Fundamentals of Marketing

Definition of Marketing
Marketing is the process of identifying what your customers want & developing method to satisfy their needs. An effective marketing campaign generates the ideas and solutions to create, distribute, promote & price the products or services that appeal to your customers.

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Marketing Strategy:
Strategy is a specific idea and action that outline the best way to create, distribute, promote and price a product/service.

Marketing Plan
Is a written document that details the marketing strategy for a specific product/service. Explains: Roles & Responsibilities Time frame Expected Results

Evolution of Marketing
Production Era ------1800 Sales Era ------------1920 Marketing Era -------1950 Relationship Era ----1990

Target Market
It is a particular group of consumers whose desires and needs are the primary focus of an organizations marketing strategy.

Positioning
Is a strategy to influence how consumers perceive a product/service.

Marketing Channel Is a series of organizations that work together to transfer products from the manufacturer to the consumer. Marketing Environment: It is comprised of internal and external forces that influences marketing decisions and consumers buying habits. Internal force examples: Org goals, strategies, objectives, resources. External force examples: Laws, Politics, technology.

SWOT Method
Is the method to evaluate the organizations environment. 1) 2) 3) 4) S Strength W- Weakness O Opportunity T- Threats

1) Strengths: Represents key assets including financial resources, core competencies, facilities and equipment, products, services & other capabilities. It highlights what the company does best and can be found in any level of the organization. For example: Company strengths can include reliable research and development, excellent customer service, strong brand marketing or cost advantages. 2) Weakness: Including poor marketing channel, inexperienced management. Since weaknesses are internal factors decision makers must consistently monitor employee and product performance. Ex: Poor Product Design, Unfocused leadership, Inability to provide adequate support for the product/service. 3) Opportunity: Potential growth and improvement such as merger will most likely be found by evaluating markets, competition & technology. 4) Threats: External factors like material shortages that prevent your company from meeting production goals.

MARKETING MIX Four Ps of the marketing mix: Product Price Place Promotion 1) Product: Involves researching, designing a product that meets target markets needs and desires. Also includes the development of brand names packaging and labeling. 2) Price: Involves establishing pricing objectives for the product/service and the procedures necessary to meet the objectives. The Pricing strategy must be profitable for the company and reasonable to the customers.

3) Place: Also known as distribution. This variable ensures that your product/service is available to members of the target market when they want it and in the quantities they need. 4) Promotion: This action enables to communicate company information and the benefits of the product/service to target market. Popular promotion methods include TV, Internet advertising, publicity events and Sales promotions.

Pricing Strategy Considerations

Company Resources Customer Perceptions Capabilities Competition

Place Strategy Considerations: Customer desires Customer needs Customer buying habits

Promotion Strategy Considerations: Lifestyle of the target market. Find out the customers behave, what they think & where they go. Once you understand their lifestyle its easy to determine the best promotional methods to use to communicate the messages. Applying two/more promotional methods simultaneously is called Integrated marketing Communications.

PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE STAGES

Introductory Stage Growth Stage Maturity Stage Decline Stage

Identifying Target opportunities

Target opportunity exists when circumstances to enter a particular market match your companys mission statement & core competencies. Methods: 1) SWOT Analysis 2) To gather feedback directly from consumers regarding their needs and desires. Target opportunity Considerations: Product Demand Competition Environmental forces

MARKET SEGMENTATIION
Is the process of dividing an entire market into segments comprised of consumers who share similar characteristics. Benefits of Market Segment: Production Promotion Sales efforts

Market Segmentation Process: 4 steps

Identifying segmented markets Analyze each segment Evaluate market opportunities Select target segments

Market Segmentation Method:

1) Demographic: Most common method to group members in a market. Variables in this approach include age, gender, education, occupation & income. 2) Geographic: Divide types of consumers are geographic segmentation. 3) Psychographic: Consumers with similar lifestyles, values and traits. 4) Product Relationship: Individual relationship to a product.