Critical Analysis on Hand Sanitizer Marketing Strategy

Question

Task Description: This assessment is a culmination piece, in which you will be given an opportunity to combine the information you have accumulated in Assessments 1 and 2. More importantly, you will need to showcase an understanding of marketing issues related to consumer behaviours such as perception, attitudes, motivation, culture, family and lifestyle influences, group and individual differences, social class, consumer learning processes, and personal buying decision-making processes.

Answer

Executive Summary
This report provides a detailed analysis of present and future hand sanitizer marketing strategy. Examination has been conducted on the market trend and usage of the product which helps in identifying the potential growth opportunities of the company manufacturing hand sanitizers. This report assists in recognizinghand sanitizer marketing strategy that should be adopted by company in order to achieve overall success and achieving competitive advantage. The whole report and analysis is based on thehand sanitizer marketing strategy and need of personal hygiene which is of great importance in the emerging global condition (Kotia, et. al., 2019).

Overview of product and its market performance
The demand of hygiene and hygienic products has been increased tremendously. People are now very much concern about their healthiness and wellness. With the increase in awareness towards hygiene, use of hand sanitizers have been increased prominently within people of any class. Hand hygiene is one of the most important parts that constitutes to personal care.The advantage of using hand sanitizer instead of using traditional way of washing hands is it is portable and convenient to use without any use of water. Further they are available in every size and different packaging types such as sachets, mini bottles and sprays which makes it easy and simple to use. Most common hand sanitizer’s are- foam based, gel based, sprays and wipes. And the mostly used hand sanitizer is gel based as it is easy to use and more effective in removal of germs. Hand sanitizer has proved to be a quick measure to sanitize hands and a step towards maintaining personal hygiene (Ayaz, et. al., 2020).

Using hand sanitizer prevents transmission of infection, as the root cause of infection transmission is through using of hands. With the increase in standard of living, rise in awareness, promotions by government and other organizations such as WHO,FDA and others took initiativesto promote the use of hand sanitizers to eliminate health issues and infections among the people. There is an increase in demand of hand sanitizer in the recent pandemic, which resulted in great imbalance between the demand and supply of the product both online as well as store sale.

Therefore,hand sanitizer marketing strategy is fastest growing segment of the industry. This is because of the increase in awareness of the people and the increase in standard of living. Earlier the use of sanitizers was restricted to hospitals and industries but now it has been shifted to domestic use in order to maintain hygiene and to prevent from infection (Ochwoto, et. al., 2017).

Analysis of Integrated Communication Mix
The main role of using Integrated Communication Mix (ICM) is to persuade and promote consumers towards buying of a certain product. It ensures the promotion of product while considering various factors such as- consumer’s attitude towards product,lifestyle influences, social class, personal buying decision making process etc. By analyzing these factors in the prevailing market, helps company to build strategy and design product according to the need of customers. It requires lot of efforts in conducting surveys and examining the market conditions but provides a lot of benefits as increase in market share, increase in profits, increase in customer satisfaction, saving various other costs which leads to overall competitive advantage (Patil, and Bach, 2017). Various methods of hand sanitizer marketing strategy incorporating ICM adopted by company to promote the use of hand sanitizer among the people are –

Advertising- Advertisement plays a very important role in marketing process as it lays a great influence on customers. Users will be provided with trends, usage and importance of using hand sanitizer in order to maintain hygiene. Advertisement provides a great platform to promote a product which enables to provide information regarding healthy lifestyle and spreading awareness. This method of communication with consumers provides every detail of the product before buying, which helps them in choosing the best product in the market. Therefore, this method of communication is more effectiveand quick in consumer learning process for hand sanitizer marketing strategy.

Direct Marketing-This method of hand sanitizer marketing strategy involves door to door marketing which means it is a way of direct communication with the consumer in order to promote sales. With the help of direct marketing, seller can influence customers attitude towards the product by providing knowledge and various benefits of the product like-use of hand sanitizer also helps in minimizing respiratory infections, can prevent from infection in the time of pandemic, with the outbreak of virus it has emerged as a great tool to protect from infection, and the overall benefits of using hand sanitizer and offers available with the company to encourage in purchase of the product. Therefore, direct marketing helps the company to develop brand awareness with the use and other benefits available. It further helps in understanding the basic requirement of consumer and their purchasing behavior (Berardi, et. al., 2020).

Sales promotion- It is a hand sanitizer marketing strategy technique to drive consumers towards buying the product by providing them various offers and benefits of using the respective brand hand sanitizer. Advantages like it protect hand from dryness, reduceskin irritation, hand sanitizer manufactured with the use of organic and natural ingredients and has a fragrance of fruits flavors. Other sales promotion technique that can be used to boost the sales of the company is by providing sanitizer at competitive price or discounted price, provide home delivery at free shipping in the time of pandemic. Hence, with the use of sale promotion technique, the company can target specific social class and can provide product to different segment of class by developing hand sanitizer for various price classification. Example- manufacturing of organic and natural hand sanitizer can be made available at high price targeting higher class, whereas manufacturing basic alcohol based effective hand sanitizer targeting all the other class. The company also offers coupons and discount cards on its products as a part of its sales promotion. Publicity function and social media-Social media platform now a day is a driving tool to attract and influence any individual. Publicity functions and social media are innovative platforms that can be used in an efficient and an effective way as it will be able to connect to its customers and their feedbacks. Social Media as a medium for hand sanitizer marketing strategy helps company to target mass customers on one platform. More than half of the world’s population is using social media; it can be proved as highest number of potential clients. It helps in establishing a brand and attracts many opportunities for company (Mujiyanti, et. al., 2019).

Alignment of Communication Mix

It can be observed that company manufacturing hand sanitizer marketing strategy is very much aligned with the integrated communication mix (ICM). In the previous assignments it was found that people are buying hand sanitizers with the motive to maintain health and wellness. And it can be observed with the help of survey done during assignment 2.It was examined that because of the hygienic purpose customers are influenced to buy the respective product. With the use of advertisement and direct marketing, company enables to provide knowledge to customers about the significance of the product and its convenient use. It was further observed that customers are buying the product in order to meet social needs and financial satisfaction. And to mitigate these factors company provides various sales promotion tools such as offers and discounts, providing organic and natural hand sanitizers. By making available all sort of product to satisfy each class segments, company has focused on social class communication mix. With the help of survey on hand sanitizer marketing strategy, it has been observed that various customers got aware about the brand and significance of the product by advertisement and social media. Therefore, using social media platform and advertisement was another word of mouth that enables to achieve increase in sale of hand sanitizer (Prabowo, Ghozaly, and Susilo, 2017).

Hand sanitizers are being promoted in a manner that makes it available for each class of society that ensures in maintaining social class of communication mix. It was analyzed in case of hand sanitizer marketing strategy that 100 ml bottle of hand sanitizers is being consumed in half a month which makes it possible for the company to adopt various sales promotion techniques such as buy more get more and one for one sale offers. For adopting communication mix in the promotion of product various information has been derived in order to make hand sanitizer available to the consumers such as- direct communication, surveys, feedbacks, social media which also helps in influencing the buying decision of the individual buyer. In addition, it further helps in evaluating information so obtained that guides in developing strategies and marketing techniques to gain potential customers (Fred, et. al., 2020.

• Theory based on communication mix – Selling hand sanitizers by the company involves a theory based on which a need for maintain hygiene and health was identified as a want for customer. This theory can be said as drive theory, in which company has a focus to provide knowledge to customers about the basic need to buy the product. With the help of this theory it can be said that communication mix is very much aligned with the findings in the previous assignment. Another theory observed is expectancy theory, where customers has certain expectancy that the product kills the germs and is very effective. To achieve this, company promotes the product through publicity functions and social media that helps in developing buying decision process of mass potential customers as it ensures the product effectiveness to reduce infections and kill germs.

• Further, in the context of hand sanitizer marketing strategy it has been observed with the help of research in assignment 2, that most of the customers buying hand sanitizers are purchasing from stores which help in determining the pattern through which customers are getting information about the product. Most of the customers getting information are through advertisement and social media platform. As the result, it helps company to develop and maintain hand sanitizer marketing strategy as per the requirement and to reach mass potential customers. Thus, with the help of marketing mix company can achieve its goals and objectives (Xie, 2020).

What are the recommendations to the hand sanitizer marketing strategy?

To promote the hand sanitizer in the market, company needs to develop strategy related to availability of the product and to develop hand sanitizer marketing strategy that attract customers to buy the respective brand of hand sanitizer. Strategies required to be developed-

• In direct marketing process, customers going door to door to sell the product must ensure that customers are being provided with all the necessary information, variety of hand sanitizers. It can be achieved through proper training of the person. Therefore, companies must provide proper training programs to its marketing individuals.
• Further these individuals must obtain feedbacks of the product which can help the company to provide customer satisfaction by examining those feedbacks and resolving the issues thereafter.
• The company must also maintain online portal that helps consumers to write feedback of the product which helps in taking necessary actions to mitigate those issues.
• To compare the product of competitors helps is ascertaining the factors that need to be changed further helps in acquiring requirements of the customers using other brand of hand sanitizer marketing strategy (Amaliana, et. al., 2019).
• It is very much important to develop proper communication channel in order to reach potential customers. Communication plays a very important role in marketing mix that helps in providing information to customers, maintaining relation with them, maintaining transparency in communication and feedbacks available.
• With the help of proper communication platform, company is able to achieve its objectives such as increase in sale, market share, customer satisfaction etc.
• Providing various offers and discounts is also very helpful in developing market base. It will help in increase in number of customers by attracting them through various offers and discounts.
• Discounts and offers helps to achieve competitive advantage. As to compete with competitors in the market company needs to choose respective hand sanitizer marketing strategy (Soewartini, Effendi, and Kaltum, 2017).

Therefore, with the help of strategy development it can be said that company can increase it productivity, market share, profits, revenue, cost control etc. but the most important factor to sustain in the market is providing effective product that ensure great quality and able to provide customer’s requirement which can only result in customer satisfaction. Without customer satisfaction no company and no strategy will result in achieving organizational goals and objectives (Amofah, et. al., 2017).

Conclusion
There is an increase in demand of hygiene products as people are becoming more health conscious, company manufacturing hand sanitizers has a great scope in the market to grow. And with the recent pandemic, it has further increased the demand of hand sanitizers which results in more demand than the actual supply of the hand sanitizer in the market. Because of the increase in such demand it is required to incorporate hand sanitizer marketing strategy in the company that helps to achieve number of potential customers and can also help in achieving competitive advantage.

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