Marketing Exam - Assessing the Marketplace

Marketing Klausur - Assessing the Marketplace

• Marketing Definition: The set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, exchanging, and delivering offerings with value for customers, marketers, and society. Part of corporate strategy ensuring customer orientation at all company levels.
• Core Marketing Activities: Consumer research, targeting, product development, communication, distribution, pricing, service.
• Marketing Activities: All tasks and actions a company takes to promote products and services; including product, price, communication, and distribution management.
• Marketing Institutions: Producers, wholesalers, retailers, advertising agencies, market research firms, trade show firms.
• Marketing Processes: New product development, order management, price negotiations, campaign management, market analysis, competitor intelligence.
• Evolution of Marketing:
  • Production: "Good products will always be sold."
  • Sales: "With good salespeople, we can sell everything."
  • Marketing: "We produce what consumers want."
  • Value-based Marketing: "We produce what consumers want and generate value for them."
• Markets: The set of actual and potential buyers of products and services. Managing markets creates profitable customer relationships.
• Sales vs. Marketing Concepts:
  • Selling concept: Starting point: factory; Focus: existing products; Means: selling and promoting; Ends: profits through sales volume.
  • Marketing concept: Starting point: market; Focus: customer needs; Means: integrated marketing; Ends: profits through customer satisfaction.
• Marketing Objectives: Revenue maximization (total amount of money), rapid market penetration, profit maximization (after subtracting all expenses).
• Understanding the Marketplace & Customer Needs: Essential for achieving targets.
• Main Tasks of Marketing:
  • Strategic Level: Market segmentation (homogeneous target groups), supply of customized products, operational level = implementation
  • Operational Level: Implementation of strategic level tools/Marketing Mix/Customer and supplier Relationship Management (implementation through marketing instruments).

Marketing - Value

• Marketing = Creating Value: An organization's subjective perception (evaluation) of the degree to which an offering fulfills one or several needs.
• Value Propositions: Composed of various value building blocks, including system value (e.g., Apple's AirDrop), service value (e.g., Amazon), information value (e.g., Google), brand value (e.g., Apple, Calvin Klein), relationship value (e.g., Nespresso, trust programs), and ethical/ecological value (e.g., Seventh Generation, Patagonia, Pela).

Marketing Process: Marketing in a Nutshell

• Create value for customers and build relationships. Capture value from customers in return.
• Understand the marketplace and customer needs and wants.
• Design a customer-value-driven marketing strategy.
• Select customers to serve, implement market segmentation and targeting.
• Decide on a value proposition, differentiation and positioning.
• Construct an integrated marketing program (that delivers superior value).
• Build profitable relationships and create customer delight.
• Build customer relationship management (CRM): engagement and strong relationships with chosen customers.

Marketing Process & Consumer Behavior

• Exchange: Result of perceived fairness. (Perceived benefits – perceived costs = value of exchange)
• Customer Satisfaction: How well a product's performance meets customer expectations.
• Different Forms of Consumer Benefits: Functional, Emotional, Self-Expressive, Social.
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): Stream of purchases over a customer's lifetime. Keeping an existing customer is five times cheaper than acquiring a new one.

Targeting the Marketplace

• Market Segmentation: Dividing the market into small segments.
• Target Marketing: Selecting which segments a company will pursue.
• Value Proposition: Set of benefits or values a company promises to deliver to customers.
• Integrated Marketing Program: Delivers value through a combination of marketing tools used on various channels. (like the 4Ps)

Buyer Personas

• Researched based profile of the ideal target customer.

Targeting - Selecting Segments

• Evaluate segment attractiveness (considering strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities).
• Consider if segments are identifiable, if enough people are in the segment, if the company can reach the segment, if the people within a segment would react similarly to a marketing message, if they can afford the product.
• Consider profitability, and how similar the segments are.
• Various marketing strategies like undifferentiated, differentiated, concentrated, and micromarketing.

Positioning

• Define the marketing mix variables to give customers a clear, distinctive, and desirable understanding of a product or service in comparison to competitors.
• Include various strategies like points-of-parity or points-of-difference.

Specific Positioning Strategies

• Based on target group, strategic focus, and company strengths (assets).
• Various strategies such as low price, superior quality, rapid innovation, superior service, and tailored offerings.

Perceptual Map

• Displays the position of products or brands in the consumer's mind using two or more dimensions.
• Understand how products are perceived in the market.

Product Management

• Growth Strategies (e.g. Ansoff Matrix) - exploring market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification.

4Ps & 4Cs

• Traditional 4Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion
• 4 Cs: Customer solution, Customer cost, Convenience, Communication

Product Decisions

• Breadth & Depth of Product Lines: The number of product lines (breadth) and number of products in the line (depth)
• Product Design: A product's physical characteristics & aesthetic aspects affecting functionality, ease of entry, fuel consumption, and aesthetics.
• Brand Value & Ethical / Ecological Value: Brand value; relationship with consumers, ethical aspects like fair trade and local communities, ethical / ecological considerations.

Place / Distribution

• Distribution Policies: Intense Distribution (many outlets), Selective Distribution (fewer outlets), Exclusive Distribution (only a few outlets).
• Distribution structure (e.g. retailers, wholesale, direct distribution)
• Customer Journey

Communication Process & IMC

• Communication Process (Encoding & Decoding): Information transfer from sender to receiver.
• IMC (Integrated Marketing Communication): Strategically coordinating messaging across various communication channels.
• Interactive Channels:* (e.g. face2face, online, video, sales promotions, direct & digital marketing)
• Passive Channels: (e.g., advertising, announcements/persuasive messagings).

6 Steps in Developing Effective Marketing Communications

• Identifying the target audience.
• Determining communication objectives.
• Designing the message.
• Choosing channels & media.
• Selecting message sources.
• Collecting feedback

Extending Marketing

• Sensory Marketing: Focusing on engaging the senses of customers for a better overall sensory experience when purchasing a product.
• Digital offerings: e-books, streaming services, etc

This quiz covers key concepts in marketing, including definitions, core activities, institutions, and processes. Explore the evolution of marketing strategies and the role they play in corporate strategy. Perfect for understanding customer orientation and marketing fundamentals.