Edexcel A Level Business Theme 1 - Marketing

• Niche marketing is a strategy where a business targets a smaller segment of a larger market, where customers have specific needs and wants.
• Targeting a product or service at a niche segment has several advantages for a business, particularly a small business, including less competition, a clear focus on targeting particular customers, building up specialist skill and knowledge, and often being able to charge a higher price due to customers being prepared to pay for expertise.
• The main disadvantages of marketing to a niche include lack of "economies of scale", risk of over dependence on a single product or market, likelihood of attracting competition if successful, and vulnerability to market changes as all "eggs are in one basket".
• Mass marketing is a strategy where a business sells into the largest part of the market, where there are many similar products on offer.
• The key features of a mass market are that customers form the majority in the market, customer needs and wants are more "general" and less "specific", associated with higher production output and capacity (economies of scale), and success is usually associated with low-cost operation, heavy promotion, widespread distribution or market leading brands.
• Market size is a measure of the total available demand for competitors in a market.
• Market size indicates the potential sales for a firm, also known as the "size of the prize".
• Market size is normally measured in terms of annual sales or volume sold per year.
• Market size is usually measured in terms of both volume (units) and value (sales).
• The size of individual segments within the overall market can also be measured.
• Market size is not normally a marketing objective as a firm cannot influence it.
• Measuring market size can be challenging as it depends on how the market is defined.
• Risk is the possibility or probability that things don't happen as you wish that they would, such as bad things happening to the business or planned actions or decisions not working out.
• Uncertainty is the fact that in life or in business, nothing is certain, and you can't be sure about the effect of your decisions whether they will be successful or not because there are factors that are outside of your control.
• Risk is a major issue for businesses, particularly large businesses, as it has the potential to not just damage the business but to threaten the survival of a business.
• Cyber security and fraud are two of the biggest risks that all businesses face.
• Environmental sustainability is a major risk for many businesses.
• Supply chain management is an attempt to manage the risks associated with the supply chain.
• Uncertainty is a different concept to risk as managers have to deal with uncertainty all the time, it's the unknowns.
• Uncertainties that exist relate to business decisions and actions, such as how the market would respond if a change in the marketing mix was implemented, or how likely it is that a new supplier would be able to deliver on time to the right quality and prove to be a reliable partner of the business.
• Human resource management is also affected by uncertainty, as businesses have to consider whether they will be able to retain the right number of skilled and experienced employees at the start of each year.