Fitbit’s position in the tech market is influenced by three key marketing environmental factors: the competitive landscape, the popularity of social media, and trends in lifestyle and health. Each of these factors can have a positive or negative influence on the company’s success depending on Fitbit’s approach to managing it. The present paper will analyze the impact of the three factors on Fitbit and propose strategies for overcoming threats and capitalizing on opportunities caused by these factors.
Competitive Landscape
Fitbit operates in a complex competitive landscape. There is a variety of companies offering fitness trackers and smartwatches with different features and at different price points. This factor affects Fitbit, as the customers have a wide range of products to choose from, which increases the buyers’ bargaining power. Moreover, the sector also has some serious competitors that have higher rates of brand awareness and a significant share of returning customers. For example, Apple is the most popular tech company worldwide, and many customers would prefer an iWatch to Fitbit products just because of their brand loyalty to Apple.
In order to overcome the threats posed by the competitive landscape, it is critical for Fitbit to use an effective branding strategy, as well as develop competitive advantages that would distinguish it from other companies in the sector. For instance, the company could focus on the looks of its products, developing new designs and providing options for customizing the appearance of watches or fitness trackers. Alternatively, the company could create new apps and features that would make its product more useful to the customers.
Social Media
Social media platforms affect the popularity of Fitbit by influencing the customers’ needs and offering new ways of advertising. If the brand’s presence on social media is limited, most customers would prefer products from brands that are popular among other users. However, this environmental factor presents an important opportunity for Fitbit in terms of branding. For example, by placing advertisements with popular social media influencers, Fitbit could increase brand awareness and attract the customers’ attention to the unique features of its products (Okazaki & Taylor, 2013). Fitness and lifestyle bloggers are popular on all social media platforms, and their followers represent a large pool of potential customers. Therefore, by placing advertisements targeting the followers of specific bloggers, the company could also reduce marketing expenditures and improve the efficiency of its advertisement.
Health and Lifestyle
The customers’ concerns with health, diet, and fitness affect Fitbit by increasing the demand for its products. When people are interested in health and lifestyle, they are more likely to purchase fitness trackers, smart watches, and related products. Moreover, with the current popularity of health and lifestyle trends, people often use fitness devices to impress others or create a positive social image (Becker, Kolbeck, Matt, & Hess, 2017). This effect is global and covers both developed and developing countries. Thus, the critical opportunity for Fitbit would be to enhance brand awareness and attract customers in developing markets. These markets often have a lower rate of competition, and thus branding efforts directed at emerging markets would be useful.
Conclusion
On the whole, each factor discussed in the paper could be seen as a significant opportunity for Fitbit to strengthen its brand image and attract new customers. Using an effective marketing strategy, the company will be able to overcome environmental threats and gain more popularity, thus increasing profits. In particular, Fitbit should focus on branding, as it would offer a competitive advantage over other companies in the tech sector.
References
Becker, M., Kolbeck, A., Matt, C., & Hess, T. (2017). Understanding the continuous use of fitness trackers: A thematic analysis. In Proceedings of the 21th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) (pp. 1-12). Langkawi, Malaysia: The Association for Information Systems.
Okazaki, S., & Taylor, C. R. (2013). Social media and international advertising: theoretical challenges and future directions. International Marketing Review, 30(1), 56-71.