5 C’s of marketing comprises of company, customer, competitor, collaborator, and climate. It follows the framework of situational analysis and it helps you to answer any questions. Like what areas of business, you should focus on and find out the strengths and weaknesses of your business.
Marketing professionals use 5 C’s of marketing along with swot analysis to develop their marketing strategies and also in their decision-making process. It’s also the business plan of marketers to recheck their 5c annually or every six months. It shows the importance of the 5 C’s of marketing analysis.
What are the 5 C’s of Marketing
The good thing about the 5 C’s marketing is that it isn’t a dry boring analysis. It helps you to develop a better understanding of the key strong areas of your business so that it would give you a competitive edge over competitors.
Most importantly, 5 C’s marketing analysis makes you perceive your business from a bigger perspective. When you do that, then you’ll be in a position to make better marketing and business decisions. Now it’s time to discuss 1st C of the marketing analysis;
How to Do 5c Analysis
Company
The first C of the marketing analysis is “company.” It means that you need to have a deep look at the operations of your company. Here are some of the following questions that you should ask and they’re as follows;
- What types of products does your company sell?
- How have you differentiated your product from the competitors?
- Does your product have any competitive advantages?
- Is your brand memorable and unique?
- How can you make your business better than competitors?
- Why is your company not better than the competitors?
- How do the people perceive the image of your company?
- In what areas of your business would you invest $1000 if you get it?
- How would you cut 10% of your budget in case?
- What are your goals for your product line to be better and get a competitive advantage?
If you face any problems answering the abovementioned questions, then you should conduct swot analysis. It would give you a better understanding of your business at the basic level. However, the complete 5 Cs marketing analysis would provide you a deeper insight.
If you’re a business person, then you need to answer all of these questions. It’s because you should know the weaknesses of your company and how your competitors are doing better. Take a moment and think whether you’re comfortable with your answers or you want different answers. If you want a different answer, then what would be your ideal answer? That’s how you create short- and long-term plans.
Customer
Customers are the most important parts of your business because they buy your products and services. You should know them better than themselves. Like who they’re, where they live, their age, their income, their education level, and what their needs and wants are. When it comes to marketing and promoting your product/service to the right audience; you have to be very cautious. It’s because language, images, and right words resonate with your audience and impact your brand.
The analysis of your customers means an understanding of the product of your business. Why things your customers like and dislike about your product and company. When you find out, it’ll give you a better insight that what matters most in your business. Here are some of the following questions that you should know about your target customers;
- How does your ideal customer look like who shows interest in your product?
- What/who is your target customer that buys your products?
- What types of products do they usually buy?
- What types of product has got good/better/poor reviews?
- What’s the behavior of your target customers on your website? What types of links do they usually click?
- How do the customers come to your website? Is the growth rate of your pages increasing or decreasing?
- Do you repetitive customers? How are they impacting your business model?
- What marketing campaign methods have got your most effective sale in the past?
- Do you see a trend in seasonal sales?
- How does your customer buy things on your platform? Are they rationally or impulsive?
- What is the motivating factor behind the purchase of your customers? Is it product benefit, uniqueness, quality, price, convenience, or something else?
- How/where does your customer get the information about your product?
- What channel do you use to communicate with your customers?
- What are the most common issues/complaints that your customers do?
- What are the things that your customers appreciate about you?
- If you would have to say something to your customers, then what would you say?
One of the most difficult and important parts of your business is to understand your customers. Understanding the behavior of customers would help you to comprehend the motivating force behind the purchase. If it’s difficult for you to answer the abovementioned questions, then you aren’t alone. If you do find the answers, then you’ll have a competitive edge in the market. You should use sources like customers’ feedback, reviews, and comments to answer these questions. You should update the customer analysis over time to have a better understanding.
Competitor
Competitors play a very important role in your business. Here are some of the following questions that you should ask about your e-commerce business;
- What are your direct, emerging, and established competitors?
- What other products do your competitors offer that you don’t?
- What are their biggest strengths and weaknesses?
- How are they getting a competitive advantage over you by using which strategies?
- What are things that you can’t do what your competitors are doing?
- What the things that you have a competitive edge over competitors?
- What is the target audience of your competitors?
- What social media platform your competitors are using?
The reason competitors play a very important role in your business is that if you don’t know your competitors, then you won’t be able to compete against them. It’s Okay if your competitors are of the same size, smaller, or bigger than your business. Instead of offering the same strong products that your competitors are offering. You should also consider exploiting their weaknesses and offer your strong product what they’re weak at.
Collaborator
There are several people that you work with within your routine business. You contact them when your supplies are late. Their name, address, email, phone number, and other details are there in your phone directory. They are very important for your business. Here are some of the following questions that you should ask before working with any collaborators;
- Do you have a partner, shipping provider, or investor that helps you to run your company?
- Who manages the daily operations of your company?
- Who provides you the routine shipment and supplies of your business that you sell?
- How do you process your credit card payments?
- Whose e-commerce platform are you using?
- Who is managing your warehouse and inventory?
- Who registered the domain name of your business?
- Who has assisted you to establish your website?
- Who does write articles, product descriptions, and other descriptions on your website?
- Who manages the advertisement and marketing campaigns?
- Who is the photographer of your business on regular basis?
- Who is managing the sales and distribution of your products?
- Who is managing your social media accounts?
You must have realized now after answering all the questions that it takes the assistance of a lot of people to run your business. If you have a list of all the collaborators, then you can manage your business better by dividing the responsibilities.
Climate
Swot and pestle analysis would help you to better understand the external climate of the companies. It comprises macro-environmental factors like political, economical, social, technological, legal, and environmental issues.
- What’s the political environment of the country and how politicians are behaving in terms of regulations?
- What is the condition of the country’s economy, interest rate, unemployment rate, inflation rate, and other factors?
- What is the social environment of the country? What are the current and evolving trends among people?
- What are the latest innovations in the tech industry? Are you going to take advantage of it or not? Are they suitable for your business?
- What are the upcoming laws and regulations of the country?
- Is your company following environmentally friendly practices?
5c Marketing Analysis Example
To make it to an end, here is the 5c analysis example of the world’s leading brand Apple. It will give you a practical approach to situational analysis. After reading the above questions, it is time to summarize the answers to these questions.
5 C’s Analysis Example of Apple
Apple Company
Apple is a multinational tech company. Here you should study its strengths and weaknesses to understand what kinds of issues the company facing. Apple, Mac, TV, Music, iPhone, and iPad are some of the main products of competitors. These products have given the company a competitive edge.
Apple Collaborators
Apple as a global brand operating its business worldwide, therefore, the company has to rely on many collaborators to run its business operating worldwide. Murata in Japan, Qorvo in the US, Luxshare in China, NXP in Netherland, and Foxconn in Taiwan are some of the main collaborators of Apple worldwide.
Apple Customers
According to an estimate, Apple has approximately 1.4 billion active users and roundabout 1 billion customers across the world. The company has a very loyal database of customers and they always prefer Apple’s products when they go out shopping.
Apple Competitors
HP, Huawei, Samsung, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, DELL, Lenovo, and Acer are some of the main competitors of Apple in different industries.
Apple Climate
Apple has to deal with worldwide political, economical, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors. The regulations, laws, trade tariffs, taxes, customer trends, and many other external issues impact the company.
Conclusion
After a careful study, we have realized that the 5 C’s analysis helps you to better understand the internal and external business environment and the benefits associate with this approach. It enables you to perform an overall checkup of your organization and understand your customers, collaborators, competitors, company, and climate.
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