Marketing Essentials: Strategies and Concepts

Posted on Dec 1, 2024 in Economy

Errors in Marketing Research

1. Talking to everyone except real potential buyers.

2. Ignoring warning signs due to belief in project success.

3. Asking obvious questions that only confirm ideas, not revealing interviewee thinking.

4. Ignoring that 20% of customers often provide 80% of business volume.

5. Assuming competitiveness solely based on lowest prices.

6. Failing to recognize competitor strength and potential reactions.

7. Underestimating market entry and share acquisition time (years, not months).

Capitalizing on Changes

• Leadership in the category, accounting for 80% of profits.
• Never allow competitors to gain an advantage: Increase innovation and quality. Revolutionize the category with premium offerings.
• Be the authority and absolute expert in the category. Avoid superficial innovations.
• Analyze, understand, and overcome weak solutions to meet customer desires.
• Never underestimate consumer intelligence, emotional connections, and brand advocacy.
• Break the demand curve dilemma: Seek higher prices and volumes.
• Control the value chain to ensure a flawless customer experience.
• Attack the category as if an outsider, constantly innovating and expanding.

International Market Entry Modes

Exporting, licensing, franchising, joint ventures, or subsidiaries.

Companies choose between:

1) Standardizing the marketing mix.

2) Adapting the marketing mix by country or region.

Factors Influencing Marketing Mix Decisions

• Environmental characteristics (including competition).
• Product features.
• Company characteristics.

Service Barriers

• Intangible nature.
• Perishability.
• Heterogeneity.

Business Planning

“A business plan does not predict what will happen, but it helps to see better what can happen.”

Benchmarking

• Measure competitor results on key success factors.
• Determine how to achieve those results.
• Use as a basis for setting goals and strategies.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

• Technology.
• Set of functions.
• Management model.

Social Marketing Evolution

• Confusion.
• Consolidation.
• Sectoring.

Social Marketing Challenges

• Intense public scrutiny.
• Unrealistic expectations.
• Limited or negative demand influence.
• Long time for change.

Social Marketing Trends

1. Achieve lasting impact through partnerships, media promotion, program integration, funding, and training.
2. Highlight social marketing results.
3. Enhance access to services and suppliers.
4. Emphasize diverse communication tools (e.g., merchandising, public relations).
5. Regularly monitor program progress.

Social Marketing Components

• Target audience.
• Competitors.
• Organization.
• Network support.
• Campaign costs.
• Context.

Chilean Retail Market Trends

• Focus on middle-income buyers.
• Lack of major international retailers.
• New multistore openings.
• Mega-retail groups.

Marketing Levels (Kotler)

1. Market level.
2. Product level.
3. Marketing mix level.

Disrupting Logical Thinking (Kotler)

1. Renew.
2. Invest.
3. Combine.
4. Overdo.
5. Delete.
6. Reorder.

Creating a Vacuum (Kotler)

1. Choose a focus for lateral thinking.
2. Cause a lateral displacement to generate a vacuum.
3. Connect the gap.

Marketing Origins

What Marketing Should Not Be

• Assuming the offer is attractive by itself.
• Ignoring customer ignorance and lack of motivation.
• Not prioritizing market and consumer research.
• Defining marketing as promotion.
• Assuming product knowledge is sufficient for marketers.
• Relying solely on strategy.
• Ignoring generic competition (substitutes).

What Marketing Should Be

• Obsessed with the consumer.
• Critical of research.
• Preferring segmentation.
• Recognizing multiple marketing dimensions.
• Understanding competition.
• Ensuring the entire organization responds to the consumer.

The Four P’s

• Product.
• Price.
• Place.
• Promotion.

The Four C’s

• Consumer solution.
• Cost to the customer.
• Convenience.
• Communication.

Necessity: A state of lack, basic or higher level.

Production Concept: Consumers favor widely available and inexpensive products.

Consumer Goods

• Convenience.
• Shopping.
• Specialty.
• Unsought.

Industrial Goods

• Raw materials.
• Materials and parts.
• Installations.
• Services.

New Product Launches

• Known market and product/technology: Limited risk, leveraging existing competencies.
• New market, known product/technology: Commercial risk, targeting new segments.
• Known market, new product/technology: Technical risk, requiring research and evaluation.
• New market and product/technology: Diversification strategy with accumulated risks.

Private Labels: Cheaper, equal quality, and confidence compared to traditional products.

BCG Matrix

• Stars: Invest.
• Question Marks: Think strategically.
• Cash Cows: Maintain.
• Dogs: Divest or hold.

Growth Policies

• Promote and support.
• Hold or harvest.
• Promote or divest.
• Harvest or divest.

Merchandising: Techniques enabling consumer choice at the point of sale without influence.

Distribution Strategy: Achieving differentiation through service quality and dealer size.

Pricing Strategies

• Skimming: High initial price, gradually reduced.
• Penetration: Low price for rapid sales expansion.
• Balanced: Price aligned with competitors and substitutes.

Product Life Cycle: Introduction, growth, maturity, decline.

AIDA: Attention, interest, desire, action.

Distributor Types

• Direct.
• Indirect (single or multi-level).

Trade Marketing: Marketing for distribution channels.

Competition Levels

• Brand competition.
• Industry competition.
• Form competition.
• Generic competition.

Important Company Aspects

Profitability, market share, leadership, and flow.

Key Competitive Analysis Variables

• Target market share.
• Consumer mind share.

Benchmarking: Continuous comparison process.

Positioning Options

1. Massive cost leadership.
2. Differentiation.
3. Selective cost leadership.
4. Selective differentiation.

Segmentation Requirements

Measurable, accessible, and actionable.

Adding Value Through Segmentation

Size and growth, structural attractiveness, company objectives and resources.

Multivariate Segmentation: Geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral variables.

Differentiation Elements

Critical factors and key success factors (motivational factors).

Critical and Key Factors

• Brand.
• Distribution channels and prices.
• Advertising.
• Development and innovation.

Functional, Sensory, and Symbolic Needs: Consumer needs from a marketing perspective.

Corporate Branding Requirements

1. Notoriety.
2. Trust.
3. Path.
4. Identity.
5. Image.
6. Reputation.

Visibility: Brand awareness and recall.

Differentiation-Related Items

• Critical success factors.
• Key success factors (motivational factors).