Loyalty and Customer Satisfaction, Marketing Essay Example

M&Ms build loyalty through using their characters, communication via social media sites, and product promotions. Communication via social media such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook has allowed M&Ms to share and connect more with its customers on an individual level. M&Ms also has promotions and customized offerings based on a special occasion such as a birthday, holiday, or weather.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

M&Ms can build community through adherence to its strict guidelines for marketing and advertising. It has strict guidelines when considering its ads to children under 12 years old as they never advertise directly to them. Similarly, they will not buy advertising airtime if a quarter of the targeted audience is likely to be made of children. In their guidelines, M&Ms does not sponsor events, and one will not find a vending machine full of snacks in a primary school.

There exist several avenues that M&Ms utilizes to ensure they get customer feedback. The M&Ms social media sites have the option whereby the customers can directly post their feedback to M&Ms. The M&Ms website also has a response function on its website through which customers can send an email with a query or feedback.

M&Ms does partner with other organizations to leverage the loyalty that the partner companies have with their customers. For instance, through Mars candy, M&Ms can leverage loyalty that customers have to the Mars brand. Another company that M&Ms has partnered with is NASCAR. They make this known in their website that NASCAR, is in a way, part of their company. A customer can see the driver Kyle Busch and race car number 18 detailed out in M&Ms colors and logo when he or she clicks on the NASCAR button. Similarly, through the M&Ms website, customers can get information about races, meet the race crew and buy the partnering companies merchandise.

The most effective thing about the website is its emphasis on not advertising to children. This is in line with business ethics that explain how unethical it is for businesses to advertise to children. The stance taken by M&Ms makes the more socially responsible than other businesses and companies in the market.

The least effective thing about the site is its connection to the Mars website. All information about a website should be included within the website. A new user would quickly dismiss the Mars website as a pop-up and return to the original M&Ms website in search for information.

I am a loyal customer of M&Ms. The reason for this is that I love candy. Also, the colorful nature of M&Ms in a bowl is attracting to the eye.

Topic 2

The best cause-related marketing campaign was the partnership between Patagonia and Grassroot Environmental Organization. Its purpose was to raise funds for the planet by former keeping its doors open on Black Friday. Patagonia donated 100% of the money made from Black Friday sales to smaller environmental groups that do outstanding work but do not have huge financial muscles. The funds raised reached $10 million and were estimated to be five times more than their expectations. The reason that made this cause-related campaign stand out as the best is the reason behind it, i.e. raise funds to ensure that the environmental protection organizations get finance for doing their work.

One major cause-related marketing campaign that flopped is the KFC and Susan G. Komen's breast cancer research foundation. Despite its donation of $4.2 million to the foundation, there was no positive PR on either partner. This negativity was a result of the basis of the fundraising. There is no relationship between chicken and breast cancer (D'Inzillo, 2016). Also, it is known that excessive consumption of fried chicken causes obesity; a risk factor for breast cancer. Simply put, the fast-food chain and health care foundation were not successful in terms of PR.

Topic 3

Lifetime Value for ULTA Beauty Co.

Average Variables

Average expenditure per visit, s: $100

Number of purchase cycles, c : 3

Av. Customer Value : $100*3 = $300

Lifetime Value

Let,

t- Average customer lifespan; 2 yearsi- Rate of discount; 10%

r- Customer retention rate; 70%m- Av. Gross Margin per customer; $9360

p- Profit margin per customer; 30%

Therefore LTV,

Under simple LTV equation is:

52*a*t

52 (300)*2 = $31200

Under Custom LTV equation is:

t (52*s*c*p)

2 * 52 * 100 * 3 * 0.3 = $900

Under Traditional LTV equation is:

m {r (1+i-r)-1}

Recall m: $31200*0.3= $9360

Therefore:

9360 {0.7 (1+0.1-0.7)-1} = $16380

Average LTV is:

$ (31200 + 900 + 16380) /3 = $ 16160

The company tries to retain and grows a business as a most valuable customer through effective advertising, notifications through subscriptions, and discounts through vouchers after a number or purchases.

Topic 4:

The satisfaction scores are low especially in computers despite their important use in daily life. An improvement of 100 percent would be motivating since a good score on customer satisfaction would attract more customers towards the commodities.

A company can never fully achieve 100% customer satisfaction whether in goods or services provided. It is impossible because customer satisfaction is dependent on different variables and personal preferences.

I rely on customer feedback listed in the product or service supplier's website and gauge whether there have been improvements made on the complaints, the ration of positive to negative feedback, and then test the product or service to form my own opinion about it.

Most of the sources have bias feedback as each of the consumers who gave review may have used the product to meet his or her demands. My reliability on the sources is 50%. The other half is from having an open mind and testing the product or services.

Reference

D'Inzillo, N. (2016, November 16). 3 spectacular cause marketing fails and how your credit

union can do better. Pixel Spoke. Retrieved from: https://www.pixelspoje.com/blog/marketing/3-spectacular-cause-marketing-fails-and-how-your-credit-union-can-do-better/