Lecture One: Marketing Concepts

Lecture One: Marketing

• Marketing is defined as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
• A market is a set of all actual and potential buyers of a product or service, where buyers and sellers are highly sensitive to each other's transactions.
• This definition implies a market exists wherever a buyer of a product or service is present.
• The marketing process starts when these products or services are exchanged.
• Marketing refers to the activities a company conducts to promote buying or selling of a product, service, or good.
• Marketers can direct their products/services to other businesses or directly to consumers.
• Marketing should enable removing the separations between producers and consumers.
• This includes spatial separation (geographical differences) and separation in time.
• Information gaps also need to be addressed.
• Marketing facilitates the alignment of producer and consumer values.

Lecture One: Marketing Segments

• Two main segments of marketing exist: business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C).
• B2B marketing focuses on strategies and content aimed at other businesses or organizations.
• B2C marketing focuses on tactics and strategies to promote products and services to individual customers.
• B2B purchases are usually large volumes, formal, and involve multiple decision-makers.
• B2C purchases tend to be smaller volumes, informal, and influenced by a single decision-maker.
• B2C marketing pricing is often fixed, while B2B negotiations for price or added benefits are common

Lecture One: Role Of Marketing

• Producers and consumers are separated in various ways (e.g., location, time, information).
• Marketing aims to remove these separations.
• Spatial separation refers to geographical distance between producers and consumers.
• Separation in time refers to the need for consumers to access a product or service at the appropriate moment.
• Separation of information relates to various details regarding products (e.g., use, availability, price).
• Separation in values refers to the way both producers and consumers determine product value.

Lecture One: Importance Of Marketing

• Marketing enables effective engagement with customers.
• It helps build and maintain a company's reputation.
• Marketing fosters relationships between businesses and customers.
• It acts as a communication channel for informing customers about offerings.
• It helps increase sales by employing promotional tools.
• Marketing is crucial for economic development.
• It creates new jobs and generates fresh ideas.

Lecture Two: Marketing Mix

• The marketing mix comprises marketing tools to achieve objectives in the target market.
• Historically, it's focused on product, price, place, and promotion (the 4 Ps).

Lecture Two: Product

• A product is anything that satisfies a consumer's needs or wants (tangible goods or intangible services, ideas, or experiences).
• Product strategy includes: product design, features, quality, branding, packaging, labeling, after-sales services, guarantees, warranties, returns, and product life cycle.

Lecture Two: Product Life Cycle

• The product life cycle outlines stages from introduction to decline.
• Introduction: slow sales growth as consumers are unfamiliar with the product, with little or no profits.
• Growth: rapid sales increase, use of persuasive advertising, reduced pricing as competitors emerge.
• Maturity: sales increase at a slower rate, intense competition, aggressive advertising, and profit potential may decrease, as product saturation arises.
• Decline: sales fall, product loses its appeal, and advertising is reduced or stopped.

Lecture Two: Price

• Price is the amount a customer pays for a product or service.
• Price strategy involves pricing tactics, setting prices, providing rebates to distributors, offering discounts to consumers, establishing payment terms, and employing various pricing strategies.

Lecture Two: Pricing Strategies

• Pricing strategies include competition-oriented pricing, cost-plus pricing, marginal cost pricing, psychological pricing, demand-based pricing, experience curve pricing, and target ROI pricing.

Lecture Two: Place

• Place refers to how and where a company makes products and services available to consumers.
• Place strategy encompasses intensive, selective, or exclusive distribution, franchising, transportation, and inventory management methods.

Lecture Two: Place Diagram

• Manufacturers can use intermediaries (agents, wholesalers, retailers, franchisers) to reach customers.

Lecture Two: Promotion

• Promotion is advertising and marketing to communicate product availability to customers.
• Promotion strategy comprises message strategy (what to communicate), channel strategy (how to reach the target audience), and various channels (e.g., Facebook, radio, television, etc.).
• Promotional mix elements include advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relations, and direct marketing.

Lecture Three: SWOT Analysis

• SWOT analysis is a framework for evaluating a company's competitive position to develop strategic plans.
• SWOT analysis considers internal elements (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and threats).
• Strengths are internal attributes that set an organization apart from competitors.
• Weaknesses are internal factors that hinder optimum performance.
• Opportunities are favorable external factors for gaining a competitive edge.
• Threats are unfavorable external factors that potentially harm the organization.

Lecture Three: Coca-Cola Case Study

• A 2015 SWOT analysis of Coca-Cola highlighted strengths (brand recognition, vast distribution network), opportunities (emerging markets), weaknesses (currency fluctuations), and threats (healthier beverage trends, competition).
• Five years after the analysis, Coca-Cola's stock value rose over 60% demonstrating the analysis's effectiveness.

Lecture Four: PEST Analysis

• PEST analysis examines the political, economic, social, and technological factors influencing a business.
• It helps businesses understand how external factors affect their performance and activities in both short and long term.
• A successful business needs a solid product, budget, recognizable brand, satisfied customers, well-structured marketing plans, strong selling platforms, and effective management.

Lecture Four: Factors in PEST Analysis

• Political Factors: Government regulations, legal aspects, political stability, tax guidelines, trade policies and employment laws, impact revenue and profit.
• Economic Factors: Inflation, interest rates, economic growth, unemployment rates, and business cycles affect both businesses and consumers.
• Social Factors: Customer demographics, cultural factors, lifestyle attitudes and purchase decisions impact consumer needs and preferences.
• Technological Factors: Technological innovations, lifecycle technologies, the internet and government technology investments affect products, marketplace introduction and impact market revenue.

Lecture Four: Five Forces Analysis: Definition

• A model used to understand a company's competitive environment.
• Factors like rivals, new entrants, suppliers, buyers & substitute products all influence a company's profits.

Lecture Four: Five Forces Analysis: Diagram

• The diagram illustrates the forces that impact a company.

Five Forces Analysis: Specific Areas

• Bargaining Power of Suppliers: The supplier's power over you and the entry's impact on profitability.
• Bargaining Power of Customers: Buyers' power and how company deals with buyers directly or indirectly.
• Threat of New Entrants: Ease of new businesses entering your market.
• Threat of Substitutes: Likelihood of customers switching to alternative products.
• Competitive Rivalry: Intensity of competition among existing businesses.