Marketing strategy

Marketing strategy is a key part of overall corporate strategy, which is concerned with developing plans for finding out what customers want and then efficiently meeting their requirements. Vodafone's marketing aim in the UK is to retain market leadership on revenue per customer, network quality and customer satisfaction.

Vodafone's strategy is customer focused and product led; the company is continually developing new products and services which utilise the latest technological advances. However, as consumers become increasingly sophisticated users of modern mobile technology, they make new demands and seek added value through product improvements. Vodafone must feed this back into its product strategy.

In the UK, the mobile phone market has approached maturity in a very short space of time, particularly with young people.

To keep its leading edge, Vodafone is continually looking to add value to the services it provides and to the packages it offers to customers. Soon, within the UK, there will be few new customers available. So the challenge is to provide added value services and competitive charges to existing customers who are becoming more sophisticated and demanding.

For example, young people think hard about which mobile phone to buy. In their search for the widest range of appropriate services and the best value for money, young people in particular examine catalogues, surf the Internet and study what their friends have bought. Trying to sell to them is tough. In order to retain market leadership, Vodafone has established a set of marketing objectives. These are to:

• keep the customers it already has

• increase penetration of new data service (i.e. Vodafone live!)

• introduce new technologies and services (e.g. Vodafone live! and mobile internet)

• continue to develop the Vodafone brand

• acquire new customers.

Vodafone is achieving these objectives by continually updating the range of phones and services offered to keep ahead of its competitors. Also, Vodafone's distinctive 'How are you? & live!' advertising is helping to improve the brand image and saliency to all mobile users.