Marketing

• Market


  A place where people buy and sell goods (whether virtually or physically)
• Market Analysis


  • Businesses need to understand their market
  • Before a company can sell their product, they need to understand the market they're operating in
  • They need to work out if they are selling in a local, national or international market
  • They need to know whether they are selling things online or physically, and who their target audience is
• Ways a market can be classified

  • Geography (local, national, international)
  • Development level (new, growing, mature)
  • Nature of the product (e.g. agricultural, technological)
  • Product destination (trade, private consumer)
  • Seasonality (seasonal or year-round)
• Market Analysis


  1. Looking at sales growth

  2. Looking at market growth

  3. Looking at market share

  4. Market mapping
• Market share


  The percentage of sales in a market that is made by a firm or by one brand
• It is important to look at trends in market share as well as trends in sales revenue. Letting your market share go down is not good as it means that competitors are gaining an advantage over you.
• Sales growth


  The percentage change in a company's sales over time
• Sales growth can be positive (company is gaining sales) or negative (company is losing sales).
• Market Mapping


  • Compares two features of products or brands (e.g. low price vs high price, low quality vs high quality)
  • Lays out a matrix and positions products or brands according to where they are judged to be between each pair of extremes
• Market Map


  • Showing how different supermarkets are positioned in terms of price and quality
• However, market mapping can oversimplify things as the positions of products and brands on a market map are usually a matter of opinion and may be biased.
• A manufacturer is planning to launch a new range of cupcakes. Analyse how the manufacturer might use a market map in marketing decision making.