Samsung's Marketing Strategy: How Samsung became a Pioneer in the Electronics Industry despite all odds

Foundation of Samsung Electronics & Evolution of its Mobile Phones

Samsung is a family-owned conglomerate from South Korea. In 1938, Lee Byung-Chul founded a grocery trading company known as Samsung trading company. The name Samsung means Three Stars representing its vision to become powerful and everlasting like stars. In the following two decades, Samsung ventured into the banking, manufacturing, insurance, and retail industries.

The monolithic Samsung Electronics we know today, came into being in 1969 when it took its first steps in the consumer electronics industry. Samsung became a business partner with Sanyo Lab to produce low-cost TVs and microwave ovens. It also started producing mobile phones which saw a paramount failure due to their low quality and extreme customer dissatisfaction.

Following this fiasco, Samsung decided to switch gears instead of giving up. It shifted its marketing strategy from being a low-tier manufacturing brand to a company building products with revolutionary technology and innovative features. This was Samsung’s “Do what you can’t” moment, which made them the most profitable tech company to ever exist.

In June 2009, Samsung launched its first smartphone Galaxy GT-17500, which was received exceptionally well by the market. Its quality was claimed to be as great as those of smartphones by well-established brands. Since then, Samsung electronics has produced dozens of smartphones, each outperforming its predecessor with eccentric new features and enhanced system upgrades.

As of 2022, it ranks sixth on the Brand Global Value list with a brand value of US$107.3 billion.

Now that we are aware of the influential origin of one of the most valuable brands, let’s unearth Samsung marketing strategy and digital marketing secrets.

Source: Phone Arena

Samsung's Marketing Mix Strategy

Marketing mix elements are crucial marketing vehicles to make strategic decisions about a product’s launch and promotion. Samsung’s Marketing Mix plan focuses on wide-ranging high-quality products sold in e-commerce and retail stores at a premium or competitive price based on demand. It uses advertisements, content marketing, sales promotions, event experiences, and digital campaigns to publicize and hype its products.

Let's analyze their marketing mix using 4P analysis:

Product 

Samsung marketing strategy is to identify developments in the market trends, adapt to dynamic changes, and produce products that the target market demands. Samsung is a customer-centric brand with a diverse product offering in the consumer electronics industry.

Samsung’s competitive advantage is its cutting-edge technology, cost-effectiveness, innovative research, and unparalleled product features.

Its product range includes smartphones and related accessories, smart TV, watches, tablets, plasma TV, monitors, and memory storage. Recently, Samsung expanded into the kitchen and home appliances producing air conditioners, washing machines, cooking appliances, etc.

Samsung’s strength is that it can meet your every electronic device need while keeping your pocket happy. It accounts for a whopping one-sixth of South Korea’s total exports.

Among recent supply chain crises and high demand for memory chips, Samsung outperformed its competitors, gaining high corporate sales and revenue in the chip manufacturing industry. Samsung is truly a high-quality brand worthy of recognition bestowed upon it.

Samsung's marketing strategy is not immune to failures either.

Samsung's weakness is its history of producing faulty mobile devices, including an exploding Galaxy Note 7 and a malfunctioning foldable phone. In addition, Apple has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the company. It is also in controversies with other competitors for design thefts.

Still, Samsung has the potential to achieve tremendous development if it steers clear of such mishaps in the future.

Source: Connection

Price

Samsung is a pricing expert. They operate in a highly competitive smartphone industry where competitors devise products with identical features within weeks. In defense, Samsung's marketing strategy has to be swift enough to deflect all blows.

The two pricing schemes used by Samsung are:

1. Price skimming tactic

2. Competitive Pricing

When the company launches a new smartphone, it values the product at the highest price the customers are willing to pay. Over time as the shine fades and its competitors launch identical products, Samsung lowers its product prices using a competitive strategy to retain market share.

Promotion

Samsung’s promotion strategy uses a blend of print and digital advertisements, events experiences, and content marketing to promote its hottest product and establish a strong brand image. The message of its digital campaigns is out-of-the-box and bold.

As a part of its promotion mix, Samsung is omnipresent on major social media platforms, connecting and interacting with its customers through organic and paid social media marketing. Samsung's competitive strategy for sales promotions includes incentives and discounts.

Even after being a notable name in the Asian market, Samsung relies heavily on the American market. Samsung spent nearly $2.3 billion on advertising in the USA alone in 2021.

Source: Grab On

Placement

Samsung’s e-commerce store has an easy-to-use user interface, detailed product categorization, and thorough descriptions. Customers can buy any electronic device from the comfort of their homes.

Otherwise, Samsung is a single distribution business selling to only service dealers and brand-owned stores. Samsung prides its customer care front, positioning itself as a brand with attentive, committed, and fast service dealers in every nook and corner of the world.

Source: Samsung

Source: Sam mobile

Samsung Marketing Strategy - notable marketing campaigns

Innovation, change, and smart branding are the cornerstones of the Samsung marketing strategy. Samsung's integrated marketing model uses a mix of various marketing campaigns like influencer marketing, content marketing, and search engine marketing. Samsung dives into the world of social platforms, identifies where brand-relevant conversations are happening, and collects data about its user base as to how they use Samsung products and their perception of the brand.

Influencer Marketing Strategy

As a part of its marketing strategy, Samsung has partnered with global celebrities to leverage its social positioning and large fan base. This enables the company to retain its market leader image.

World-renowned boy band BTS are Samsung's brand ambassador since 2021, giving the brand exposure to its massive fan base.

Source: Samsung

Samsung launched the Blackpink edition for their Galaxy A80 to appeal to their mighty fan base Blinks.

Source: Samsung

Social Media Marketing Strategy

Samsung has a social media presence on major social networks to keep an eye on the goings-on in and around the smartphone market. Their engaging social media content centers around product promotions and user interaction.

Samsung's YouTube channel has 6.27M subscribers, with individual subsidiary channels for different countries.

Samsung's Facebook page has a massive following of 46M users.

Samsung's Instagram profile, filled with visually appealing posts, has 1.2M followers.

Samsung's TikTok profile has an engaging audience of over 2M followers garnering 11.6M likes.

Source: Samsung

Search Engine Marketing Strategy

Samsung's website is SEO optimized to rank on the first page of Google. Its domain authority has an exceptional score of 94 with Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra keyword ranking at the top after Samsung.

Source : Moz

Digital marketing campaigns

Samsung marketing strategy is thriving because of its unafraid stance for its beliefs, risk-taking attitude, and inspirational messaging. Samsung's digital marketing tactics focus on user interaction with Samsung devices.

Samsung marketing strategy for digital media focuses on the following three pillars:

1. How the user interacts with their device implanting it in their life.

2. How the device makes their life easier. 

3. How users can communicate with their loved ones using Samsung products building positive emotional relationships.

Here are Samsung's top noteworthy digital campaigns:

Growing up Campaign

Samsung's Growing up campaign was a direct jab at its main competitor Apple’s shortcomings like low storage, high battery drainage, no water resistance, and need for adapters.

Ingenious Campaign

As the idea was a huge success, Samsung launched a similar concept named the Ingenious campaign. It took shots at Apple's disadvantages while comparing it to Galaxy S9. The message was that Apple's superior products don't live up to their name.

India, Ready, Action! Campaign

Samsung India, ready, action! campaign urges Indians to break the stereotypes against them, and share the real India.

Olympic movement Campaign

Samsung has been an Olympic partner for more than two decades. Through its Olympic movement, Samsung has enabled fans to engage in real-time with immersive game experiences and celebrate the Olympic spirit together.

Smartphone line Campaign

The Smartphone line was an effort to create a digital line for Galaxy S4 instead of a physical line outside stores. Fans had to share which features they were most excited about. The more those posts were liked and re-shared, the closer they got to the front of the line.

Join the flip side Campaign

Join the flip side ad campaign starts with the line “I would never switch to Samsung, I love my phone”, a probable jab at Apple's brand loyalists who cannot fathom the idea of switching to another smartphone brand. 

Do what you can't Campaign

The do what you can’t campaign inspires people to do what can’t be done.

Look at me Campaign

Samsung marketing strategy is in tune with social issues. Its Look at me app helps children with autism develop communication skills through eye contact and interpreting facial expressions.

Samsung prioritizes relationships before its products. They position themselves as a brand that helps users live comfortably and builds society into a better place. Through customer-centric and socially conscious marketing, Samsung has emerged as a global electronics powerhouse building a better future together for tomorrow.