Corporations rely on marketing strategies to maintain their current or expand the clientele base in the face of mounting competition. Technological advancement, especially in the telecommunications sector, has facilitated marketing through digital platforms. These platforms allow companies to interact with more clients and at the same time reach potential clients. Most companies have integrated digital marketing into the traditional marketing strategies to showcase their products and services. This marketing strategy has proven effective as it creates real-time to communicate between the service provider and the clients. T-Mobile an American provider of mobile, wireless voice, and data services is a company that has optimized digital marketing to gain a competitive edge. A focus on this company aims at establishing how T-Mobile uses social media and commerce to facilitate its marketing plan.
T-Mobile’s Marketing Strategies
The mobile industry is highly competitive with each company using different strategies to guarantee a fair share of this expansive market. If a company needs to gain an advantage, it must stand out from the rest by being sensitive to customer’s needs. Most of the players in this industry are regarded as arrogant and frustrates customers with locked-in contracts, and complex plans (Woyke, 2017). Moreover, most of these companies place restrictions that prevent customers from upgrading their phones, which may lead to a loss of investments in their existing devices. T-Mobile reviewed these challenges and felt the need to come up with differentiated strategies. The ‘Un-carrier’ campaign, which was launched by Michael Miller, demonstrates that T-Mobile is committed to the enhancement of customers’ digital experience. ‘Un-carrier’ sets T-Mobile apart from its competitors since it emphasizes fairness, customer experience, simplicity, and value.
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The campaign hoped to get rid of streaming limits and data averages by streamlining the plan options into a single unlimited plan. The ‘un-carrier’ strategy, which is a product of the ‘Simple Choice Plan” hoped to break the existing industry practices. First, the strategy helped in replacing long-term contracts with monthly plans which translate to short-term commitments. Before un-carrier clients had to estimate the minutes they had used and the text messages they had sent. Weber (2019) affirms that T-Mobile’s strategy plan pricing is easier to understand and more flexible as it includes unlimited, text, talk, and web access. The pricing plan can be augmented to fit the needs of customers who require high-speed data. Moreover, in the ‘un-carrier’ marketing strategy customers have the freedom to bring in their devices meaning they do not have to buy new devices. In case the customers want a new device then T-Mobile offers them with 24 months financing. The company has supplemented the ‘un-carrier’ strategy with JUMP! (Just Upgrade My Phone) The program, which allows $10 monthly subscribers, update their devices twice a year.
This strategy points to how a company can use digital marketing to address the needs of its existing and target clients. Un-carrier is largely a successful marketing strategy since T-Mobile gained about one million new customers in the first quarter following its launch. The gain is clientele base was considered the largest in the last four years before the launching of the ‘Un-carrier marketing strategy. T-Mobile understands that the adoption of digital marketing strategies could help it to gain a competitive edge. The company has established the gaps that exist within the industry with a bid of appealing to the competitors’ customers. T-Mobile’s main objective is to do away with the existing industry practices and in this way stand out from its competitors. The existing industry practices are associated with customer frustrations owing to delays, high costs, and unreliable service provision. Weber (2019) notes customers tend to be fed up with wireless carriers apathy towards their communication needs. T-Mobile conducted extensive market research to identify ways of inspiring, influencing and compelling customers to act In this case, T-Mobile was focused on coming up with radical approaches that could help in sealing these gaps.
Factoring in Millenials
T-Mobile targets a wide range of clients with its services to ensure that it has an expanded customer base. The company focuses on Millenials who are considered tech-savvy and who are looking for cost-effective and reliable providers of mobile, wireless voice, and data services. T-Mobile’s management has designed a digital approach that would ensure that it appeals to this audience. The strategy that is aimed at connecting with Millenials is based on three pillars. Lowdermilk & Rich insist on the need to become a social-first brand by having a plan that is aligned to the Millenials terms and conditions. The company understands that clients are looking for transparent, honest, and service providers who allow for a two-way conversation. In such a case, the digital marketing strategy should allow for these aspects and at the same time factor in customers' differences. The reason for factoring in customer differences is the fact that the messages may not work for all clients.
A digital marketing plan targeting Millennials rides on the pillar of engagement and command insights. This pillar establishes that Millenials are seeking direct connections with brands thus the need to empower them so that they can relate with these brands. T-Mobile believes that social media is the best tool for helping clients to connect with the brands as the company can readily identify customers' issues. A customer who complains about T-Mobile’s services would be representing many others who feel the same. Lowdermilk & Rich (2017) assert that a company would benefit from the integration of social media in the marketing strategy since it helps it to acquire prospects and insights. In this way, the company would reinvigorate its digital marketing strategy to ensure that it is creative, competitive, and practical. The third pillar in the adoption of a digital marketing strategy that focuses on Millenials is driving a social fan army. This pillar outlines the need for T-Mobile to listen to clients and remove barriers that keep clients from getting the best out of the company’s products. If the company focuses on listening to its clients and removing the barriers, there is a greater likelihood of increased brand loyalty.
Incorporation of Social Media in Marketing
Social media is a great addition to marketing as it allows for real-time and interactive marketing thus giving companies a competitive edge. T-Mobile just like other companies understands the opportunities that social media marketing presents. Social media platform allows customers to air out their views and provide feedback regarding the company’s products and services. (Bershers et al., 2017) notes that T-Mobile uses social media as a tool for listening to and responding to customers' desires and concerns. The company’s social media usage in marketing dates back to 2012 and it was handled by T-Force a group of 24 employees. The initial use of social media was not as focused since the team was keen on reducing negative comments on the company’s products and services. However, over the years, the company adopted cloud-based services for tracking all social media aspects including customer sentiments and campaigns. Today the company uses social media to listen to, engage customers, and resolve their issues. The social media marketing team identifies trending issues in a bid to monitor customer sentiments. The team then engages with the clients in tough conversations so that the customers can air out their sentiments. From here, the team responds in real-time in the hope of creating positive connection s and deliver on the brand’s promise.
T-Mobile’s use of social media for marketing is outstanding, as it does not align with formalities that most corporates adopt. The company tweets and posts on Twitter and Facebook respectively establish the need to level up with the target audience. These types of tweets and posts have contributed to big wins for this company since they depict the company’s needs to socialize with clients. Flanigan & Obermier (2016) notes that T-Mobile is reputable on social media since its social media representatives answer so many comments and questions something that appeals to its customers. This company has tapped into the social media opportunities by creating viral hashtags such as #unleash, #breakupletter, and #nocontract to enhance marketing campaigns. Their loyal fans and followers complement these marketing campaigns by sharing the hashtags and posts making them go viral. This collaboration ensures that the messages transverse the social media landscape that helps solidify brand loyalty and attract potential customers.
Companies mainly use social media for advertising their products but T-Mobile has gone beyond this primary purpose. While other companies do not use social media to engage with customers, T-Mobile believes in creating connections by engaging with customers. It is for this reason that the company has hired the help of Brand Embassy, who are experts in the provision of excellent, customer service on social media. Brand Embassy believes that social media is not an online call center but rather a mix of marketing, customer service, and public relations (Weber, 2019). The use of Brand Embassy technology has been critical in T-Mobile's digital marketing efforts. The company’s customer care team can log in to customers cases no matter the channel the clients use to communicate. This technology is very effective considering the speed at which customers provide feedback using social media platforms. The social media team at T-Mobile can record and organize customer feedback in a way that helps to solve errors, issues, and improve products.
T-Mobile’s Future Digital Marketing Plans
T-Mobile understands that the business environment is dynamic and unpredictable thus the need to have plans in place to enhance its competitiveness. The company continues to push its un-carrier marketing strategy through digital channels in addition to using social media to retain its market dominance. T-Investors (2019) notes that in 2018 the company managed to have a 50% market share of the postpaid phone industry, which is 56%, more net additions than those of Verizon. While these statistics are promising, T-Mobile management feels the need to capitalize on this success in the future. The company hopes to tap into the opportunities presented by digital marketing tools to market its products.
T-Mobile aims at appealing to its customers and potential customers through its 5G network that would serve about 2,700 towns and cities. The company has collaborated with chipset manufacturers and OEMs to introduce 5G mobile devices (T-Mobile, 2020). Apart from the 5G network, the company will offer home broadband, which will initially be based on 4G LTE before upgrading it to 5G. T-Mobile believes that the introduction of home broadband and a pay-tv service will be significant additions to its digital growth strategy. The company will also introduce a mobile video service, which will enhance convenience for paid subscription customers. These plans indicate that T-Mobile is poised for growth, which will be realized by the incorporation of digital marketing in its growth strategies.
Conclusion
Companies are always looking for ways of remaining relevant, competitive, and profitable with marketing forming the basis for these objectives. T-Mobile just like other companies has revolutionized its approach to marketing in a bid to maintain a significant market share. The company has been engaging in extensive market research to establish and fill the existing gaps in the mobile, wireless voice, and data services. T-Mobile realized that customers in this industry were frustrated by the high costs of products as well as inflexibility in payment options. As a result, the company created a digital marketing campaign dubbed ‘un-carrier’ in a bid to improve customer experience. In the same way, the company adopted digital marketing tools that improved customers’ connection with the company’s products. The company’s social media platform tends to the customers’ queries, complaints in real-time something that has translated to brand loyalty. T-Mobile hopes to enhance brand loyalty well into the future by relying on digital marketing tools to design products that address individual customers’ needs and preferences.
References
Flanigan, R. L., & Obermier, T. R. (2016). an assessment of the use of social media in the industrial distribution business-to-business market sector. The Journal of Technology Studies, 42 (1), 18-29. https://www.jstor.org/stable/90018734
Lowdermilk, T., & Rich, J. (2017). The customer-driven playbook: Converting customer feedback into successful products . O’Reilly.
T-Mobile. (2019). Annual reports and proxy statements . https://investor.t-mobile.com/financial-performance/annual-reports-and-proxy-statements/default.aspx
T-Mobile. (2020). The new T-Mobile 5G for good . https://www.t-mobile.com/5g/new-t-mobile-uncarrier-1-0
Woyke, E.(2017). The smartphone: Anatomy of an industry . New York Press.
Weber, L. (2019). Authentic marketing: How to capture hearts and minds through the power of purpose . John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
