Market operation strategies -- a model based on

Dropbox

Contents
section5:Marketing methods................................................. 2
5.1 8p theory……………………………………………….2
5.2 8p theory in Dropbox...........................................3

section6:Marketing management.......................................4

section7:4c Theory.....................................................................5
7.1 4c theory introduction..........................................5
7.2 Case studies. ……......................................................5

Section 8: Sostac model............................................................5

8.1:Mothercare.cases.......................................................8
8.2 Sostac form...................................................................8
8.3 Dropbox on sostac model overview..................9
8.4:Summary....................................................................10
8.5:Suggestions and implementation plan..........11
The current situation of Dropbox
Dropbox was founded in 2007 provides service of file
storage to consumers all over the world. The service content
is mainly divided into two parts: Dropbox pro and Dropbox
business. A free service is provided in order to improve their
market that is they will give new customers 2G space for
free. But they will need to pay if they need more space.
Dropbox has own implementation way separately in
product, price, channel, promotion, partnerships, public
relations, satisfy customers, and influence. For products,
Dropbox combined with the web client to realize the storage
transfer between network and cloud. In terms of prices, they
take the low threshold and high consumption, on the other
hand, they use some promotion to attract customer get in
and then motivate them to buy their products or services.
They sell storage space with the annual price of 50g package
is 99 DOLLARS and 100g package is 199 dollars, which are
still higher than other same products. (construction of 4PCR
Marketing Mix in Regional Tourism Product System 2012)

8p theory in Dropbox marketing strategy

Dropbox has its own implementation methods in producing
product, pricing ,distribution, promotion, partnership, public
relations, satisfy customers and influence. In terms of
products, Dropbox has developed corresponding software
without client-side but combined with web client to enable
customers to realize network and cloud transmission for
storage. For the price, Dropbox adopts the strategy of low
threshold but high consumption. They use word-of-mouth
and social communication channels for marketing. And
because of that, the marketing motivation is need to be
developed. In terms of storage space sales, they sell the price
of 50g package is $99 per year and 100g package is $199 per
year. The price is a bit higher compared with other products.

4c framework and positioning strategy

However its partnership and public relations are relatively
independent, which may be caused by the particularity of
the industry. But there is no company can behave excellent
because of over independent in these two aspect.

The influence is self-evident, Dropbox is an enterprise with

independent research and core technologies. It has a high
influence and high speaking right in the cloud technology
industry. (New Marketing Litany: Four Ps Passe:C-Words
Take Over)

In terms of pleasing their customers, they focus on their

technical services. Customers of drophox has excellent
experience in using it. It gives up traditional download files
which occupy too much storage space of computer, but take
the place of high-speed downlowd and upload. Also, it gives
up the concept of traditional online disk, Instead of a specific
list is set to automatically coordinate local and cloud space to
bring great convenience to customers. Dropbox has 25
million users, according to The Economic Data Release
website. Houston says Dropbox has the ability to store an
average of 1 million files every five minutes or 300 million a
da for a total of more than 100 billion files."If you can save
an hour of these people's time, it makes a huge difference,"
Houston said. As long as users have trouble using their
computers and technology, we will continue to work."

Based on the current situation, it easily to see that Dropbox's

positioning strategy and 4G framework have its advantages.
Dropbox adopts a two-sides reward way, and both users who
recommend others to use Dropbox and recommended users
will enjoy additional space rewards. Storage space is the
bearer of Dropbox's core services in the storage category.
American media have called Dropbox founder Houston "the
next Zuckerberg," reflecting Dropbox's creativity and
contribution to cloud services. Marketing positioning strategy
is mainly to avoid strong positioning strategy, innovative
positioning strategy, repositioning strategy. Market
positioning strategy is related to the image of the company,
which can make the company clear its imaginary enemy and
real competitors. The company should be very careful in
positioning, find out reasonable positioning, avoid
positioning confusion, or excessive positioning.

Once the positioning has been established, the company's

strategy must be unified from top to bottom, and it is
convenient to adjust customer and competitor strategies at
any time. Avoid strong positioning is mainly by avoiding the
short board, carry forward the long board, or in the
marketing process, do not directly contact stronger than
their own enterprises. The advantage is to be able to develop
the market quickly, while the disadvantage is to give up a
market positioning, which is likely to be the best positioning.
Head-on positioning, on the other hand, is the opposite. In
order to gain a dominant position in the market, at any cost,
such positioning strategies are often extreme, creating an
oligopoly or dying from high costs. The innovative
positioning is an innovative development strategy to make
up for the market vacancy. Such positioning needs to fully
reflect its technical ability and economic budget in the
marketing strategy report. For example, the rapid
development of SONY during the Second World War relies on
the strategy of innovative positioning.

What the role should Dropbox play or what services should

it provide with the increasing development of cloud storage
rechnology? Along with the development of two-sides
marketing strategy, 2.8 million users have been
recommended in just 18 months, which is a huge user group
that accounts for 60% of its total user. However, it is a small
number of the whole world market . Dropbox's cloud storage
and data sharing services are accepted by the market may be
due to the accurate positioning in function of product, but its
competitor Sugarsync has a variety of functions.The other
competitor Google also is a paid storage which has a
relatively high cost effective because it can have more space
with the same price with Dropbox. Dropbox's biggest regret
is that it can only store data and never calculate data.
However, Dropbox has such research and development
strength, but need to think a lot to do with its own
positioning strategy.

In this regard, perhaps we can focus on the four aspects of

consumers, convenience, cost and communication. May be
we can also ask ourselves like: what kind of consumers does
Dropbox face to? What kind of convenience does Dropbox
can provide and how much does the market operation cost
is? Whether we can have positive communication or
interaction with the market to promote such development?
Our own positioning and forming are based on such a 4C
framework so as to achieve a satisfactory for the society. The
4C theory was put forward by Professor Lauterburn in 1990
who is an American marketing expert. 4C takes Consumer
demand as the orientation and resets the four basic
elements of mixing marketing, which are consumer, cost,
convenience and communication.( Analysis of "4P+4C"
Marketing Strategy Mix of Power Supply Company 2010)It
emphasizes the primacy of customer satisfaction, helps
customers reduce the purchase cost, improves the
convenience of customers in the purchase process, and
reduces the weight of enterprises' choice and decision
channels. Maintain effective communication with customers.
In 1999, for example, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made a
strategic shift away from the company's technology and
focused on customers. Lenovo and Henderson have
implemented the 4C strategy and become the forerunner
and beneficiary of the 4C theoretical practice Lin Peiling.
(The 4P Strategy of Tourism Marketing Mix of University
Travel Agency [J].2010)

Dropbox faces not only IT people in the industry, but also

many ordinary users. I believe ordinary users will be the
main force in the future. Because the number of users is very
large so that convenience for users is necessary. Dropbox has
instant upload service and sharing across different platform.
Now 80% of people are using Windows and now Dropbox
will spend more of its power to develop the rest 20% of
market space. The cost is very large. At present, the rise of
funds may become an important premise for the sinking of
advanced technology.(Marketing Management 2013)
Dropbox starts from universality and develop from
particularity. Cloud calculating should also be taken into
account while doing well in particularity aspect,.

Case study of Dropbox Sostac model in anpplication and

application environment
Successful marketing is not only the formulation of the
positioning strategy and the analysis of marketing model,
but also the implementation. The process could be: finding
out problems - making plans - implementing plans - Review
and inspection . (Principles of Marketing 2013) This process
is to determine whether a marketing plan is successful or
not. Most marketing put the focus ahead and over focus the
importance of the plan. However, some marketing will put
the focus behind, The former ignores the importance of
practice and often fails at the beginning and end. The latter
gives up the initiative of the supervisor and is passive in
everything. However, all plans are preparing for
implementation and all reviews are ending for
implementation and all behaviors serve for practice
(Marketing for Nonprofits, 5th edition 2006)

Therefore, in the implementation step,control,

measurement and evaluation factors become the main
factors. Activities need to be implemented and
implementation needs to be monitored, otherwise
implementation will become useless. (Social Marketing
2006)

Dropbox has an important marketing model, that is the

voting model. In one opening voting, each user is given 6
voting rights and Dropbox will give priority to develop the
functions with the highest number of votes. They will strictly
implement the result of the voting through the effective
supervision and measurement and could promote the
marketing function during this activity. In this way, both
users and non users will have a better impression of
Dropbox.

In general, Dropbox's operation and promotion have many

advantages. It not only eliminates the user's resistance and
aversion when doing marketing, but also uses the marketing
strategy to improve the user's favor and acceptance. This is a
successful operation means. In this marketing activity,
Dropbox makes good use of the sostac model. (Marketing
Campaigns Kotler on Marketing. 2010)

Mothercare was founded in 1961 to focus on childcare and

children's products. They use the SoSTAC model to conduct
rigorous internal audit and external design. "To be a global
specialist retailer that meets parents' needs and
expectations for their children" is Mothercare's corporate
vision and performance goal. Also, they develop specific
execution strategies. For example, they donating excess
money to charity after retaining 41 and 61 pounds of
products. In this way, they not only demonstrate their social
responsibility, but also implement caring and gentle
strategies, and providing independent gyms for mothers.

Sostac mode and dropbox implantation Dropbox

Current Where were we? 2500 users
situation
Objective Where we need to go? Develop new
users
Strategies How to get there Service
improvement
Tactics What tools do we use? Network
marketing
action Specific strategy for tactics and Voting by
plans users and
rewards both
sides.
Control Upgrade the movements by Assessment in
measuring,monitoring,auditing. all part
Source: Smith 2003 Personal
analyse

They have made accurate control from marketing methods

to services. They have fully investigated the micro
environment and macro environment at that time so as to
achieve the marketing objectives and communication
objectives. They have strategically subdivided the target
market positioning, integrated the database, and confirmed
the specific implementation strategies through the
development of sales points, media application, reward,
design, time, cost and other factors, When taking action, use
internal skills and external influence to improve the intensity
of the activity, define responsibilities respectively, and
effectively promote and supervise the activity. Finally,
determine the quantification of control, determine the
control mode and control frequency. Controlling the
matching degree between funds and results, and then
become a general activity parameter. In this whole
marketing activity, Dropbox from its position to target
management, Then to strategy optimization, specific
implementation, control and evaluation, they are effectively
implemented, and a measurement and assessment
mechanism is established to accurately ensure the
implementation of activity and promote the success of
activity. SOSTAC is a marketing model developed by Dave
Chffey in the late 20th century. Its main purpose is to help
effectively plan public relations marketing. In the centennial
survey of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, (Management
Science 2010)

Sostac model gives Dropbox a great methodology in terms of

strategy and method. The first step is to write a strategy and
method. The second step is to evaluate the best strategy and
method.Buying behavioral media also has effective time
planning. (Management behavior 2006).We need to do the
segmentation on the specific strategies such as the cognizance
of the target market, sales information, packaging, marketing,
promotion and exhibition. Also we need consider the total cost
accounting as well as the target completion of testing
evaluation and personnel responsibility and the distribution of
the accountability system. In general, this mode is good for
managing an organization we need to use.

SOSTAC is one of the top three business models in the world.

"I use SOSTAC all the time to coach my clients and in training
materials and textbooks. People like its solid, clear and
logical structure. (Combination of market operation strategies
-- a model based on DropboxFounded 2007)Sloppy planning
is gone, because SOSTAC provides a reassuring sense of
order and has spawned a new generation of planners Show
the professionals. SOSTAC will give you the ability to write
great business plans.
- Paul R.S mith

Summary
Dropbox's development will never stop, and its reform and
creativity will never stop. Dropbox has also developed from a
small company. (Industrial management and general
management. 2007 )Any company even small one need to
think as audiences or customers if they want to develop well.
Dropbox is a successful case, but its popularity is still not
wide enough. Based on this situation, what it needs to do is
to continue to develop the general public market.
Advertising and marketing in China friendship publishing
company, 1994 description to recommend marketing is
based on customer loyalty. This will develop the new
customers on the basis of old customers so as to achieve the
enterprise good emotional communication with customers,
to achieve customer as the center, the real interaction
between customers and enterprises a marketing method.
The advantage of recommendation marketing is that it can
greatly save the cost of enterprises and customers, which is a
win-win marketing method for enterprises and customers
The effective marketing strategy needed is recommendation
marketing ( Principles of Scientific Management. 1982)
 First, to understand your users correctly. You don't have
to spread them in a large area. On the contrary, you can
use 80% of your experience to please your loyal
customers. Word-of-mouth effect and social
communication will achieve from the point to area.
 Secondly, strengthen the promotion. Dropbox will initially
adopt two-sides reward policies measure to reward the
storage space of old users and new users, but the cost of
promotion is not very high. It can improve the presented
space and open more free services and follow the
example of marketing of voting, define the scope and give
it to users to choose. Also, you could expand the way of
promotion, for example, issuing vouchers for charging
items.
 Thirdly, simplify the marketing strategies and preferential
terms. If the marketing methods are complicated, it will
create the bad feeling of user experience and will result in
the loss of customers. Simplify the marketing contents
 but strength to implement the marketing rules . On the
premise of advertising, simplify the content, focus on
describing how to do it and dealing with the content in a
special way if some content needed. For example, the
user’s first reaction is that they may think they receive
the welfare message which sent by Dropbox, According to
the content of the email, I should recommend more
friends to become Dropbox users, and my friends and I
will get more work convenience and life comfort.

The marketing strategy includes background investigation,

positioning, target implementation, evaluation and other
factors. The implementation of the whole process may have
different effects because different companies have the
difference of internal environment and external
environment. Dropbox let us know that designing a platform
with strong technology but simple presentation is loved by
its users and word-of-mouth marketing is very important.
Strictly implementing sostac framework is also an important
strategy to implement marketing management.
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