Although still being outsold my Coca-cola in most countries of the world, Pepsi has been able to maintain and grow into one of the largest soft drink companies out there. With amazing marketing campaigns, Pepsi still thrives as a business and will continue to see more and more people buy their products. Pepsi was first created in 1893 and was named “brad’s Drink”, which was soon re-named to Pepsi-Cola. After some time, in 1961, the name was shortened to just Pepsi as we all know and love. There have been many different notable strategies that can be looked at when it comes to talking about the marketing success of Pepsi, so let’s review a few of their past successful strategies.
Loyalty Programs
In 1996, Pepsi launched the first loyalty program to ever hit north America, which was called Pepsi Stuff, and gave its customers the chance to get items such as hats, T-shirts, bags, jackets, and many other type of items for drinking Pepsi. This was a new and innovative way to have customers try their products, but also to keep them coming back to get better rewards. This program went on for about 12 years as a successful campaign, and then was replaced with other loyalty programs. It was, and still is, a proven way to keep customers interested. Give them something in return for their multiple purchases from your company instead of just the original product or service. For more information about the Pepsi Stuff promotion, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Stuff.
Countless amounts of other businesses went on to expand the loyalty program model to fit their own business needs, and became very successful in the process. Although not every business might be able to launch a program the size of what Pepsi did, they can all take some time to think how they could implement promotions like this to further their own sales and revenue. For example, when going to places that offer services such as a mechanic or beauty parlors, it is normal to see a promotion that will give you a free service or a free clothing item with the company logo on it after you use their services at regular price a certain amount of times. Just give your customer more than the original product or services, and they will be more likely to come back.
Slogans
Slogans have always been a major part in most large company’s marketing strategies. The slogans can target a certain demographic or can be used as a wide net for almost all people. They are catchy, hard to forget, and will keep the company in the consumers thoughts. Pepsi has came out with an abundance of slogans over the years that have been really helpful to their company. Starting with their first slogan in 1939 “Twice as Much for a Nickel”, they saw a large increase in sales and have ever since been changing and coming up with new slogans for their customers.
Any company can come up with a unique and catchy slogan to attract new customers and keep current customers thinking about them. Even without a Pepsi size advertising budget, having a slogan and getting it to people is not a hard task to do. By putting it on business cards, social networking sites, and other low costing advertising services, people will be introduced to it and will have a better impression of your company.
Going Head to Head with Competitors
Coca Cola and Pepsi have always been rivals within the drink industry and although Coca Cola continues to sell more products than Pepsi, it should be recognized that Pepsi has been able to keep up and use the rivalry in their favor. In the 1970’s Pepsi started a campaign called “The Pepsi Challenge”. This was a taste test done by consumers while they were blind folded, and the results had suggested that Pepsi was picked as a better tasting beverage than Coke was. Pepsi then used these results to market to Coca Cola drinkers to make the switch over to Pepsi for a better experience. Pepsi saw a large increase of sales, so they expanded the campaign nationwide. By publicly acknowledging the rivalry between the two companies, Pepsi was able to convert consumers, increase sales, and increase its brand as a dominant soft drink maker. Ever since the challenge started, more and more companies use this model to hopefully see the same results and grow their company and customer base.
Although you might not be able to launch a marketing challenge there are many other benefits that come along with being involved in your competition. By studying their marketing strategies and fully understand why their products or services are successful, you can learn a lot of tips and tricks that you could use within your own company.
Niche Marketing
Marketing towards a more specific demographics can prove to come with a real boost in sales. In the 1940’s Pepsi saw that their current marketing strategy was advertising to a general audience, and because racism was still a big issue, most of the commercials that were made, appealed to Caucasian people only. By the late 1940’s they had hired a team of 12 African Americans which made advertisements specifically for their demographic, shining a better light on them. Although Pepsi was discriminated against for promoting these advertisements they continued to see a large amount of sales increases. A little while after the 1950’s started the company had to stop the promotions due to the tensions it was bringing against them, but learned a valuable lesson in marketing to a specific target audience.
Any business can use this lesson in their marketing strategies, for example, if you are selling services as a Tennis coach, you could target young ages from 7-13 and specialize in youth training. Every business type is going to have a different niche market to focus, but finding the right one for your business can make a really big difference.
There are so many other different marketing lessons that can be learned from Pepsi, but these are just a few to get you on the right path.
Author Bio: Tom writes for www.valuator.com.au – click here to learn more about what your website may be worth and what it may fetch when selling.
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