’s customer retention policies, it doesn’t calculate the “Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)”, which they should do to readjust the policies for customer retention.

Conclusion:

Marketing identifies the human and social needs and meet them accordingly. The shortest way of describing marketing is “meeting needs profitably”. Walton recognised that consumers were unable to get good, low price smart phones they desired most. We have focused on Walton’s current marketing strategies and what are lacking to achieve their desired 50 percent smart phone market share in Bangladesh in this report. Currently Walton has 30 percent smart phone market share in Bangladesh.

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References:

Kotler, Keller (2012) Marketing Management. 14th EDN. Prentice Hall, One Lake Street, New Jersey.

Definition of Marketing, Principal of Marketing. [Online] available at from < http://www.principlesofmarketing.com/fall2002/chapter%20two.htm> [March, 2014]

Mobile phone user, Gulf Time. [Online] available from < http://www.gulf-times.com/bangladesh/245/details/379910/number-of-mobile-phone-users-at-114mn-in-bangladesh> [3 February, 2014]

http://www.principlesofmarketing.com/fall2002/chapter%20two.htm

http://www.gulf-times.com/bangladesh/245/details/379910/number-of-mobile-phone-users-at-114mn-in-bangladesh



Documents

Walton Smart Phone - Group 6