Order 2053606: Read Instructions
Chapter 12 looks at and discusses all the activities related to the informational resource of a given business. Although the material provided is in terms of larger businesses, small businesses can and do exercise some of these activities to meet their needs.
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The term marketing has both a narrow and broad definition dependent on the text, author, or expert in the field. For our purposes marketing as defined by The American Marketing Association is “The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
Application of Marketing Activities: • All businesses engage in the activity of creating products/services, and
distribution of the same; • Activities beyond the initial concept and distribution channels of a
product/service depends on the nature of the business, their resources, and end goal.
In chapter 8, we defined the term utility to mean “is the ability of a good or service to satisfy a human need.” There are four types of utility:
• Form – created by converting production inputs into finished products. (Indirectly influence by marketing research)
• Time – created by making a product available when customers wish to purchase it
• Place – created by making a product available at a location where customers wish to purchase it.
• Possession/Ownership – created by transferring title (or ownership) of a product to a buyer. (Examples: pricing that meets the need of the buyer, and acknowledgment of ownership such as receipt or title document)
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All the above are at arrived via marketing research.
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Similar to general business’ development/evolution and philosophy. The area and practice of marketing has evolved from an internal perspective (creating products/services and producing/providing them towards their best interest) towards and external perspective (creating products/services and producing/providing them by first identify the end users need).
The area of marketing has also evolved and into their current philosophy of relationship marketing (which is an extension of the Marketing Concept). Relationship Marketing means, “marketing decisions and activities focused on achieving long‐term, satisfying relationships with customers.” Maintaining a positive relationship with customers is the lifeline of a business and an important goal to achieve. Towards this end, the following actions are taken implementing a marketing concept:
• Businesses need to constantly gather information about present and future customers; keeping in mind that keeping current customers is more cost effective then seeking new ones. This is the reason why collaboration among all areas of a business is needed in order to obtain loyal customers.
• Creation of a marketing niche (Concentrating all marketing efforts on a small but specific and well defined segment of the population.) is based on the above research.
Based on the marketing niche identified marketers will implement the marketing resources (also known as the Marketing Mix/4Ps):
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• Product/Service – provide something that satisfies the need of its customer; • Price – charge something that is at an acceptable level to buyers and will render
an acceptable profit. • Promote – to develop awareness among the potential customers and its ability to
satisfy their needs and wants. This activity will increase the selling price of the end product/service;
• Distribute – ensures that the product/service is available to customers where & when needed.
As in all business activities, procedures in place need to be revisited to gauge their effectiveness and make improvements.
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As in chapter 1, marketers also classify the markets that they target to get a better since of their behaviors and how to create an effective marketing mix.
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The marketing mix consists of elements that are controlled by the business and are also impacted by forces outside the business control. The forces outside of their control but that impact the marketing mix is known as the “External Marketing Environment”. (Source of list: Business 12th Ed. Textbook, Pride, Hughes, Kapoor)
• Economic forces—the effects of economic conditions on customers’ ability and willingness to buy
• Sociocultural forces—influences in a society and its culture that result in changes in attitudes, beliefs, norms, customs, and lifestyles
• Political forces—influences that arise through the actions of elected and appointed officials
• Competitive forces—the actions of competitors, who are in the process of implementing their own marketing plans
• Legal and regulatory forces—laws that protect consumers and competition and government regulations that affect marketing
• Technological forces—technological changes that can create new marketing opportunities or cause products to become obsolete almost overnight.
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A marketer also has to be aware of the buying patterns of their target market. Based on the two broad categories of the market classification each of them has general buying behavior.
• Consumer: buy make single or small purchases; level of decision making is based on the purchase; they needed to be promoted to;
• Businesses: buy in quantity; decision making is committee or group base; they conduct their own research and are better informed.
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Marketers also research and monitor consumer’s income levels. Knowledge in this area allows them to identify products and services they can sell to their target market. The category of most interest to marketers is discretionary income because consumers have the most choice on how they spend it. Discretionary income is uses to purchase such items as automobiles, vacations, major electronics, and things that are not essential.
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