Marketing Fundamentals: Core Concepts & Strategies

Posted on Aug 11, 2025 in Commerce and Marketing

Week 2: Creating Customer Value and Engagement

What is Marketing?

Activities to acquire, engage, and build relationships with customers, creating value to capture it in return.

The Five-Step Marketing Process

  1. Understand the marketplace and customer needs.

  2. Design a customer-driven marketing strategy.

  3. Construct an integrated marketing program.

  4. Engage customers and build relationships.

  5. Capture value for profits and customer equity.

Understanding the Marketplace

Core Concepts:

  • Needs, Wants, Demands: Basic human requirements (physical, social, individual).

  • Market Offerings: Combination of products, services, and experiences.

  • Marketing Myopia: Focusing on products rather than customer benefits.

  • Customer Value & Satisfaction: Judged on perceived value; leads to loyal customers.

  • Exchange & Relationships: Giving something to get something in return.

  • Markets: Actual and potential buyers.

Marketing Management Orientations

  • Production: Focus on efficiency, low-cost, and mass production.

  • Product: Focus on best features and quality.

  • Selling: Emphasis on aggressive promotion.

  • Marketing: Satisfying customer needs better than competitors.

  • Societal: Balancing profits, customer wants, and societal good.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CRM involves building profitable customer relationships through superior value and satisfaction.

  • Acquisition: Gaining new customers.

  • Retention: Keeping customers loyal.

  • Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Total purchases made by a customer over their lifetime.

  • Customer Equity: The Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) of all customers combined.

Quick Tips

  • Marketing equals Value Creation plus Relationship Building.
  • The 5 Core Concepts are Needs, Offerings, Value, Exchange, and Markets.
  • CRM focuses on Loyalty and Customer Lifetime Value.

Week 3: Company and Marketing Strategy

Company-Wide Strategic Planning

  • Define Mission: What business are we in, who is the customer, what value do we provide?

  • Set Objectives & Goals: Specific plans aligned with the mission.

  • Design Portfolio: Evaluate businesses and products.

  • Plan Strategies: Corporate, business unit, product, and market strategies.

Business Portfolios and Growth Strategies

  • Portfolio Analysis: Evaluating products and Strategic Business Units (SBUs).

    • BCG Matrix: Stars (invest), Cash Cows (fund), Question Marks (decide), Dogs (divest).

    • Ansoff Matrix: Market Penetration, Market Development, Product Development, Diversification.

Marketing Strategy Formation

ASPIRATION: Who is the value for?

STP: Segmenting, Targeting, Positioning.

ACTION PLAN (4Ps): Product, Price, Place (Value Creation), Promotion (Value Capture).

Business Environment Analysis

  • SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.

  • Internal: Performance, brand, product portfolio.

  • External: Economy, regulations, competitors.

Quick Tips

  • Mission defines Purpose, Objectives are Goals, Portfolio evaluates businesses.
  • Ansoff Matrix outlines Growth Strategies; BCG Matrix categorizes Stars, Cows, and Dogs.
  • The 4 Ps are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
  • SWOT analysis covers Internal (Strengths, Weaknesses) and External (Opportunities, Threats) factors.

Week 4: Marketing Environment

Micro-environment

Internal actors include the company, suppliers, competitors, marketing intermediaries, and customers.

Macro-environment

  • Demographic: Population trends (e.g., age, gender).

  • Economic: Income levels, purchasing power.

  • Natural: Environmental sustainability, pollution concerns.

  • Technological: Innovations, safety regulations.

  • Political: Laws protecting businesses and consumers.

  • Social: Ethics, corporate social responsibility.

  • Cultural: Core and secondary values.

Company Response Types

  • Uncontrollable: Reacting to the environment.

  • Proactive: Influencing the environment.

  • Reactive: Observing and responding to changes.

Week 5: Marketing Research

Customer Insights

Understanding why customers behave as they do.

Marketing Research Process

  1. Define the problem and research objectives.

  2. Develop the research plan.

  3. Collect data.

  4. Analyze and report findings.

Data Types

  • Primary: New data collected for a specific study.

  • Secondary: Existing data (e.g., sales reports, public databases).

Primary Data Collection Methods

  • Observation: Watching behavior (provides real data, but can be biased).

  • Surveys: Flexible, scalable (potential for memory bias).

  • Experiments: Determining cause-effect relationships (potential variable control issues).

  • Focus Groups: Rich interaction (findings may not be generalizable).

Quick Tips

  • Exploratory research defines problems; Descriptive research describes markets; Causal research determines cause-effect.
  • Primary data is new; Secondary data is existing.
  • The sample must accurately represent the target group!

Week 6: Consumer Buying Behavior

Influences on Consumer Behavior

  • Cultural: Core values, subcultures.

  • Social: Family, reference groups.

  • Personal: Age, occupation, lifestyle.

  • Psychological: Motivation (Maslow’s Hierarchy), perception, learning.

Levels of Involvement

  • High Involvement: Expensive, risky purchases (e.g., a car).

  • Low Involvement: Routine, inexpensive purchases (e.g., chewing gum).

Buying Decision Process

  1. Need Recognition

  2. Information Search

  3. Evaluation of Alternatives

  4. Purchase Decision

  5. Post-purchase Behavior

Innovation Adoption Process

Stages: Knowledge → Persuasion → Decision → Implementation → Confirmation.

Quick Tips

  • Cognitive Dissonance is also known as Buyer’s Remorse.
  • Innovation adoption progresses from Knowledge to Confirmation.