Ch. 17- Personal Selling and Sales Management

APPLE INC. PERSONAL SELLING AND SALES MANAGEMENT

Apple Inc., like all companies, uses personal selling to persuade a potential customer to purchase its products. This face to face interaction has helped all of us find, and persuaded us to buy a product. For example, if you were at the Apple store, and you were looking to buy an electronic device, one of the sales people would come over to help you pick out and buy a device that fulfills your needs. Apple's salespersons are well trained in encouraging sales, from having the right attitude, the perfect appearance and the specialized knowledge of Apple products

Ch. 11 - Developing and Managing Products

APPLE INC: DEVELOPING AND MANAGING PRODUCTS

Apple is the most valuable brand in the world. They have been designing, manufacturing, and marketing personal computers and a variety of related software such as the iPhone and iPad. The ambition of Apple Inc. is to improve lifestyles and make consumer’s life colorful.

 Apple is a company that never stops coming out with new ideas of how to make their products better and more efficient in order to satisfy consumer’s needs.

Ch. 8 - Segmenting and Targeting Markets

APPLE'S SEGMENTING AND TARGETING MARKETS

The market segmentation concept is crucial to market strategy. Apple has targeted and marketed their products to consumers with a few certain characteristics. Apple doesn't target markets in the same way many of their competitors do. They focus on users more than the target markets alone. This doesn't mean Apple are exempt or ignorant of the "laws" of marketing, but instead they use a unique form of marketing strategy called psychographic segmentation to appealing to all consumers no matter the age, race, income level, and/or demographic.

Ch. 15 - Marketing Communications

Apple's Marketing Communications

Apple marketing communications explains the company’s stance towards individual elements of the marketing communication mix such as print and media advertising, sales promotions, events and experiences, public relations, direct marketing and personal selling. The main aim behind Apple marketing communications mix is to communicate the marketing message of the brand to the target customer segment through above elements in an integrated manner.

For Example; marketing of the iPhone7, MacBook pro and iPads.

Ch.10 - Product Concepts

APPLE'S PRODUCT CONCEPT

An Apple product can be called a shopping product, because it is "more expensive than a convenience product and found in few stores," yet Apple products enjoy the status of specialty products. If one were to call a Mac a "computer," then it could be called a shopping product. It would be a heterogeneous shopping product, because the "prices, quality, and, features [of computers] vary so much."

Ch. 16 - Advertising, Public Relations and Sales Promotion

     Apple Advertising, Public Relations and Sales Promotion

Apple promotes using short term techniques to persuade their target market to respond to their products.

Apple Advertising:

Although simple, it costs Millions for Apple to advertise because their advertisements are elegant and precise.

Sales Promotion:

Promotion are done on Black Fridays until Cyber Monday where they offer discounts. Instead of lowering prices on all products itself, printers, software's, etc. are discounted with any purchase of iPhone/ iPad or computer.

Ch. 14 - Retailing

APPLE STORE AT THE OCULUS

The atmosphere inside the Oculus was a bit tense and crowded at the time I was present. Products are accessible from different shelves, so you can test before you buy. The No Genius Bar was available for customer support. Although it did take a while before someone came up to assist me, once acknowledge, the employee was precise with explaining everything I wanted to know and my experience was quite interesting.

Ch. 6 - Consumer Decision Making

Apple: Consumer Decision Making

Apple benefits through its innovation, and sleek design which draws attention to people. Consumers with positive experiences will continue to upgrade when a newer product is available while some buys through recommendations from friends, families or ads.

Apple being very popular and top in the market of electronics, their products are viewed as one-of-a-kind. If the expectations of the consumer were upheld, he/she will remain loyal and you can count on another purchase from that consumer again.

Ch. 5 - Developing a Global Vision

APPLE'S GOBAL VISION

Apple is considered a multinational corporation. They develop their global business in stages. Apple has been building its overseas presence with its retail stores. A global marketer must consider the external environment. Apple is a great example that operates within environmental factors, which include culture, language, demographics, political and economic structure and natural resources. it has the option to operate iPhone in different languages other than English and this positivity helps build their success.

Ch. 4 - The Marketing Environment

Apple's Marketing Environment

Apple has created a selling strategy through online stores, direct sales forces and third party wholesales in most countries around the world. Plus, their own retail stores which are sophisticated and unique in comparison to the competence stores.

They focus on customers’ expectations and to bring the best in personal computing.

Apple reorganized their departments and created centralization of responsibilities in the company's wide groups for improvement in communication and effectiveness.

Ch. 18- Social Media and Marketing

Apple's Marketing Strategy

Apple is known for its simplicity in Marketing. Unlike other companies apple uses no form of social media marketing. They keep it simple doing it the old-fashioned  way.

Example 1:

Billboard Ads

They think about what their customers actually needs to know and get rid of the rest.

Example: They find which product holds benefits to consumers then think of ways to provide the right amount of information in a simple uncluttered way to the world.

Example 2:

Their Mac Versus PC Ads.

Ch. 2 - Strategic Planning for Competitive Advantage Post a SWOT Analysis for the iPhone

 SWOT ANALYSIS OF THE IPHONE

STRENGTHS

Brand- Apple one of the top most companies known for its brand equity.

Customer Loyalty

Great Software- The IOS has flexibility and speed which makes it easier to use.

WEAKNESSES

High-Priced- The iPhone is pricy to that of Samsung which offers similar features.

Restrictions- There's no expandable memory, no Bluetooth and non-removable battery.

OPPORTUNITIES

Market Potential- iPhone has a larger market available.

Geographic Expansion

Technological Advancement

THREATS

Android- AOS is one of the biggest threats to Apple, with Google taking the world by storm.

Samsung- The biggest competitor for Apple.

Ch. 1 - Overview of Marketing

 APPLE

Product: iPhone 7

Apple’s Mission Statement

Apple’s mission statement changes overtime and it’s currently “Apple designs Macs, along with OS X and professional software. Leading the digital music revolution with its iTunes online store and reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App store. Defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.”

Brief History of the iPhone

The history of the iPhone began when creator Steve Jobs asked Apple Inc.'s engineers to investigate the use of touchscreens and a tablet computer. He focused on ipod and itunes software and released its first mobile phone.