Marketing

• Marketing is the process of getting potential clients or customers interested in products and services
• Marketing involves researching, promoting, selling, and distributing products or services
• Customer needs change over time, and marketing helps to respond to these changes
• The business environment is subject to constant changes, such as new laws, changes in technology, and new competitors entering the market
• Marketing department works closely with production department to ensure:

  • Adequate research and development is planned to satisfy current and future customer needs
  • The item can be manufactured to the quality and design desired by the consumer
  • The volume of orders generated by marketing can be met within the time schedule
• Marketing department needs to work closely with finance department to ensure:

  • Adequate budget for research, promotion, and distribution
  • Business operates within its financial capabilities
• Marketing department needs to work closely with HRM department to ensure appropriate skills and staffing levels are in place for:

  • Research and develop new product ideas
  • Meet production targets
  • Create a competent sales team
• Marketing objectives are the brand's clear-cut, defined goals
• Marketing objectives set out what a business wants to achieve from its marketing activities
• Marketing objectives provide clear direction for team members to follow
• Implementing a straightforward marketing plan helps achieve goals and meet marketing objectives
• Examples of marketing objectives:

  • Increase sales
  • Grow brand awareness
  • Increase market share
  • Retain current customers
  • Grow digital presence
  • Promote new products or services
• Demand is the quantity of consumers willing and able to buy products at various prices during a given period of time
• Supply is the amount of a product or service that suppliers are willing to offer to consumers at a given price level at a given period
• Demand curve:

  • As the price of a good increases, the demand for the product will decrease
  • Factors affecting demand include consumer incomes, price of competitors' products, price of complementary products, and marketing activities
• Supply curve:

  • When prices of a product increase, producers are willing to manufacture more of the product
  • Factors affecting supply include number of firms producing, time period, cost of production, and technology
• Consumer market refers to the market where people purchase products/services for consumption and are not meant for further sale
• Customer-oriented business bases its decisions on customers' needs and continually monitors the environment to find out what customers want
• Product-oriented business focuses more on what it can produce and hopes that it fits customer requirements
• Product-oriented entrepreneurs assume that everyone will like their idea because they do
• Entrepreneurs must check for demand before starting out because not everyone thinks or behaves the same way
• Market share is measured by the sales of a business (or a particular product) relative to the total market sales
• Market growth measures the rate at which the market as a whole is growing over a given time period
• A change in market share means that a business' sales account for a greater proportion of the total sales in the market in the given period
• Market growth rate being positive indicates the market is getting bigger, while a negative growth rate means the market is shrinking
• Niche marketing targets a specific market segment with a unique offering
• Advantages of niche marketing include little competition, strong customer relationships, and high margins
• Dangers of niche marketing include low total number of customers and potential competition from larger firms
• Mass marketing aims to attract a large portion of the audience and focuses on higher volume sales at lower prices
• Market segmentation involves dividing the market into different segments based on identifiable traits
• Demographic segmentation looks at traits such as age, gender, income, and profession/role in a company
• Psychographic segmentation focuses on customers' personalities, interests, hobbies, and values
• Geographic segmentation groups customers based on their physical location
• Advantages of market segmentation include more effective marketing, efficient spending, improved customer retention, and brand differentiation
• Disadvantages of market segmentation include increased costs due to product proliferation and larger inventory maintenance
• Customer-relationship marketing involves gathering and analyzing data about customers to understand their behaviors and move them towards a purchase
• Customer retention is a measure of customer loyalty and can be measured by the proportion of customers who continue to buy from the business over time
• Businesses use marketing research to identify the main features of a market, including:

  • The growth of a market
  • The size of the market
  • Competitors
• Market research is the process of gathering, analyzing, and producing data relevant to the marketing process
• Primary market research gathers data for the first time for a specific purpose