Untitled Quiz

Introduction to Marketing Final Review

• Final Assessment: An in-class assessment will be held on December 3rd, from 8:00 am to 9:40 am. The assessment will focus on Marketplace Simulation learning.

From Mission to Marketing Strategy

• Marketing Strategy Mix: A circular model illustrates the interconnected elements of a marketing strategy. Key elements include marketing intermediaries, customer value and relationships, product segmentation, targeting, positioning, differentiation, marketing analysis, planning, implementation, control, suppliers, price, and promotion. (See diagram).

Market Segmentation

• Selecting Customers: This process entails segmenting the total market into smaller segments and targeting specific segments for entry.

• Creating Value: Create value for focused customer segments, differentiating the market offering to produce higher customer value.

• Positioning: The market offering must be positioned appropriately in the minds of target customers.

Segmentation Variables

• Geographic: Nations, regions, states, cities, neighborhoods, population density, climate, etc.

• Demographic: Age, life-cycle stage, gender, income, occupation, education, religion, ethnicity, generation.

• Psychographic: Lifestyle, personality.

• Behavioral: Occasions, benefits, user status, usage rate, loyalty status.

Marketing Strategy

• Logic of Business: Marketing strategy provides the logic by which a firm creates customer value and builds relationships to achieve profitability.

• Customer Selection: Decision-making related to which customers a company will serve (segmentation and targeting).

• Differentiation and Positioning: Methods used by a firm to stand out from competitors, ensuring differentiation and appropriate positioning.

Why Strategy?

• Competitive Advantage: Strategy distinguishes marketing from other business activities such as operating efficiency. Without competition, strategy is unnecessary.

• Sustainable Edge: Strategic planning helps firms gain a sustainable edge over competitors.

Porter/What is Strategy

• Unique Position: Strategy involves establishing a unique and valuable position for a firm, achieved through distinct and appropriate activities

Michael Porter

• Trade-offs in Competing: Success involves making trade-offs amongst competing factors to achieve a distinct outcome, deciding what not to do is important as well as what to do.

• Fit Among Activities: Strategy hinges upon achieving a "fit" (compatibility) between the diverse activities of a company or product.

Market Differentiation and Positioning

• Market Selection: After deciding which market segments to enter, a firm must tailor its market offerings to each segment, defining a suitable position within each segment.

• Consumer Perception: A product's position is determined by its relative occupancy in the minds of consumers compared to the offerings of rival competitors

The Right Competitive Advantage

• Meaningful Differentiation: Not all differentiators are important or meaningful to consumers. Some might increase a company's costs while providing limited consumer benefits

The Right Competitive Advantage (Criteria)

• Important: A feature is worth emphasizing to the extent that it carries significance for a target segment.

• Distinctive: A feature should present a unique difference from a competitor's offerings.

• Superior: The feature must be demonstrably better than existing solutions.

• Communicable: The feature's value should be easily understood and communicated.

• Pre-emptive: The feature should be difficult to replicate by competitors.

• Affordable: Consumers must perceive the value of the feature to be priced appropriately.

• Profitable: The feature's presence should yield profitable outcomes for the company.

Selecting an Overall Positioning Strategy

• Value Proposition: The full positioning of a brand (or product).

• Differentiation and Positioning: The mixture of benefits differentiating and positioning the brand.

• Customer Question: It is the answer to the customer's question, "Why should I buy this brand?"

Managing the Marketing Effort

• Functions: The marketing process incorporates five core management functions: analysis (research), planning (strategic approach and mix), implementation (carrying out plans), organization (constant monitoring), and control (measuring and evaluating results).

Contents of a Marketing Plan

• Executive Summary: A concise summary of the plan's key goals and recommendations for review.

• Current Market Situation: A description of the target market, the company's position within that market, a definition of the market, and assessments of customer needs, product review, competitors, and trends in distribution and sales.

• Threats and Opportunities Analysis: Identifying and evaluating potential threats and opportunities to the business.

• Objectives and Issues: A summary of the marketing objectives and key concerns that will influence outcomes.

• Marketing Strategy: The overarching marketing logic to engage customers, create customer value, and build relationships, explicitly specifying target market, positioning, and budget.

• Marketing Actions: Detailed plans for turning marketing strategy into specific programs, outlining tasks, responsibilities, costs, and timelines.

• Budget: Explicitly detailing cost projections for anticipated outcomes.

• Controls and Measurement: Methods for monitoring progress, and measuring the return on marketing investment.

Pricing

• The Marketing Mix: A visual model illustrating the interdependence of product, target, price, and promotion with place. (See diagram).

Pricing Policy

• Economic Calculus: Pricing decisions are often seen as economic calculations to maximize value extraction—however, branding effects hold significant influence over perception.

• Transactional vs. Relational: Pricing policy may reflect a transactional or a relational view. Transactional focuses on maximizing profit from each purchase, whilst relational pricing views customers as long-term stakeholders.

Pricing Strategies

• Considerations: A diagram illustrating the interplay of costs and perceptions of value. Price ceiling and Price floor are factors at play with a product's pricing.

• Value-Based vs. Cost-Based: Compare and contrast cost-based pricing, where pricing is primarily determined by production costs; with value-based pricing, which focuses on a consumer's perceived value and matching that to a price.

Selecting Advertising Media

• Media Planning Terms: These terms include reach (percentage of target audience exposed), frequency (number of exposures), impact (qualitative value), and engagement (consumer response).

Always Remember What Marshall McLuhan Said

• The Medium is the Message: The medium through which a message is delivered is equally as important as the message itself.

Consumer Sales Promotions

• Tactics and Techniques: Tactics used to attract new customers or reward those already engaged with a brand or product.

• Value Enhancement: Most promotions focus on enhancing the value of a product by either decreasing price or adding benefits beyond the regular price.

Sales Promotions

• Benefits: The benefits of sales promotions include increased product awareness, promotion of new products/reviving aging ones, increasing sales volume, engaging audiences, activating inactive customers, attracting new customers, increasing customer loyalty, gaining market insights, and improving brand standing.

Developing New Products

• Development Process: A process diagram illustrates the process from internal/external idea generation, screening, concept development, testing, strategic marketing development, business analysis, product development, test marketing, commercialization to launch. (See diagram).

Brand Strategy

• Firm Activity: All activities of a company engaging with prospective customers are branding opportunities.

• Beyond Communications: Branding encompasses more than just communications practices.

Brand Strategy

• Interconnected Elements: All marketing mix elements contribute to a brand (and its potential demise if not carefully managed). External elements as well as internal objectives need considered.

Brand Strategy

• Multi-Sensory Prisms: Brands are more than just images; they're multi-sensory experiences embedded into products.

• Product Design: The most significant branding challenge involves designing products that effectively communicate and reinforce brand value.

Brand Strategy Considerations

• Internal Hurdles: Product design should not primarily focus on achieving internal technical hurdles, but on positively influencing customer perceptions of value.

Brand Consistency

• Visual Consistency: Visual consistency in aspects of products, advertising, and business environments reinforce brand perception and recognition.

Branding: Packaging

• Product Presentation: Packaging should convey stories and associations about the product, helping create a meaningful experience.

Branding: Advertising

• Storytelling: Advertising is a potent tool for constructing brand culture, utilizing storytelling and imaginative imagery.

Branding: Channel

• Customer Experience: Customer-facing aspects of the distribution channel affect branding perception.

Connecting to the Customer

• Social Purpose Narrative: Connecting with costumers through stories that underscore a social purpose reinforces perceived value, brand loyalty, and revenue.

The New Brand Purpose

• Purpose-Driven Businesses: Contemporary successful companies must position themselves as purpose-driven businesses.

Larry Fink's Letter to CEOs

• Social Responsibility: Companies must prioritize social good alongside financial performance to prosper.

Marketing Information

• Internal Data: Key internal data includes sales transactions, website/social media visits, cash flows, promotion statistics, and field observations (e.g., coupon usage).

Touchpoints

• Customer Interactions: Touchpoints are all the points of contact between a customer and a product/service.

• Examples: Interaction points are present online/in-person (Instagram, YouTube, service/call centers, stores/warehouses, email, advertising.)

Touchpoints

• Multiple Interactions: Companies like National Australia Bank have multiple interaction/touch points with customers to enhance interactions and experiences.

Moments of Truth

• Customer Evaluations: Moments of truth are the customer's moments of judgement, positive or negative, during their interaction with a product/service.

• Customer Expectations: During moments of truth, customers typically hold assumptions/expectations about the interaction.

Customer Engagement

• Sequential Process: Engagement occurs after initial touchpoints and evaluation of the moment of truth

• Identification: Strong identification with a brand grows out of positive experiences, enhancing a consumer experience.

How to Measure Customer Engagement

• Dimensions: Engagement measurement encompasses four dimensions (cognitive, emotional, behavioral, social).

How to Measure Customer Engagement (Cognitive)

• Knowledge: Customer awareness of a brand's values, sales representatives, and store locations.

• Sustainability: Includes knowledge of a brand's sustainability practices.

How to Measure Customer Engagement (Emotional)

• Perceptions and Preferences: How customers feel about the experience (positive, negative), and their preferences for your products compared to competitor offerings.

• Excitement: Assessing customer reactions to product launches or other significant events.

How to Measure Customer Engagement (Behavioral)

• Website Interactions: Assessing website visit frequency, dwell time, and page navigation.

• Other Activities: Include customer activity with blogs, and white paper downloads.

How to Measure Customer Engagement (Social)

• Recommendations and Interactions: Do customers recommend your offerings? Do they engage on social media platforms, comment on blogs, and provide reviews?

Discerning Pain Points

• Consumer Concerns: Businesses should acknowledge and address areas where customers experience dissatisfaction.

• Examples: Potential dissatisfaction includes high price, limited availability, and poor service.

Marketing Information

• Competitive Intelligence: Monitoring and analyzing publicly available information about competitors to gain insight.

• Competitive Advantage: Understanding competitors' strengths and weaknesses to develop a good strategy.

• Online Tools: The growth of online activity has led to a rise in competitor analysis tools across the market.

Consumer Buyer Behavior

• Consumer Actions: Analyzing final consumers/end-consumers.

• Market Analysis: Understanding consumer actions and motivation for purchase behavior across all market segments.

• Factors: Studying all factors that affect consumer behavior, such as environmental forces and customer perceptions helps with consumer targeting.

Consumer Buyer Behavior

• Consumer Responses: Understanding how various marketing efforts influence consumer responses.

• Leveraging Behavior: How to leverage and enlarge positive consumer behavior.

• "Black Box": Consumers are not uniformly predictable due to individual differences

Consumer Buyer Behavior (Controllable Factors)

• Marketing Activities: Marketers can control specific marketing activities, such as price, product, promotion, place/distribution, and experience-driven engagement and communication.

Consumer Buyer Behavior (Uncontrollable Factors)

• Environmental Forces: Marketers cannot fully control environmental factors like economic conditions, technology, social norms, and cultural influences, amongst other uncontrollable factors.

Consumer Buyer Behavior (Influencing Factors)

• Cultural Influences: Culture, subculture, social class, family influences, roles, and status affect consumer decisions.

• Personal Factors: Factors like age, life cycle stage, occupation, economic situation, personality, and lifestyle affect customer behaviors.

• Psychological Factors: Factors such as motivation, perception, learning, beliefs, and attitudes also influence consumer decisions.

Culture

• Learned Behavior: Culture's impact on human behavior is greatly reliant on learned factors.

• Shared Value: Subcultures exhibit shared value systems based on experiences and situations.

Competitive Benchmarking

• Analysis Tools: Many tools are available for competitor analysis.

• Niche Insights: Competitor analysis tools provide relevant insights for a particular company.

• Specific Focus: Businesses need to decide what aspect of a competitor's business to study more closely

Values in Consumer Behavior

• Importance of Values: Consumer behavior cannot be fully understood without considering personal values.

• Significances: An increasingly significant area of consumer research reveals the substantial influence of values on consumer behavior.

Five Competitive Forces

• Industry Structure: These forces determine the competition within an industry.

• Interplay: Includes direct competitors, customers, suppliers, potential entrants, and substitute products. (See diagram).

Strategy in a Post-Pandemic World

• Impact Assessment and Planning: The Covid-19 pandemic profoundly impacted the business world and how markets function; and how strategies need to be re-evaluated and re-aligned.

Strategy in a Post-Pandemic World

• Adapting to the New Normal: Past strategies, particularly those implemented before the global pandemic, are no longer relevant.

• Assessing Core Assumptions: The shifts across markets, customers, and competitors require re-assessment of a business or company's core assumptions.

Strategy in a Post-Pandemic World

• Digital Channel Readiness: Previous notions that businesses had years to develop digital channels are outdated and no longer relevant.

• Global Market Reliance: The reliance on global markets is now viewed with more caution due to risks inherent to worldwide interdependence.

• Regulations and Boundaries: New regulations and government interventions alter market boundaries.

• Competitor Actions: Competitor action is a significant consideration when adapting to new markets.

Strategy in a Post-Pandemic World

• Wait-and-See Approach: Taking a wait-and-see approach is no longer appropriate.

• Crisis Management and Recovery: The time for reacting and adjusting is now.

• Post-Crisis Performance Analysis: Past crises, such as the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, reveal significant shifts in performance across industries; impacting business, product, and market strategies.

• Economic Disruption and Drop-Out Rates: The economic disruption of the current environment suggests a possible significant increase in dropout rates within industries.

Strategy in a Post-Pandemic World

• Retooling Strategies: Businesses need to adapt current strategies to reflect current realities and future uncertainties.

• Three-Part Strategy: Companies must cultivate adaptability, prediction, and resilience across various parts of their business/customer base.

Prediction: Marketer’s Tool

• Industry Analysis and Change: Employing six lenses for industry analysis and change helps identify future uncertainties and pivotal moments. (See diagram),

Prediction: Marketer's Questions

• Scenario Planning: The goal isn't exhaustive scenario planning but to proactively consider the likely impacts on the business, considering targeted investments (allocating resources) effectively.

You, Today, and in the Future

• Pandemic Experience: The Covid-19 pandemic has presented valuable experiences for all businesses and businesses leaders.

• Change and Adaptability: It is imperative companies adapt to new methods of functioning and dealing with rapid change.

The Future

• Unsurprising Challenges: The future will likely introduce unexpected challenges and opportunities, shifting from business as usual.

• Agile Response: Agility will be key to survival in these uncertain times.

Final Thoughts for Review

• No specific content given

Why Marketing

• Human Language as a Fundamental Factor: Marketing is inherently human, relying on the ability to understand and assign meaning to the world through language.

• Meaning Assignment: This assignment of meaning also applies to products, services, and entire business experiences.

Why Marketing

• Language and Culture: Language originates within culture and further shapes how we understand, as humans, the world around us.

• Human Engagement with the World: The process/the study of human behavior is the foundation of marketing.

Why Marketing

• Human Essence: Marketing originates from the very human condition of assigning significance and meaning to products/services.

• Narrative Application: The core of marketing is found in applying narrative to products and services that in themselves hold no intrinsic meaning.

• Branding as a Sub-set of Marketing: Branding is essentially a subset, child component, of marketing.