Marketing Communication Strategies

Marketing Principles - Lecture Summaries

• Lectures 1 & 2:

  • Marketing is the process of individuals and groups obtaining needs and wants through value exchange. It aims for customer satisfaction at a profit.
  • The new economy features increased buying power, variety, information access, and ease of ordering.
  • Marketing's objectives include understanding the marketplace, tasks of marketing, major concepts and tools, marketplace orientations, and responses to new challenges. Analyzing the marketing environment includes micro and macro environments.
  • Micro: company, suppliers, marketing intermediaries, customer markets, competitors, and publics.
  • Macro: demographic, economic, natural, technological, political, and cultural forces. Examples of macro forces include opening new markets, transnational firms, and cross-border alliances.
  • Examples of topics discussed in lectures 1 and 2 include explaining what motivates consumers and what satisfies consumer needs. Consumers gain value from owning and using a product compared to its acquisition cost; customer satisfaction depends on the product's value compared to customer expectation. Important aspects of how consumers obtain products and services include exchange, transaction, and relationships. Different buyers, categorized as actual and potential buyers, comprise the market. Different marketing philosophies such as production, product, selling, marketing, and societal marketing concepts were described. Concepts of customer-oriented marketing strategies were discussed, including situational analysis, segmentation, targeting, and positioning within the marketing program.

• Lecture 3:

  • Market Segmentation: Dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers with similar needs, characteristics, and behaviors.
  • Market segmentation steps: identifying segmentation variables, developing profiles, evaluating segment attractiveness, and selecting segments.
  • Types of segmentation: demographic, psychographic (lifestyles, personalities), and behavioral (occasions, benefits, user status).
  • Effective segmentation criteria: measurable, accessible, substantial, differentiable, actionable, ethical.
  • Importance of market segmentation: Identifying different market segments for targeting, allocation of marketing budgets, ensuring effective marketing, and revealing hidden opportunities.
  • Market Coverage Strategies: undifferentiated, differentiated, concentrated (niche).

• Lecture 4:

  • Product mix: The complete set of all product lines and items that a particular seller offers for sale.
  • Product mix decisions: Width, length, depth, consistency
  • Key product decisions include product attributes, branding, packaging, labeling, and product support services
  • Product Classifications: Consumer products (convenience, shopping, specialty, unsought) and industrial products (materials, parts, capital items).

• Lecture 5:

  • New product development: essentially new products, differences exist from existing company or competitor products or are minor improvements. The basis for meeting customer changing needs.
  • New product fails due to issues in Over Championing, overestimated demand, poor design, poor marketing execution, high development costs, and strong competitive reactions.
  • New product development process. The 6 steps presented were 1. Idea Generation. 2. Idea Screening. 3. Concept Development and Testing. 4. Marketing Strategy Development. 5. Business Analysis. 6. Product development and testing.
  • Methods for market testing include simulated test markets, controlled test markets, and standard test markets as well as sales wave research.
  • The process of how to adopt new products includes different stages of consumer buyers.

• Lecture 6:

  • Services are performances, deeds, or efforts.
  • Service industries include health care, professional services, financial services, hospitality, travel, and others (e.g., hair styling, counseling services).
  • Service tangibility: tangibility spectrum (high-low)
  • Important service characteristics: intangibility, inseparability, variability, perishability.
  • A service case discusses the balance between high-risk surgery and low-risk alternatives for customers in the medical field.
  • Understanding service quality is important for managing customer experiences and creating greater satisfaction for customers.
  • Marketing strategies important for service providers include managing service differentiation and managing service quality (empowerment, high standards, close monitoring), as well as service productivity.

• Lecture 7:

  • Pricing is the amount of money charged or exchanged for a product or service.
  • Pricing is a key element for producing revenue.
  • Importance of pricing includes revenue production, quality, perception, profitability, and demand.
  • Pricing methods include customer value-based, cost-based, and competition-based pricing.
  • Cost-based pricing methods include cost-plus pricing (markup), break-even, and target return.
  • Value-based pricing methods include perceived value pricing, value-added pricing.
  • Competition-based pricing methods include going-rate pricing, below-market pricing, sealed bid pricing.
  • Promotional pricing types include loss-leader pricing, bait pricing, special-event pricing, cash rebates, low-interest financing, longer payment terms, warranties and service contracts, and psychological discounting.
  • New product pricing can utilize skimming or penetration methods.
  • Discriminatory pricing can target different segments or products, or location or time.
  • Product mix pricing and discounting were described.
  • A price reaction policy to competitor strategy is discussed

• Lectures 8 & 9:

  • Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) involves coordinating and integrating all marketing communications channels into a coherent and unified program creating a consistent and unified image of company and products.
  • Elements in the communication process include sender, encoding, message, media, receiver, decoding, response, feedback, and noise.
  • Major communications mix elements include advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling, and direct marketing.
  • The process involves target audience identification, communication objectives determination (buyer readiness stages), message design, selection of communications channels, budget development, choosing the right communications mix, and result measurement.

• Lecture 10:

  • Public relations is a function for companies to build relationships with publics, obtain positive publicity, build a good corporate image, and neutralize negative rumors and events.
  • Public relations functions include press relations, product publicity, public affairs, lobbying, and investor relations (development).
  • Major tools for public relations include news, speeches, special events, written materials, audiovisual materials, and public service activities (CSR).

• Lecture 11:

  • Market logistics: a process of managing physical products from origin to consumption. -Channel design decisions include 1) analyzing customers' desired decisions (location preference, purchase preferences), 2) establishing channel objectives, and 3) identifying alternatives.
  • Evaluation factors for channel alternatives include economic criteria (sales, cost, profitability) and adaptability (flexibility).
  • Channel management decisions include selecting channel members, training, motivating, and evaluating.
  • Types of channels include 0-level, 1-level, 2-level, and 3-level. Retailing and wholesaling were described. Legal and ethical issues within marketing channels are detailed.
  • Goals of a logistics system include cost-efficiency and targeted customer service. Types of logistics systems and transportation modes are discussed.

This quiz evaluates your understanding of marketing communication concepts, including buyer readiness stages, message designs, and public relations functions. Test your knowledge on direct marketing methods and their benefits. Prepare to explore key marketing strategies in various scenarios.