The Four P's in Marketing Mangement

1. 
   
   Product - A good, service, or idea to satisfy the consumer's needs.  It
   includes the physical product and its packaging, or a service along
   with warrantees and guarantees.
2. 
   
   Price - What is exchanged for the product, usually money.
3. 
   
   Promotion  - A means of communication between the seller and buyer.  It consists
   of advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing,
   and personal selling.
4. 
   
   Place - A means of getting the product into the consumer's hands (via
   channels of distribution, e.g., wholesalers, retailers, etc.). Channel
   of distribution members help to physically move product from a
   manufacturer to the ultimate consumer via those wholesalers and
   retailers.

Posted at 09:31AM Mar 02, 2008 by byuan in Marketing Management  |  Comments[4]

The Marketing Orientation and the Marketing Concept

An organization with a market orientation focuses its efforts on 1)
continuously collecting information about customers' needs and
competitors' capabilities, 2) sharing this information across
departments, and 3) using the information to create customer value.

The market orientation simply defines an organization that understands the
importance of customer needs, makes an effort to provide products of
high value to its customers, and markets its products and services in a
coordinated holistic program across all departments.  In what we call
the "Marketing Concept," the company embraces a philosophy that the
"Customer is King."

The Marketing Concept is an attitude. It's a philosophy that is driven down throughout the
organization from the very top of the management structure.  The
Marketing Concept communicates that "the customer is king."  Everything
that the company does focuses on the customer.  Via the Marketing
Concept, a company makes every effort to best understand the wants and
needs of its target market and to create want-satisfying goods that
best fulfill the needs of that target market and to do this better than
the competition.

It wasn't always that way.  There were other orientations that companies embraced over the years.

The Production Concept has been around for years.  That concept simply suggests that customers
prefer inexpensive products that are readily available.  In effect, "if
we make it, they will come."

The Product Concept suggests that companies that build the "better mousetrap" will gain
favor. The thinking here is that customers want products that have
higher quality, that offer better perfromance or do something unique.

The Selling Concept preceeded the Marketing Concept.  From the 1920's until the 1950's,
most firms had a sales orientation.  Competition had grown, and there
was a need to pursue the scarce customer.  Sales could mean everything
from sales people to advertising to public relations, but little effort
was made to coordinate any overall marketing function. What we often
saw in the Selling Concept was the "hard sell" and the belief that
consumers wouldn't purchase unless they were sold.

The Holistic Marketing Concept that is embraced in the 21st century results in companies looking at
their overall marketing efforts.  This includes how their marketing
affects society, as a whole.  Marketing is also done internally
within the company.  Without customers, a company will quickly flounder
-- thus the importance of the relationship.  Holistic marketing looks
at the connectivity of the company, its people, its customers, and the
society in which it operates. The Societal Marketing Concept focuses
on.

From a lecture of Marketing Management from professor Rich Ottum.

Posted at 09:19AM Mar 02, 2008 by byuan in Marketing Management  |  Comments[33]

Core concepts of Marketing - needs, wants, and demands

What are the differences and relationships among needs, wants, and demands?

Needs are the basic human requirements. People need food, air, water, clothing, and shelter to survive. People also have strong needs for creation, education, and entertainment.

The above needs become wants when they are directed to specific objects that might satisfy the need. An American needs food but may want a hamburger, French fries, and a soft drink. A person in Mauritius needs food but may want a mango, rice, lentils, and beans. Wants are shaped by one's society.

Demands are wants for specific products backed by an ability to pay. Many people want a Mercedes; only a few are willing and able to buy one.

Companies must measure not only how many people want their product but also how many would actually be willing and able to buy it.

Understanding customer needs and wants is not always simple. Some customers have needs of which they are not fully conscious, or they cannot articulate these needs, or they use words that require some interpretation. Consider the customer who says he wants an "inexpensive car.". The marketer must probe further. We can distinguish among five types of needs:

1. Stated needs (the customer wants an inexpensive car).

2. Real needs (the customer wants a car who operating cost, not its initial price, is low).

3. Unstated needs (the customer expects good service from the dealer).

4. Delight needs (the customer would like the dealer to include an onboard navigation system).

5. Secret needs (the customer wants to be seen by friends as a savvy consumer).

References: 

Posted at 08:48PM Feb 27, 2008 by byuan in Marketing Management  |  Comments[26]

How to assess whether a company department is customer-minded?

Is everyone department in your company customer-minded? Check the following items:

 R&D:

• They spend time meeting customers and listening to their problems.
• They welcome the involvement of marketing, manufacturing, and other departments to each new project.
• They benchmark competitor's products and seek "best of class" solutions.
• They solicit customer reactions and suggestions as the project progresses.
• They continuously improve and refine the product on the basis of market feedback.

 Purchasing

• They proactively search for the best suppliers.
• They build long-term relationships with fewer but more reliable, high-quality suppliers.
• They don't compromis quality for price savings.

 Manufacturing

• They invite customers to visit and tour their plants.
• They visit customer plants.
• They willingly work overtime to meet promised delivery schedules.
• They continuously search for ways to produce goods faster and/or at lower cost.
• They continuously improve product quality, aiming for zero defects.
• They meet customer requirements for "customization" where possible.

 Marketing

• They study customer needs and wants in well-defined market segments.
• They allocate marketing effort in relation to the long-run profit potential of the targeted segments.
• They develop winning offers for each target segment.
• They measure company image and customer satisfaction on a continuous basis.
• They continuously gather and evaluate ideas for new products, product improvements, and services.
• They urge all company departments and employees to be customer-centered.

 Sales

• They have speciallized knowledge of the customer's industry.
• They strive to give the customer "the best solution".
• They only make promises that they can keep.
• They feed back customers' needs and ideas to those in charge of product development.
• They serve the same customers for a long period of time.

 Logistics

• They set a high standard for service delivery time and meet this standard consistently.
• They operate a knowledgeable and friendly customer service department that can answer questions, handle complaints, and resolve problems in a satisfactory and timely manner.

 Accounting

• They prepare periodic "profitability" reports by product, market segment, geographic areas (regions, sales territories), order sizes, channels, and individual customers.
• They prepare invoices tallored to customer needs and answer customer queries courteously and quickly.

 Finance

• They understand and support marketing expenditures (e.g., image advertising) that produce long-term customer prefernce and loyalty.
• They tallor the financial package to the customer's financial requirements.
• They make quick decisions on customer creditworthiness.

 Public Relations

• They send out favorable news about the company and "damage control" unfavorable news.
• They act as an internal customer and public advocate for better company policies and practices.

Posted at 08:33PM Feb 27, 2008 by byuan in Marketing Management  |  Comments[0]

Marketing Memo - Marketers' Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Marketing

Memo - Marketers' Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. How can we spot and choose the right market segment(s)?

2. How can we differentiate our offerings?

3. How should we respond to customers who buy on price?

4. How can we compete against lower-cost, lower-price competitors?

5. How far can we go in customizing our offering for each customer?

6. How can we grow our business?

7. How can we build stronger brands?

8. How can we reduce the cost of customer acquisition?

9. How can we keep our customers loyal for longer?

10. How can we tell which customers are more important?

11. How can we measure the payback from advertising, sales promotion, and public relations?

12. How can we improve sales force productivty?

13. How can we establish multiple channels and yet manage channel conflict? 

14. How can we get the other company departments to be more customer-oriented?

References:

Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller. Marketing Management, Twelfth Edition.

Posted at 04:53PM Feb 24, 2008 by byuan in Marketing Management  |  Comments[1]

What's Marketing?

What's Marketing? It's both an "art" and a "science", there is constant tension between the formulated side of marketing and the creative side.. One of the shortest definitions of marketing is "meeting needs profitably."

 Formal definition from The American Marketing Association: Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stake holders.

Marketing management is the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping, and growing customers through creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value.

 The social definition of marketing shows the role it plays in society which is to "deliver a higher standard of living." Marking is a societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering, and freely exchanging products and services of value with others.

The managerial definition of marketing has often been described as "the art of selling products," but the most important part of marketing is not selling! Selling is only the tip of the marketing iceberg. Peter Drucker, a leading management theorist, puts it this way:

There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customers so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available.

References: 

Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller. Marketing Management, Twelfth Edition.

 

Posted at 04:45PM Feb 24, 2008 by byuan in Marketing Management  |  Comments[0]