Digital Marketing
Marketing via social media is one of the smartest ways to promote a product. It has become part of modern marketing because many people are computer literate and are members of social networks. It is important to note that many people have social media accounts. Therefore, they are likely to see the adverts featured on social media platforms as they navigate through the web pages. Additionally, it may gather testimonials from loyal users of the products especially female athletes and use it to design adverts.
Product Promotion
The firm may promote its products through sponsoring sport events. It may create awareness of the event through social media. It is imperative to note that such events attract many youths; who are the target consumers.
Creating groups on social media
The firm may create a group that brings together customers. The customers may promote the product through recommending it to other potential users. Moreover, it provides a good platform for consumers to raise concerns, complaints and suggestions. Through the social group, customers can inquire about the product’s description among other things.
Criticism
The strategy is open to criticism because it fails to include people who are not active users of social media. Therefore, it does not touch on the other group of people who are also potential customers but non users of social media. Some of Nike’s promotion strategies have received a major overhaul from the public following its partnership with Apple. The advert features runners with their electronic devices during a sporting activity. The partnership has been deemed as a major incompatibility by sports people. Anti-race activists believe that Nike is very insensitive to the racial minorities. It has also suffered some lawsuits in the United States (Bachman, 2003). It has been particularly criticized due to lack of sensitivity to consumer needs. In the wake of 1990, Nike experienced a major boycott from the public (Birch, 2012).
Recommended E-marketing
Nike may adopt a friendlier marketing campaign to promote the awareness of its products (women’s sport shoes). It is important for the firm to seek public opinion to avoid negative criticism and lawsuits. Therefore, it ought to carry out a market survey to determine the market structure and consumer base. Similarly, a market survey will provide information on the consumer dynamics.
Comparing Nike and Adidas
Although Nike (women’s running shoes) has garnered significant attention from the public, it faces tough competition from close competitors such as Puma and Adidas. However, Adidas is so far the greatest threat of Nike’s women sport shoes in terms of market share, customer recognition and price. The two firms pose a stiff competition to each other especially in their social promotion strategies. For instance, Adidas sponsors teams during events just like Nike. However, Nike opts to change the women’s shoe design frequently to be miles ahead of their competitor on the web. Additionally, it made a triumphant entry into social media sites such as Skype, twitter and face book to grab more attention from social media users. Currently, Nike boasts of around thirty-five million face book likes and approximately two million twitter followers. Additionally, it has the largest number of socially active followers.
Conclusion
Social media marketing is an emerging trend in product promotion (Evans and McKee, 2010). Promotion on social media sites is one of Nike’s marketing strategies. The internet; being a major source of information for many buyers; has made companies embrace promotion on social media as their main marketing strategy (Barefoot and Szabo, 2010). The sporting industry requires the best shoes and sports equipment. Companies such as Nike, Adidas, Fila, Reebok and Puma have chipped in to provide footwear. However, Nike remains the market leader in the provision of sports footwear especially for women. Its success can be attributed to the intensive marketing campaigns such as digital marketing. Promotion on social media sites is one of Nike’s marketing strategies.
References
Bachman, S.L. (2003). Nike versus Sweatshop Critic: Back to California. Yale Global Online, n. p.
Barefoot, D, & Szabo, J. (2010). Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook. San Francisco, CA: No Starch Press.
Birch, S. (2012). How Activism Forced Nike to Change its Ethical Game. The Guardian, n. p.
Evans, D, & McKee, J. (2010). Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishers.