M1A1 Elements Of Marketing Strategy, Planning, And Competition

Name: Gregory S. Myers
Title: M1A1 Elements of Marketing Strategy, Planning, and Competition
Class: Marketing (BUS506) Instructor: Dr. Zobisch
Date: 02SEP17 Home Shopping Network, Inc. (HSN) is a $3.5 billion interactive business with strong direct-to-consumer expertise (About HSNI, 2017). HSN offers innovative, differentiated retail experiences on TV, online, via mobile devices, in catalogs, and in brick and mortar stores (About HSNI, 2017). HSN, now reaches 90 million households in the US 364 days a year (About HSNI, 2017). In addition to its existing media platforms, HSN leads the way in transactional innovation, including purchasing methods such as Shop by Remote, a one of a kind shopping method that can only be found in the

Television rapidly grew into unique and original cable networks. During this time HSN pioneered the idea of electronic commerce by offering the viewing audience to call into the show in real time and purchase a wide array of quality items to include: beauty care accessories, fashion, jewelry, electronic devices, and household goods (Dewey, 2016). Lowell W. Paxson was the owner of a Florida based AM radio station that altered its programming to allow call-in shopping in hopes it would stimulate low audience numbers (Dewy, 2016). After the switch he was immediately results, and with those results he saw an opportunity to expand his business to TV. Soon the newly named Home Shopping Club (HSC) was born and was broadcast via cable to the Tampa area. Once again Paxson observed good results, and in 1982 the HSC was a permanent cable fixture in the Tampa area. After his local success in Tampa, he quickly looked to Ft. Lauderdale and Miami for expansion of his programing (Dewy, 2016). This move to call-in shopping was the beginning of the HSN breakthrough customer marketing strategy. HSN began using customer feedback as well as survey data provided by viewers (in real time) to adjust their sales pitch on the

On that monitor, the seller can see how long the item that is being sold has been on air, how many buyers have the item flagged in an electronic basket on the website, how many calls are being fielded by live phone operators, and finally how many potential buyers are waiting in que on the phone to speak to a sales associate at HSN (Yannetta, 2015). This data provides real time feedback to the salesmen/sales women enabling them to adjust their sales pitch real time. If a product isn’t selling well they can change tactics to sell more, or they can simply move onto the next topic freeing up dead airspace and moving other products that will sell. This revolutionary method cuts dead airtime to a fraction of other live TV sales shows and has increased their sales to $2.5 billion in the year 2014 (Yannetta,