Reflective Paper

LO 2: Explain the importance of understanding customers and the marketplace, and identify the five core marketplace concepts.

- The general marketing system (to be discussed in greater detail within the “marketing mix”) is a sneak peak at the supply chain.

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LO 2: Explain the importance of understanding customers and the marketplace, and identify the five core marketplace concepts.

- The text suggests exercises which attempt to apply learning objectives to real life. Students are asked to put the concept of exchange and relationships to the test based on a recent personal purchase.

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LO 3: Identify the key elements of a customer-driven marketing strategy and discuss the marketing management orientations that guide marketing strategy.

• Customer-driven strategy asserts that the marketing process requires calculated strategies to achieve clear objectives.
• A strategy of target marketing and relationship building goes toward achieving objectives of gaining and increasing customer base.

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LO 3: Identify the key elements of a customer-driven marketing strategy and discuss the marketing management orientations that guide marketing strategy.

- Demonstrates the linkage again to the marketing definition – discover and satisfy needs.

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LO 3: Identify the key elements of a customer-driven marketing strategy and discuss the marketing management orientations that guide marketing strategy.

- Suggests that everyone has different needs, but individuals can be clustered based on possessing similar needs – in this case, a car.

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LO 3: Identify the key elements of a customer-driven marketing strategy and discuss the marketing management orientations that guide marketing strategy.

- Value is perceived differently by consumers based on their benefits sought and the price they are willing to pay to receive them.

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LO 3: Identify the key elements of a customer-driven marketing strategy and discuss the marketing management orientations that guide marketing strategy.

- Production Concept: the idea that consumers will favour products that are available and affordable and that the organization should focus on improving production and distribution efficiency. Although useful in some situations, the production concept can lead to marketing myopia.

- Product Concept: the idea that consumers will favour products that offer the most quality, performance, and features, and that the organization should devote energy to making continuous product improvements. However, focusing only on products can also lead to marketing myopia.

- Selling Concept: the idea that consumers will not buy enough of a company’s products unless it undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort. Such aggressive selling, however, carries high risks, as it focuses on creating sales transactions rather than building long-term profitable consumer relationships.

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LO 3: Identify the key elements of a customer-driven marketing strategy and discuss the marketing management orientations that guide marketing strategy.

- Selling Concept: Consumers will not buy enough of the firm’s products unless it undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort.

- Marketing Concept: Marketing management philosophy which holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfaction better than competitors.

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LO 3: Identify the key elements of a customer-driven marketing strategy and discuss the marketing management orientations that guide marketing strategy.

- Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and the triple bottom line all describe the mandate facing business today: “Being good” is not enough; ”doing good” is the new raising of the bar.

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LO 3: Identify the key elements of a customer-driven marketing strategy and discuss the marketing management orientations that guide marketing strategy.

- This second jysk of Chapter 1 challenges students to explore the CSR initiatives undertaken by their favorite companies and to draw correlations between them and the company’s financial success (or lack thereof).

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LO 4: Discuss customer relationship management and identify strategies for creating value for customers and capturing value from customers in return.

- Ultimately, the strategy must be converted into a comprehensive marketing plan consisting of several sub-strategies (4P’s) aimed at accomplishing objectives.

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LO 4: Discuss customer relationship management and identify strategies for creating value for customers and capturing value from customers in return.

-Broadly defined, customer relationship management is the process of building and maintaining profitable customer relationships by delivering superior customer value and satisfaction. Customer-engagement marketing aims to make a brand a meaningful part of consumers’ conversations and lives through direct and continual customer involvement in shaping brand conversations, experiences, and community. The aim of customer relationship management and customer engagement is to produce high customer equity: the total combined customer lifetime values of all the company’s customers. The key to building lasting relationships is the creation of superior customer value and satisfaction.

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LO 4: Discuss customer relationship management and identify strategies for creating value for customers and capturing value from customers in return.

- Customer perceived value is based more on an instinctive and subconscious algorithm calculating the ratio (not difference) between benefits offered vs payment sacrificed

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LO 4: Discuss customer relationship management and identify strategies for creating value for customers and capturing value from customers in return.

- Customer satisfaction is a business mantra, the achievement of which will earn a degree of loyalty. However, “customer delight” (the exceeding of expectations) will create brand, product, company advocacy.

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LO 4: Discuss customer relationship management and identify strategies for creating value for customers and capturing value from customers in return.

- Demonstrates how over-arching strategies (e.g., earn loyalty) supported with tactics (e.g., reward programs) are effective means of establishing relationships.

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LO 4: Discuss customer relationship management and identify strategies for creating value for customers and capturing value from customers in return.

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LO 4: Discuss customer relationship management and identify strategies for creating value for customers and capturing value from customers in return.

-Dramatic changes are occurring in the marketing arena. The digital age has created exciting new ways to learn about and relate to individual customers. As a result, advances in digital and social media have taken the marketing world by storm. Online, social media, and mobile marketing offer exciting new opportunities to target customers more selectively and engage them more deeply. Although the new digital and social media offer huge potential, most marketers are still learning how to use them effectively. The key is to blend the new digital approaches with traditional marketing to create a smoothly integrated marketing strategy and mix.

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LO 4: Discuss customer relationship management and identify strategies for creating value for customers and capturing value from customers in return.

Harnessing consumer-generated marketing:

When H.J. Heinz invited consumers to submit homemade ads for its ketchup brand on YouTube, it received more than 8000 entries—some very good but most only so-so or even downright dreadful.

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LO 4: Discuss customer relationship management and identify strategies for creating value for customers and capturing value from customers in return.

Beyond simply retaining good customers to capture customer lifetime value, good customer relationship management can help marketers increase their share of customer.

The ultimate aim of customer relationship management is to produce high customer equity.

Customer equity is the total combined customer lifetime values of all the company’s current and potential customers. As such, it’s a measure of the future value of the company’s customer base. Clearly, the more loyal the firm’s profitable customers, the higher its customer equity. Customer equity may be a better measure of a firm’s performance than current sales or market share. Whereas sales and market share reflect the past, customer equity suggests the future.

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LO 4: Discuss customer relationship management and identify strategies for creating value for customers and capturing value from customers in return.

Strangers show low potential profitability and little projected loyalty. There is little fit between the company’s offerings and their needs. The relationship management strategy for these customers is simple: Don’t invest anything in them.

Butterflies are potentially profitable but not loyal. There is a good fit between the company’s offerings and their needs. However, like real butterflies, we can enjoy them for only a short while and then they’re gone. (One example is stock market investors who trade shares often and in large amounts but who enjoy hunting out the best deals without building a regular relationship with any single brokerage company.) Efforts to convert butterflies into loyal customers are rarely successful. Instead, the company should enjoy the butterflies for the moment. It should create satisfying and profitable transactions with them, capturing as much of their business as possible in the short time during which they buy from the company. Then, it should cease investing in them until the next time around.

True friends are both profitable and loyal. There is a strong fit between their needs and the company’s offerings. The firm wants to make continual relationship investments to delight these customers and nurture, retain, and grow them. It wants to turn true friends into true believers, who come back regularly and tell others about their good experiences with the company.

Barnacles are highly loyal but not very profitable. There is a limited fit between their needs and the company’s offerings. (One example is smaller bank customers who bank regularly but do not generate enough returns to cover the costs of maintaining their accounts.) Like barnacles on the hull of a ship, they create drag. Barnacles are perhaps the most problematic customers. The company might be able to improve their profitability by selling them more, raising their fees, or reducing service to them. However, if they cannot be made profitable, they should be “fired.”

The point here is an important one: Different types of customers require different relationship management strategies. The goal is to build the right relationships with the right customers.

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LO 5: Describe the major trends and forces that are changing the marketing landscape in this age of relationships.

In this section, we examine the major trends and forces that are changing the marketing landscape and challenging marketing strategy. We look at five major developments: the digital age, the changing economic environment, the growth of not-for-profit marketing, rapid globalization, and the call for more ethics and social responsibility.

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