Relationship between Marketing Strategies and Success of Products

Marketing Plan
Your Name
Subject and Section
Professor’s Name
December 28, 2020
Understanding the relationship between marketing strategies and the success of products is important for any marketing professional. It allows him to have a better understanding of the best practices that could define the success or the failure of his brand within a competitive marketing place. Accordingly, this paper would focus on the analysis of the different marketing approaches of two smartphone companies – Apple and Samsung. This includes the strategies that they use in terms of price, product, placement, and promotion. All in all, the author of this paper believes that the reason why these two smartphone brands are successful despite the heavily competitive landscape of the industry is because of their success in dominating their consumer segments.
Marketing Analysis
As stated earlier, the smartphone industry is one of the most highly competitive niches in the market. Various companies from the United States and abroad seek to differentiate themselves from the others in one aspect or the other. Thus, in this section, the author would discuss the marketing strategies of Apple and Samsung.
Price
One of the main differences between Samsung and Apple is their price points. Although the flagship devices of both of these smartphones are targeted towards upper-middle-class consumers, the current iPhone 12 Pro Max is priced at $1099 as compared to Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G, which is priced at $936 CITATION GSM20 \l 1033 (GSMArena.com, 2020). Even iPhones that were targeted for lower price points such as the iPhone SE are already priced for $399, which is relatively high when compared to other products that have the same specs CITATION App20 \l 1033 (Apple.com, 2020). Accordingly, a closer look at both of their lower-end products would reveal that Samsung’s price points for their products are lower compared to Apple.
Product
The products of both of these two companies have a different focus. On the one hand, Apple has always created a product that has an exceptional design. The company has led various initiatives in redefining the design of the iPhone series such as changing the design of the notch, adding a camera, and even the removal of the headphone jack. It could even be remembered that it was Apple who started the smartphone phase due to its initiative in creating the original iPhone back in 2007. However, since the product runs on iOS there are several limitations to the smartphone including the capability of installing applications (that are not on the Apple Store) and transferring files from an Apple device to another.
On the other hand, Samsung phones are more focused on functionality. Although Samsung’s products are lagging in terms of design initially (except the waterfall screens) its products had initially caught up with Apple’s positioning and have placed more importance on the functionality itself. This focus on functionality could be exemplified with the Note series’ and the Fold series’ focus on improving the productivity of the user by adding a stylus and increasing screen size, respectively CITATION Ime20 \l 1033 (Imel, 2020). Finally, it could als...