The Marketing Strategy of Dell
Zhouyan Ji
3, †,
Yuefei Li
1,a,*, †
and Zihan Zhou
2, †
1
Kuncheng Foreign Language School, Suzhou Jiangsu, 215000, China
2
Chenghan Experimental School, Shenzhen Guangdong,518000, China
3
Dulwich international high school, Suzhou Jiangsu, 215000, China
a. jiabao.xu@Cicec.cn
*corresponding author
†
These authors contributed equally.
Abstract:
For this entire article, we're talking about how Dell has changed their marketing
strategy during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, everything was going relatively well, as
managers could sell their products faster and earn high revenue. However, when they faced
the epidemic, the sales of products fell sharply, and they were more thinking about new
strategies such as discounting or offering some perks to ensure that they could continue to
attract more customers. Therefore, the importance of research on consumer psychology is
also increasing. In addition, we have a lot of information on how to help businesses earn more
revenue, it may be difficult to solve, but these ideas can help people analyze the problem. We
also talked about the entire company, such as its background or future plans for the entire
company. At the same time, we also put forward our own ideas for improving the current
marketing strategy.
Keywords:
marketing, consumer psychology, Dell
1.
Introduction
Dell is a Fortune 500 company headquartered in the United States. It entered the Chinese market in
1998 and is mainly known for producing, designing and selling home and office computers. It also
involves the production and sales of high-end computer market, servers and data storage equipment,
network equipment, etc. [1]
With the improvement of people's quality of life, the changes in consumers' purchasing behavior
also constantly put forward higher requirements for corporate marketing. In this study, we aimed to
focus on the application of consumer psychology to Dell marketing and how it has changed in recent
years during the pandemic. At the same time, we also put forward our own ideas and suggestions for
Dell's marketing. This article will analyze and explain the changes in consumer behavior, decision-
making and marketing motivation during the epidemic. This article can fill the gaps in people's
research on consumer psychology, and analyzes closely with the actual situation and model of Dell.
2.
Dell Meets to Attract Consumers
Dell has not had many revolutionary innovations or designs in its products in recent years, but its
working mode is a innovation. Since 2009, Dell has introduced the flexible working model, which
allows employees to work from anywhere and breaks the fixed mindset regarding to only allows the
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Business and Policy Studies
DOI: 10.54254/2754-1169/12/20230600
© 2023 The Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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employees work in the offices. At the beginning of 2010, 65 percent of the Dell’s world's employees
were entitled to flexible working. By the time of the global pandemic (2020 until now), Dell had been
exploring such working mode for a decade, and compared to its competitors was undoubtedly more
efficient than its rivals. At the same time, Dell has created Pc services (PCaaS) to fulfill the market
niche which provide services that allows other enterprise to outsource from Dell through their
business routines which help them to address their daily problems that is encountered from IT. [2].
For its electronic products, the laptops and computers with different functions, are all widely used
and popular in the Chinese market. the consumers be attracted by their products for the following
reasons:
First is the reputation of Dell. Dell has joined the Chinese market since, with an extremely low
defects and low complaint rate. It has built a high brand recognition. In addition, it has diversified its
product range to target specific audience. Taking Alienware as an example, such range specifically
targeted at the gamer on the same time through discrimination selling it has achieved enormously in
its profit.
Alienware's mission since its inception in 1996 has been to provide the strongest PC performance,
the most personalized design and the best service. Alienware has won unanimous praise from the
society. In terms of games, it has also launched special mouse pads for different games. With its good
reputation, Alienware has won the support of the U.S. Navy, army and Air Force as well as the
procurement department of the Anti-terrorism Force in New York. Such success has contribute to the
the Dell’s reputation and helped it to develop its brand-loyalty on the high end electronic products.
With its high price it did not put off the fever in its followers because compare to the products
from different rivals, Alienware possess more modern appearance, outstanding lighting effect, high-
end configuration which made it irreplaceable. Its unique selling points also attracted many potential
consumers though out the existence of such product, with the shrinking in the computer market, the
demand for Alienware has grew exponentially. This has to thank to its brand image which indicates
that consumers have a high sense of identity with Alienware products.
The segmentation of targeted potential consumers is very effective when comes to Alienware
which made every success when comes to its advertising campaign. As it sponsorship of game
tournaments, such as the League Of Legends World Championship, Worlds for short is the most
grand annual hero alliance, and global finals are all competitions in the league tournament's highest
honor, the highest value, the highest competitive level, the highest visibility. Or the PUBG Global
Championship 2021(PGC 2021) the global tournament of FPS game named PLAYERUNKNOWN’S
BATTLEGROUND. To gain the benefits of high-reputation from these tournaments. The second way
is that improve the awareness by co-branding with newly released games, such as the award wining
Cyberpunk2078, which was released in December 2022. The third way is to collaborate with well-
known game teams to launch new product series. Like the team liquid, which is a game team with
high international reputation among the global pc (pc: Personal computer) players. The Alienware
worked and designed the new headsets and mouse with the famous team members and use their
feedback of products as the advertisements. Alienware is effective in advertising, because the
audience for these tournaments, PC games, famous teams, are the people who are more likely to
consume the products like the gaming computers than the other groups.
In addition, many celebrities are also playing esports and directly expressing their need for
computers. The Golden State Warriors, Michael Jordan, Major League Baseball in Los Angeles, etc.
[3] Including the Team Liquid will go to their homes with ALIENWARE gadgets and teach them
how It's better to play League of Legends matches, or PUBG, etc. And this is also Product promotion
for the brand.
For the after-sales services, Dell has a one-year warranty on computers and a two-year warranty
on major components, and the Dell International Service Program guarantees service and support
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when consumers travel abroad with a Dell laptop. Also the service organizations were set up in
different places to make sure that the products can be fixed. [4] So which means this action will make
their products more competitive. The brand loyalty will be increased. The PED curve (Price elasticity
of demand) will be less elastic, consumers will be much willing to purchase the products produced
by this brand. [5]
3.
The Marketing Strategy During the Covid-19
In this article, our aim is to focus on what factors will influence people's choice of computer,
especially during the pandemic. For Dell, they take advantage of the Internet. Like they expand their
direct marketing. Through continuous arduous efforts, Dell has maintained the balance of growth,
profit rate and capital liquidity, and brought high returns to shareholders. Dell has been ahead of its
biggest competitors in these areas. In addition, Dell is committed to providing excellent customer
service and has a professional sales and technical support team to serve customers in a variety of
fields, enterprise customers, large and medium sized companies.
For this time, we choose Dell as our brand. [6] Because we have been attracted by the
customization of Dell. So for this company, they allow customers to customize their laptop hardware
configuration. On the basic computer model, customers can have high demand on it. Even if they can
not understand, they also provide the explanation services to help consumers choose. Unlike the other
business, they only provide the basic services to the public, just like to sell them or produce it. But
for Dell, they just put the customers at the first, so they try hard and satisfy the different needs of
customers. So the business could also maximize their profits. What’s more, Dell used the Internet to
further promote its line ordering model, once again leading the industry. Dell launched dell.com in
1994.The Dell website, operated by Dell PowerEdge servers, includes sites in 80 countries and is
viewed by more than 40 million people each quarter. Customers can evaluate multiple configurations,
get immediate quotes, get technical support, and order one or more systems. Dell has repeatedly
proclaimed his ‘three golden principles’: stick to direct sales, get rid of inventory, align with the
customer.
So we do the research about it. Prior studies have found that: Firstly, we would like to talk about
how people choose their computer before the pandemic. So by the research we did before, it is clear
to see that it depends on different people. Like for the business man, most our them will chose the
notebook computer, because they prefer to use the thin and portable computers. For example, most
of the managers or the workers in the business, they would like to go to the other new city and do
their work. So they might choose the laptops that can be bring very easily and can be used for a very
long time, so it enable them to work more easily and make them feel more comfortable. On the other
hand, is the consumer portrait of the gaming computers. Mostly are the college students and gaming
people. Actually, they use computer for play games, so they might choose some high technology
computers, which have the good internet and good space for them to save the games. In addition, the
workers from the Dell will also provide the personal services, so they can satisfy the different needs
of the consumers, such as change the color or provide more specific sizes of them.
After that, especially during the pandemic. The demand of the computers had changed a lot. [7]
First of all is that the business can not provide much more services to the public, because the business
is hard to operate their own business, so they can not provide various of them. So some of the
customers may not choose the things they want. Secondly, some customers need to use the computer
in a hurry, so their demand might not be very complex. So they only wish to gain one and make sure
that they can work very smoothly. So after we do the research, it is very clear to see that people’s
demand had changed a lot during this time.
But for this special time, [8] the business still do many plan and they try to fix this kind of problems.
The strategy for this kind of problems was very useful in that time. Dell will design the products and
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to make it by what the customer like and they want. Also, they try to use less time to give to the
products to the customers, so they had their own website had try to expand their business to the whole
world, especially they can go through the Internet, so they can maximize the profits. So their biggest
idea is to do the direct marketing. For this strategy, it is reduce the cost and help the business to
increase the price also to improve the competitiveness. So the company they try to expand their
business to the whole world, so by this way, can maximize to meet the needs of customers.
We can see that before the pandemic, the sales of the computer is very high because the business
provide the personal services to the public. But during the pandemic, the business operation become
hard then before, so the sales of the computer had decrease a lot. So for this situation, the business
can think about the special strategy, like to sell the products online or delay the order time. So they
can also make the products very perfectly. The strategy could be increase the costs to ensure after-
sales service for consumers, or enrich communication and image promotion with the public, and
actively participate in social activities in the emerging countries. For both of them could all make
sure that the sales of the Dell could stay in the constant value.
4.
Discussion
According to the above analysis, Dell's direct sales model has protected its development during the
epidemic to a certain extent. We made some suggestions for improving the company's strategy. First,
the number of offline stores can be appropriately increased. Consumers can intuitively experience
products through brick-and-mortar stores, and learn about and experience brands such as products
with high prices and high demand. More customers tend to experience first before considering
whether to buy [9] At the same time, online and offline stores should complement each other because
they have different advantages. Compared with store management, the operation of online stores is
relatively simple, the cost is relatively low, and the additional costs in the middle are also less.
However, offline stores have a sense of experience for customers that is not available online, and
have higher guarantees for product service and after-sales, and can also help consumers get products
in the shortest time. Secondly, it is very important to appropriately increase the cost and ensure after-
sales service. After-sales service can improve consumers' satisfaction and experience of products,
while brand after-sales service reflects the brand's soft power and brand concept. Good after-sales
service can increase consumer loyalty and help brands improve their reputation among consumers.
[10] Finally, enriching the communication and image promotion with the public can significantly
help the brand's image among consumers. In emerging countries, when consumers choose high-priced
products such as computers, they are more willing to choose brands they trust and have a good
reputation. Active participation in social activities can help build a public image and increase brand
recognition. According to the research report on the Indian tablet market in the second quarter of
2021 released by the world-renowned consulting agency CMR, Lenovo ranked first with a market
share of 45%. Lenovo has always actively participated in the public welfare activities of the emerging
countries market and has a high brand affinity, which may be the reason why it can quickly seize the
electronic product market in emerging countries during the epidemic. It can be seen that if electronic
product companies can gain the trust of consumers in emerging countries, they can bring great
benefits to the company.
5.
Conclusion
Affected by the epidemic in recent years, the real economy is in a very sluggish state. With the rapid
development of electronic technology, the research on enterprise consumer psychology becomes
more and more important. Through analysis, this paper draws the following conclusions: Advertising
can not only gain certain popularity, but also expand some potential user groups. Secondly, during
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the epidemic, with the increase of consumer demand for consumer goods, companies are constantly
making changes based on surveying consumer needs to adapt to market development. Finally, the
personalization of enterprises can meet the different needs of individuals and enterprises. Through
the investigation, we can know that Dell's direct sales model has significant advantages in this regard,
and also has a very large advantage in cost and resource allocation.
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