MAC Cosmetic's Direct Marketing Essay: Product Launch Strategies And Techniques.

Discuss about the Direct Marketing Method Of MAC Cosmetic.

Direct marketing is one of the methods of marketing that the company adopts to offer its products to the customers. It is a promotional method used by an organization to present its products directly to the consumers instead of hiring an advertising agency to sell its product. It is also known as a target market strategy a company uses to present important information about their products that could be of potential interest to the customers (Lund and Marinova 2014). Some of the direct marketing tools that the company adopts are social media, text messages, emails, online advertisement display and others (Risseladaet al. 2014). The report will discuss about the direct selling method used by MAC Cosmetics to market their lipstick to the potential customers as well the existing customers. Further it will discuss the efforts taken by the company t connect to the customers directly and improve on their feedbacks.

MAC Cosmetic is a well-known brand for cosmetics both for men and women. The company has used various market reaching strategy to sell its products such as franchisee partners, online marketing, banner ads and others. However, it was noticed by the company that the previous marketing strategies did not prove to be that successful for the company. Thus is because some of the franchisees were not giving proper efforts to increase sale and it was being difficult for the company to track all its franchisee partners. Thus, the brand decided to put forward its new matt lipstick to the customers through direct marketing activity. Lipstick will be in various colors to suit each skin tone.

Direct marketing of the product will also offer various other appealing products with it. The products will be available in combos or in complementary with the newly invented lipstick. Some of the conjunction supply the company will offer with the lipstick is a lipstick remover or a lip liner to the customers. This is done to make the customer feel motivated to buy the products and will allow the company to be successful in their marketing plan. However, the conjunctions offered by the company in not the only way it motivates its customers. It has other plans and strategies too in order to make it direct marketing plan successful (Belchet al. 2014).

The company needs to present these plans with its team members and consult them before executing the plan. This helps them to know the quality of their plan and the chances of success. Moreover, it will also allow the members of the organization to feel involved in the decision making of the company (Moriartyet al. 2014). There are three ways the company can consult their team about their offers and plans.

1. The company can hold meeting on the daily basis to share the plan it has thought about for its new product launch.
2. It can ask its employees involved in marketing team to prepare a presentation themselves for the launch of the new product to know their ideas as well.
3. Lastly, it can ask the team members to modify the idea that the company has thought about marketing the new product.

Supply in Conjunction with the Product

Customers are the main source of the brand to analyze the acceptance of the ideas and offers put forward by the company in the market for its new lipstick. However, it is necessary to know the response of the customers (Edelmanet al. 2016). MAC Cosmetic is planning to market its new lipstick launch through social media and thus can know the response of the customers in the following way:

1. The company can send a form to the customers through emails and messaging that will consist of number of questions regarding the offers and the complementary they are giving with the lipstick.
2. It can also analyze the acceptance of the offer by viewing the number of times customers are ordering the product from its website.

Potential customers are those that the company wants to target in near future for expanding its existence in the market. Moreover, MAC Cosmetics target medium age rich customers that can afford the premium pricing strategy used by the company. However, presently the brands wants to targets the young customers for its new range of lipstick. Thus the company will allow offers to the product by way of discount of 25 percent to its lipstick in its first month of launch. It will also offer some free products with the lipstick such as sample foundation sachets and others. This will motivate the young generation to buy the products (Vinereanet al.2013).

The brand also has certain plans and offers for the existing customers of the company for motivate them to have the trust in them. Thus, the brand will also give extra 10 to 20 percent off to the customers who have been their continuous customers. For the purpose the brand will register the customers before the launch of the lipstick to keep a track of their loyal customers. Together with this it will also offer free lipstick usage demo to the customers in it company owned store.

The online website of MAC Cosmetics through which it sells iys products and offers will also be used by the company to get feedback of the customers about the new lipstick and the quality. The online website has a comment option where the customers can comment about the product and their expectations from the product. Other way is the grading systems that the brand follows in which the customers can rate the product from 1 to five. These two feedback giving system will be available for the customers to help them make further modifications (Van Noortet al.2015).

It is also important for the brand to follow up the opinion of the customers themselves by organizing events and other options. The two ways in which MAC Cosmetics can follow up the opinions of its user and know the acceptance rate of the product in the market are:

1. The brand can use direct emailing system in which it can ask few questions to the customers about the usage of the product and the price it is charging for the lipstick.
2. It can also organize few exhibition in various places such as shopping malls, where the customers can easily offer some feedback.

Ways to consult the team

After getting the feedback form the customers the company needs to modify the products according the needs of the customers. For example the feedback that MAC received for the lipstick was a mixed opinion given by customers. Thus the brand can make following modification to the products such as:

1. It can adjust the price of the lipstick as MAC offers its products at premium prices.
2. As the lipstick is matt consumers might have problem with the excess moisture content in it if possible. Thus the company can recheck the content fo the lipstick and make it as per the need of the customers.

In case there is high response rate and still the profitability is low then the brand should check the cost of manufacturing the lipstick. Secondly cost of direct marketing should also be looked to increase the profitability. For low response rate and high cost the brand should check the comments and feedback of the customers and act accordingly. Lastly, for increasing the average order value the company should present all the complementary products and offers it is offering to the customers in its official website along with some usage demo (Verhoefet al.  2015).

The brand can ensure one step sale in its official website where the customer can order. It can frame the page of the order stating the steps to be followed while ordering in the how to order option. Next is just after the order is place a pop-up should come stating the confirmation of the order with the tracking ID number. Lastly, the product and services should be presented in a colorful as well as jazzy manner as the brand is promoting lipstick and its richness. One step sale is supported by its online official website (Booneand Kurtz2013).

Two step sale can be done by emailing the catalogues and a demo for the usage of the lipstick to the potential customers. Through this emailing system the brand can attract traffic to their online website.

Conclusion

From the above analysis it can be deduced that MAC Cosmetics can sue direct marketing channels through online website, emailing and others. It needs to present itself at its best to attract customers through direct marketing. Moreover, direct marketing is very helpful for the company to analyze the need and demands of the customers.

References

Belch, G.E., Belch, M.A., Kerr, G.F. and Powell, I., 2014. Advertising: An integrated marketing communication perspective. McGraw-Hill Education.

Boone, L.E. and Kurtz, D.L., 2013. Contemporary marketing. Cengage learning.

Edelman, B., Jaffe, S. and Kominers, S.D., 2016. To groupon or not to groupon: The profitability of deep discounts. Marketing Letters, 27(1), pp.39-53.

Lund, D.J. and Marinova, D., 2014, August. Managing revenue across retail channels: The interplay of service performance and direct marketing. American Marketing Association.

Moriarty, S., Mitchell, N.D., Wells, W.D., Crawford, R., Brennan, L. and Spence-Stone, R., 2014. Advertising: Principles and practice. Pearson Australia.

Risselada, H., Verhoef, P.C. and Bijmolt, T.H., 2014, March. Dynamic effects of social influence and direct marketing on the adoption of high-technology products. American Marketing Association.

Van Noort, G., Willemsen, L.M., Kerkhof, P. and Verhoeven, J.W., 2015. Webcare as an integrative tool for customer care, reputation management, and online marketing: a literature review. In Integrated communications in the postmodern era (pp. 77-99). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Verhoef, P.C., Kannan, P.K. and Inman, J.J., 2015. From multi-channel retailing to omni-channel retailing: introduction to the special issue on multi-channel retailing. Journal of retailing, 91(2), pp.174-181.

Vinerean, S., Cetina, I., Dumitrescu, L. and Tichindelean, M., 2013. The effects of social media marketing on online consumer behavior. International Journal of Business and Management, 8(14), p.66.