Vodafone Marketing strategy
Introduction:
Vodafone is a leading telecommunications player with operations in Europe and Asia Pacific mainly. Based upon the number of mobile customers, India is its largest market with more than 223 million customers of Vodafone’s mobile services. Headquartered in UK, Voda has operations in 25 countries. However, in several more markets, it has formed partnerships with local operators. It also provides 4G roaming coverage in 144 markets.
Moreover, the brand has focused on growing its range of services for both individuals and enterprise customers since the data related needs of consumers have grown fast. Vodafone is working on strengthening its core advantages. It invested more than €81Bn in past five years to make its business model stronger. Growing competition in the telecom industry internationally and fight for market share has forced brands to grow their focus upon marketing and user engagement. While Vodafone has created strong brand recognition internationally, the need for superior user engagement has grown in order to to reduce customer churn rate. The company has reinvented its marketing strategy recently and following are its major pillars.
Superior Customer Experience and Customer Engagement
Customer experience has become key to great marketing in the twenty first century. All major technology brands and in other industries too, companies are investing more in understanding and providing superior customer experience. To make it a core pillar of its marketing strategy, Vodafone started a new programme called CXX or Customer experience excellence. The focus of this programme is to offer a differentiated customer experience which will further strengthen the leadership position Vodafone has built. Moreover, to make this program a success, Vodafone has linked the related KPIs with employee bonuses. CXX will focus upon customer convenience as well as service quality. There are around 417.1 million customers of Vodafone’s mobile services in Europe and around 118.7 million customers in AMAP(Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific). Focusing upon user convenience will help it reduce the churn rate and increase loyalty.
Higher Focus on Digitization
Digital technology will play a core role in the marketing strategy of Vodafone and not just in terms of marketing and promotions but also in terms of access and delivery of services. The Digital Vodafone programme is an extension of the CXX programme whose aim is to deliver the most engaging digital experience for Vodafone users blending its digital and physical assets to offer personal, instant and easy interactions. Voda intends to grow its use of data analytics for designing more personalized experiences for individual users. In future, its My Vodafone app and digital marketing channels will also become the main customer acquisition and management platforms. Voda will invest in cloud and other technologies to digitize its operations. By providing more personalized experiences through its digital marketing and service channels, the company aims to achieve higher user engagement and reduce the churn rate.
Driving Loyalty Through Rewards
Rewards are a great tool for promotions as well as driving customer loyalty. Vodafone intends to grow the use of loyalty programs and rewards to achieve higher loyalty and grow its market share. It has already implemented the loyalty and reward programmes in 18 key markets. These rewards are accessible through Vodafone’s app and website in 14 markets. Moreover, to make redemption a fun experience, it introduced ‘Shake’. All customers have to do is to shake their phone to redeem the reward points. Simultaneously, the company is working on introducing more relevant and real time rewards for Vodafone users.
Consistent Branding and Advertising
Vodafone is also recognized as a great marketer which has successfully engaged its users through its promotional activities. Its focus has remained on creating the image of a customer friendly brand. Whether it is the zoozoo ads or other advertisements, the engagement level of its promotional activities has remained high. The zoozoo ads were specifically very popular and became a social media sensation. In sports season too, Vodafone uses these zoozoo ads to drive user engagement and brand recall. The zoozoos are funny characters with egg like bellies. While they entertain well, they also engage like nothing else. Vodafone is creating a customer centric image and that will require it to focus upon all aspects of marketing including promotions, user engagement and most importantly customer experience.
