Netflix's Strategic Marketing Approach

Introduction

Netflix Inc. is an international American company operating in the entertainment industry providing film and media services to consumers through a subscription for the online films, documentaries, video games and television series (Netflix, 2018). The company was founded in 1997 with its headquarters located in California, United States and currently boasts of over 5000 employees across various locations (Netflix, 2018). Over the period, Netflix has realized an increase in its profit margin by diversifying its products across the entertainment industry. Netflix's market share has been increasing owing to the constant innovations in their services for consumers. Initially, Netflix had begun distributing entertainment content through writeable discs. However, with the increasing online consumption, Netflix Inc. gears towards maintaining the online presence thereby utilizing the opportunity to reach out to new online markets. The company has expanded to over 150 countries across the world providing their subscribers with quality disc rental across the online platforms (Netflix, 2018). With several subsidiary firms and over 100 million subscribers (Netflix, 2018), Netflix attempts to rebrand its products in offering unique services to their clients.

Use of Technology in Marketing

Technology and social media impact on the ability of organizations to collect and utilize data for their marketing purposes (Erevelles, Fukawa & Swayne, 2016). Netflix Inc. heavily relies on technology and the social media platform to market and advertise its products to prospective clients. As a company that solely depends on the internet for service deliveries, social media and technology are a means of enhancing their brand awareness and improving its online personality. First, Netflix has a webpage through which consumers can create personal accounts and make their subscriptions to watch the online content (Netflix, 2018). Online subscribers have an opportunity of playing the documentaries and films through various devices in several languages. As such, Netflix offers the consumers an advantage of watching freely with an opportunity to determine their favorite films and documentaries.

Service-Dominant Approach to Marketing

Second, Netflix utilizes technology to produce quality content and enhance a service-dominant approach to marketing. The service-dominant approach to marketing combines the aspects of a product including the cost and service dimensions of the product while focusing on consumer satisfaction (Luca, Hibbert & McDonald, 2015). With many consumers resorting to making online searches and surveys before purchases, Netflix endeavors to enhance a positive online experience by providing highlights that draw potential users not only to maintain customer satisfaction but also improve the consumer experience.

A/B Testing Approach

Moreover, Netflix utilizes social media platforms to undertake the A/B testing approach. The A/B testing approach refers to a situation in which an organization creates two versions of an online content while varying a specific element their descriptions (Sullivan, 2018). The two versions of the webpage are offered to different consumers with the aim of determining their market reception. Netflix draws its additional features from their online content while embracing technological features that appeal to a diverse range of consumers (Sullivan, 2018). Netflix utilizes social media to generate ideas, perceptions among consumers that are essential in the new offering development process. Again, Netflix utilizes customer segmentation by determining the user's device and habits in promoting customer retention. Additionally, Netflix embraces crowdsourcing from the online subscribers to generate ideas that would positively impact the online market reception of their services (Sullivan, 2018). Netflix's strategic marketing approaches through partnerships with other complimentary online companies with a large online presence increase its potential to reach the growing online consumer base.

References

Erevelles, S., Fukawa, N., & Swayne, L. (2016). Big Data consumer analytics and the transformation of marketing. Journal Of Business Research, 69(2), 897-904. DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.07.001

Luca, N., Hibbert, S., & McDonald, R. (2015). Towards a service-dominant approach to social marketing. Marketing Theory, 16(2), 194-218. DOI: 10.1177/1470593115607941

Netflix United Kingdom – Watch TV Programmes Online, Watch Films Online. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.netflix.com/

Sullivan, R. (2018). 5 Ways Netflix is Winning at Content Marketing | Dowitcher Designs. Retrieved from http://www.dowitcherdesigns.com/5-ways-netflix-winning-content-marketing/