Writers: Sally Dibb and Lyndon Simkin
( Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK)
Volume: Vol 4 No 1, 1993, pp25-35.
Complexities in Service
The review that I get from this view of point is regarding the intangibility of services.
Product is tangible but service is intangible.
Because of this, we need to use four Ps that is product, price, place, and promotion in promoting the services. However, actually that is not sufficient if just depends on this four Ps in market the services.
Service and Branding
Some practitioners recommended that branding plays a vital role in promoting tangible items such as products but it is not so wisely use for promoting services.
Branding is including the price and delivery reliability of the services. If the services are able to build up a stable, branding in the minds of consumers, it can builds up the brand loyalty towards consumers. For example, Holiday Inns Hotel is one of the most strongly branding Hotels among the Hotel industry.
The ways of building branding among the consumers is through three sources. First is the internal ( the buyer’s experience of previous purchases), second is external word-of-mouth (from individuals who have experienced a particular service), and the third is external from the selling company’s own efforts (advertising).
It is important for companies to promote and reinforce their brands.
Service and Positioning
According to the writers, Positioning is the place which product occupies in a given market as perceived by the product’s targeted customers.
The successful of unsuccessful of a product is depends on how the consumers perceive its quality, its strength and weaknesses, memorable characteristics, price and value, promoted image and value and the type of consumers who use it.
According to the writers, positioning is not what is done to the product or brand, it is what is created in the minds of target customers; the product is positioned in the mind of these customers and is given an image.
Positioning is focus on effective marketing communications, advertising and promotions. In reality, positioning is also affected by pricing policy, distribution and the nature of the product itself.
Steps in Determining a Positioning Plan
-Define a market's segments
-Decide which segment to target
-Understand what the target consumer expect and value
-Develop a product or service which caters exactly for each needs
-Evaluate consumer perceptionns of competitive service in the selected market
-Select an image for the product which matches the aspirations of the targeted consumers
-Communicate the determined image to the targeted consumer, make the product suitably
available
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