Marketing Strategy, Tactical Plan, and Growth Engine of Dropbox

Entrepreneurial marketing
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Entrepreneurial Marketing
Introduction
Advancements in cloud technology have attracted a large number of players, making the venture not only attractive to consumers but also to many technology developers. Dropbox is one of the leading startup companies in cloud technology, which has experienced substantial growth over a short period in the number of users globally and in its profitability. Dropbox was founded by Drew Houston in 2007 in San Francisco, California. The company offers file hosting services that integrate cloud storage and file sharing capabilities for individuals and organizations. Houston was motivated by personal experiences to offer a solution that could enable computer users to synchronize consumer files across different computerized systems. The services offered replaced the manual uploads or emailing file attachments. Suggestively, Dropbox services were designed to take advantage of the challenges faced by computer users using multiple devices. These services attracted over 500 million users and many organizations, including a majority of the Fortune 500 (Alotaibi et al., 2019). By 2017, Dropbox was the fastest SaaS business to be valued at one billion dollars. The achievements made by Dropbox as a leader in cloud-based digital file storage can be attributed to strategic measures taken by Houston as an entrepreneur in a competitive and dynamic business environment. The measures taken by Dropbox are reflected in the marketing strategy, tactical plan, and growth engine adopted by the company.
Marketing strategy
Dropbox began as a cloud storage service provider with 100,000 users to more than four million within two years. Notably, the company’s approach to marketing did not require significant investment; rather, it took advantage of the products offered and how the company engaged with the users. In this context, Dropbox used word-of-mouth marketing by engaging users and stakeholders in creating awareness and introducing the services to potential customers (Drago et al., 2020). The success of word-of-mouth marketing for Dropbox can be attributed to the timely launching of the company when there was growing competition among companies offering cloud storage companies that were looking for users. This implies that users were aware of existing cloud services and were seeking the best providers. This created an opportunity for Dropbox to use its superior services to win over the competition. Nevertheless, there was a mistake emerging from the word-of-mouth approach that is reflected in how Dropbox created awareness about the product before it was fully launched and market-ready. From another perspective, creating awareness with the testing of landing pages and a private beta program did not only create interest among the people but also offered important feedback that led to the development of a better product. Dropbox adopted a strategic launching approach that did not only create awareness among potential customers but also contributed to a growth in the number of individuals that could be directly engaged by the company (Patil et al., 2015). By setting up the landing page before developing the product, Dropbox gathered email addresses that could be used to directly in engaging with the consumers. Resultantly, early adopters offered information that led to the development t of the initial product that satisfied the needs of the large existing potential customer base.
The marketing strategies adopted by Dropbox also exploited the power of social media as a marketing tool. Even before the release of the initial product, the company already had an online presence. The company also took advantage of built-in marketing incentives in the products offered. In this context, Dropbox encouraged the users to create awareness and promote its services in exchange for the company offering more storage space for their files. The sharing was done on various online platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, among others. This approach brought the users close to the company and fostered a fast-paced growth in the number of consumers at the early stages of the company. A large audience driven by the company and users in the online campaign communicated value, creating the perception that Dropbox was not just another typical technology developer.
While the strategy used by Dropbox in marketing led to the development of a significant customer base, it presented risks that are associated with a lack of reliability in guerrilla marketing. In this context, guerrilla marketing entailed the use of limited financial resources to attract attention while the product was not ready (Nobel, 2011). Consequently, the company risked compromising its reputation if there were complications in meeting consumer expectations.
Tactical Plan
The tactical plan embraced by Dropbox is highlighted by the entrepreneurial considerations made by Houston. Dropbox entered the market late, and there was a large number of competitors. The crowded market space required Houston to be confident that the company had an opportunity for success. His entrepreneurial characteristics made him instrumental in the organizational leadership, as highlighted in taking the risk to create awareness of the company before having the market-ready product. With the feedback gathered from early adopters, Houston established that people were ready for data and information storage services. Further opportunities were established in services that rivals did not sufficiently cover, such as the storage of big files and the lack of bandwidth-saving optimization to reduce the time and costs incurred by the users. The innovativeness established at the start of the company was instrumental in its sustained development over the years, making it a market leader. The business model adopted by the business is structured to ensure that customer expectations are met (Drago et al., 2020). As highlighted in the establishment of the company that involved gathering information and acting on it to develop a better product, the company has remained focused on offering what the consumers want. Learning from the customers and the market has allowed Dropbox to develop products that are designed to meet the needs of the people. For instance, the company launched products that would meet the needs of clients using Windows, Mac, and Linux Operating Systems. Resultantly, the company could cover the needs of a large customer base. The monetization of the services was also designed to ensure that the company offered a wide range of prices that were attractive to different customers. Suggestively, the company had a competitive pricing strategy that made it a key player in the market. The pricing strategy has also lowered the cost of the customer acquisition strategy.
In an attempt to meet customer needs and expectations, the company has substantially focused on improving the quality of services offered. Houston and the co-founder Ferdowsi established a strategic product roadmap for the company, focusing on customer needs. Notably, Houston focused on offering products that were beneficial to the customers (Chen, 2020). This was accomplished by listening to the customers, which not only improved the value of the services offered but also offered an opportunity for differentiation and customization of the business products. Additionally, this strategic approach of engaging customers as a source of information allowed differentiation of Dropbox products from those of competitors in the market.
Although the business model adopted by Dropbox was instrumental in developing competitive products, it was also detrimental to the company in some contexts. For instance, it was difficult to convince investors about the profitability of the company where the key objectives were not aligned with the monetization of ...