issue
customer bonding
Marketing & Pricing Strategy for a New Entrant in the Wireless Market
Client Problem
- How to design a business/marketing plan that maximizes the value from a recent investment in wireless spectrum
- What services should be offered (subject to FCC restrictions)?
- Who are the target customers? Are there sub-segments within this group?
- Should the client simply serve as a capacity reseller or should they offer network services to end users?
- How do the financial returns vary across the options?
- Because previous end users received spectrum for free, there are no market prices available
- Given this: how should pricing levels and structures be set in order to maximize returns?
- Are there different elasticities across customer groups?
- Do customers have preferences for particular pricing structures (e.g., flat vs. variable pricing
Project Objectives
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Determine relevant customer segments/targets and design value maximizing marketing strategy
- Quantification of the question, "How much will they pay?"
- Quantify desirability of each option from customer perspective
- Develop an in-market testing program which can be used to modify preliminary recommendations
- Access viability and financial returns of alternate business models (e.g., network operator vs. capacity reseller)
Approach
- Utilized primary and secondary research to create a detailed model of the customers' economics
- Provided an essential view of a customer's ability to pay for services
- Employed scale curves, geographic cost information, and customer survey results to determine how economics varied across customer segments
- Conducted extensive surveys and interviews with members of key customer segments to determine price elasticities and customer requirements
- Built a sophisticated pricing model that evaluated the financial impact of potential pricing plans and structures
- Utilized logistic regression analysis in order to quantify the trade-offs between price and volume and to determine how these trade-offs differ between customer groups
- Evaluated the financial returns of each pricing plan for all 722 metropolitan and rural statistical areas in the U.S.Used analytic and research results to design a comprehensive set of targeted marketing plans and to structure an in-market testing program
- Used analytic and research results to design a comprehensive set of targeted marketing plans and to structure an in-market testing program
Results
- Dean & Company's analysis resulted in an optimal "average" price that was almost 3x what the client had planned on charging
- Recommended methodology for targeting specific, identifiable customer segments with different plans resulted in financial returns that were 2x what the client had initially modeled
- Client had planned to offer a single, flat rate national plan
- Provided client with a pricing tool which will enable them to adjust pricing levels and plans as initial results become available
- Market sizing and opportunity quantification provided client with important leverage for negotiations with key strategic partners