Marketing basics, English for business language through short, useful and pragmatic summaries.
The American Dream never really existed. It was a marketing scam.
James Altucher
In marketing you must choose between boredom, shouting and seduction. Which do you want?
Roy H. Williams
Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.
David Packard
One cannot separate economics, political science, history, education, finance, technology, marketing and stupidity.
Carl William Brown
Any interpersonal and interorganisational relationship involving an exchange is marketing.
William J.Stanton
Marketing is an important part of the production cycle we saw in the chapter The economy. It is not just a part of the sales process, but is often involved in the process of creating a product before it is even designed. Market researchers find out which people want to buy what and then, for the sales campaigns, how much potential consumers are prepared to pay.
Successful marketing means getting the right product to the right people: • at the right price, • at the right time • in the right place • in the right packager • with the right promotion.
Through marketing producers can:
1. identify a market opportunity. This is when a producer investigates what consumers want or need. This can be done through questionnaires, focus groups or simply through tracking consumers’ preferences and buying habits;
2. design a product or service to meet those needs. Part of this involves defining “the “target”, i.e. which consumers will be potential consumers (by age, gender, social status, etc.). The “new” product will not usually be new – it will often be based on something already on the market, but designed to appeal to a different target or with new, updated features;
3. choose a price. Consumers assume that price is based upon what something costs the producer, but that is not usually the case nowadays. Modern businesses are market-oriented, whereas in the past they were product-oriented. Pricing has become a science which aims at deciding how much consumers can he persuaded to pay (and marketing research looks at how to persuade them). Obviously this also involves what competitors are charging- for similar products and services;
4. decide the most appropriate presentation and packaging. Choice of a name is very important here. The name and what the product looks like must reinforce the image that is being sold;
5. design the promotional strategies. With toiletries, cosmetics and perfumes, companies may often use testimonials: a beautiful, sophisticated person with the right image who promotes the brand. This would probably not be as appropriate for a video game or hamburgers;
6. decide on the most appropriate distribution channels. This means whether a product should be sold on the Internet or in boutiques, supermarkets or expensive department stores. Caviar would not be a great success in a discount store!
Market Research. Market research can be divided into two basic types: field or primary research and desk or secondary research. The type of information collected can be quantitative, referring to numbers and statistics (for example how many teenagers wear a particular brand of sports shoes), or qualitative, with more in-depth information like why people buy something, etc.
1. Field research involves collection of data directly from people who may be customers or potential customers. The information can be gathered through: interviews, either in person or on the phone; – questionnaires, by post, at points of sale or, increasingly, on-line; – focus groups.
2. Desk research uses data that has already been collected. Sources can be internal, for example financial accounts, sales and customer, reports or external, like statistics or reports from government bodies or trade associations, trade journals and publications. Nowadays much desk research uses data gathered electronically: for example, externally and internally from the Internet where search engines track the types of sites people visit, or internally through the use of store cards which track what people buy, how often they shop, how much they spend, etc.
Market Segmentation. Market segmentation is how a market is divided. This is an important concept in marketing as a product i5 normally designed with a target segment in mind. Market segments can be defined according to: • gender • age range • social status (based on income, profession or education • family structure (families with children, single people, etc.) • geographic area • interests.
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