Marketing Principles and Strategies

Posted on Nov 30, 2024 in Economy

Marketing Principles

What is Marketing?

Marketing is the process of creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers while managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. It involves understanding consumer needs and wants, developing products and services that meet those needs, setting the right price, promoting the offerings effectively, and ensuring they are available to the target market.

Key aspects of marketing:

  • Researching consumer behavior and identifying target markets.
  • Developing products and services that appeal to consumers.
  • Finding and fulfilling consumer needs.
  • Building strong customer relationships.

The Consumer is King

Marketing focuses on understanding and meeting consumer needs. It’s about selling products that provide value to consumers, not just selling for the sake of selling. A key principle is to highlight how a product adds more value compared to competitors.

Marketing Do’s and Don’ts

  • Do: Develop the right product and strategies for your target customers.
  • Don’t: Solely focus on selling your products without considering customer needs.

Selling vs. Marketing

  • Selling: Trying to get rid of existing inventory.
  • Marketing: Ensuring that what’s on the shelves is what the consumer wants.

The 4 Ps of Marketing

  • Product: Developing goods, services, and ideas that meet customer needs and wants, making them aware of something they may not know they need.
  • Pricing: Determining the amount of money exchanged for a product or service. This is crucial and can significantly impact sales and marketing strategies. Research is essential to understand the acceptable price range and consumer perceived value.
  • Promotion: Communicating with the market and promoting sales. This involves conveying the product’s message effectively and consistently.
  • Place (Distribution): Getting the product into the buyer’s hands. This involves determining where to sell the product and how exclusive the distribution channels should be based on the product’s value.

Marketing Management

Key Concepts

  • Micromarketing: Focuses on individual firm decisions and strategies.
  • Macromarketing: Addresses overall societal needs, including distribution and communication systems.
  • Mesomarketing: Involves activities of collaborating organizations within a supply chain.
  • Social Marketing Concept: Balances consumer needs, company profits, and long-term societal welfare.
  • Relationship Marketing: Emphasizes building long-term customer relationships based on trust and value, rather than just transactions.
  • Customer-Oriented Business Practices: Focuses on customer satisfaction, an integrated approach, and a broad business definition.
  • The Three R’s: Reputation (strong brand image), Relationship (customer loyalty), and Response (addressing customer issues and problems).

Market Dynamics

  • Seller’s Market: Sellers have more market power.
  • Buyer’s Market: Buyers have more control over the product/supply.

Marketing Tools

These include product development and promotional strategies, such as research surveys and focus groups.

Strategy Development and Marketing Projects

Key Concepts

  • Strategy: A long-term plan (2-5 years) for achieving marketing goals, determining target markets and products, and defining the company’s desired future state.
  • Scenario: Predicting future situations and developing solutions for different scenarios.
  • Tactic: Short-term (within a year) operational plans for implementing the strategy and achieving short-term objectives.

Types of Strategies

  • Corporate Strategy: A long-term plan for the entire corporation and its subsidiaries.
  • Business Strategy: Strategy and resource allocation for specific divisions or strategic business units (SBUs).
  • Marketing Strategy: A marketing plan for a specific brand or product line at the product/market level.

Marketing Planning and Management: Three Phases

  1. Analysis/Situation Analysis: Includes internal analysis (strengths and weaknesses) and external analysis (opportunities and threats) using a SWOT analysis. This is based on the business definition and mission statement.
  2. Marketing Strategy and Strategic Options: Defining marketing objectives and developing the marketing strategy and annual plan.
  3. Implementation: Executing the marketing strategy.

Additional Concepts

  • Mission Statement: Should be clear, concise, and easy to understand.
  • Investment Strategies: Build, Hold, Harvest, Divest.
  • Ansoff Model (Product Market Expansion Matrix): A framework for identifying growth opportunities.
  • Boston Matrix: A tool for analyzing a company’s product portfolio.
  • Differentiation: Creating competitive advantages by changing products or moving into new markets.
  • BCG Portfolio: Balancing the company’s portfolio of SBUs to ensure that some SBUs generate cash flow to finance others.
  • Competitive Advantage: Favorable factors that differentiate a company from its competitors, such as superior product quality, a strong sales team, or continuous innovation.