Unit 1 marketing

Lead-in

1 Discuss the following questions with your partner.

1 What does marketing involve?

2 What is telemarketing?

3 What do you know about a marketing plan?

4 Can you give a definition of a target group?

2 Discuss the following quotations.

Business is more exciting than any game.

Lord Beaverbrook

The basic rule of free enterprise: you must give in order to get.

Scott Alexander

Write a paraphrase of each. Say whether you agree or not, and why.

KEY VOCABULARY

Marketing Concepts

Marketing is a very important factor in the success of most businesses and so it is important to use the right form of marketing strategy correctly for your own business and your ultimate goal that you are aiming to achieve.

Marketing is the business activity of presenting products or services in such a way as to make them desirable to potential customers. This definition is the basic purpose of marketing and what it is about. As we all know marketing works hand in hand with sales. Sales are the transfer of something to the ownership or use of somebody else, or the provision of something .e.g. a service, in exchange for an agreed amount of money.

There are numerous forms of marketing and each one is designed to do or sell or provide something different and through various means of communication. Marketing is used to provide the public who are the potential customers of any business, with the knowledge of what they do and why you should invest in their product or service. Telemarketing is one form of marketing and is the use of phone conversion to entice or persuade companies or customers to purchase the product or service, the telemarketer is offering and attempting during the call to arrange a subsequent meeting or initiate a sale.

Also internet marketing has been the “turn of the century” way to find customers and heighten sales within this sector. A high percentage of the world now uses the internet for one thing or another and what better than to advertise in the most used and influential tool out there. There are many reasons why marketing needs to be used to promote and support businesses; the use of marketing is the main provider of revenue within most businesses and is therefore a vital operation that must be dealt with properly and updated constantly. Marketing is a key influence when it comes to the behaviour of consumers, and when a marketing campaign is planned well using its full potential it can actually enhance your sales and profits.

Key Principles of Marketing

• Marketing is essentially about organizations meeting customers’ needs as a means of achieving the organizations’ own objectives.

• Marketing is both a philosophy and a set of techniques. Marketing techniques have less value if an organization has not embraced the philosophy of marketing.

• The principles of marketing are not new, but a continually changing marketing environment demands new ways of applying the basic principles.

• Marketing can be adopted by both profit-seeking and not-for-profit organizations.

• Marketing operates in an environment in which stakeholders have rising expectations for the ethical standards of marketers.

TEXT 1 Marketing Strategies

Developing a marketing strategy is vital for any business. Without one, your business won't be able to reach the ideal customers for its goods or services. The focus of your strategy should be to communicate the benefits of your products and services and how they can meet your customers' needs. This can then help you develop a long-term and profitable relationship with them.

You will also need to create a flexible strategy that can respond to changes in customer perceptions and demand. It may also help you identify whole new markets that you can successfully target.

Key elements of a successful marketing strategy

Your existing and potential customers fall into particular groups or segments, characterised by their needs. Identifying these groups and their needs through market research, and then addressing those needs more successfully than your competitors, should be one of the key elements of your marketing strategy.

You can then create a marketing strategy that makes the most of your strengths and matches them to the needs of the customers you want to target. For example, if a particular group of customers is looking for quality first and foremost, then any marketing activity aimed at them should draw attention to the high quality of your products or service.

Once you have created your marketing strategy, you must then decide which marketing activity or activities will ensure your target market know about the products or services you offer, and why they meet their needs.

There are many ways to achieve this - such as various forms of advertising, exhibitions, public relations initiatives, internet activity and an effective 'point of sale' strategy if you rely on others to actually sell your products. But try to limit your activities to those methods you think will work best, to avoid spreading your budget too thinly.

Monitoring and evaluating how effective your strategy has been is a key element, yet often overlooked. This control element not only helps you see how your strategy is performing in practice, it can also help develop your future marketing strategy. A simple approach is to ask each new customer how they heard about your business.

Once you have decided on your marketing strategy, draw up a marketing plan that sets out how you intend to execute that strategy and evaluate its success. The plan should be constantly reviewed and, if necessary, updated so you can respond quickly to changes in customer needs and attitudes in your industry and in the broader economic climate.

A marketing plan

A marketing plan sets out clear objectives and lists the actions you will take to achieve them. Perhaps most importantly, it looks at how you can ensure that your plan becomes reality.

A marketing plan includes factors such as deciding which customers to target and how to reach them, how to win their business and keep them happy afterwards, as well as continually reviewing and improving everything you do to stay ahead of the competition.

Remember that marketing in itself will not guarantee sales, but a well-researched and coherent marketing plan will give you a much better chance of building long-term, profitable relationships.

TEXT 2 Target Market

When creating your marketing strategy, you need to understand your target market - ie the specific group of consumers you will be aiming your products or services at. These are the customers who are most likely to buy from you, and who will make your business successful. Your marketing strategy will fail if you target the wrong audience from the start, regardless of how good it is.

You need to establish whether your target group are individual consumers or other businesses. There are often two important differences between these target groups:

• individual customers - sales to this group can be unpredictable, and customers usually have smaller budgets and specific buying preferences

• businesses - sales to this group are often more predictable and stable as there is usually a greater budget available to be used on various products.

It is possible to target both types of customer, though you need to be realistic about whether your product or service is relevant for them. For example, a cleaning service may apply to both consumer groups, whereas a new clothing brand will probably only interest individuals.

Researching your potential customer base

Once you know your groups of customers, you can conduct further research to see if there are any types of customer with more specific needs than others. For example, older customer groups may buy different types of products to younger groups.

'Market segmentation' can be an effective tool for this. It involves splitting your customer groups into smaller segments to find the sections of your customer base that will be most profitable to your business. You can segment customers by:

• lifestyle

• social class

• opinion

• activities and interests

• attitudes and beliefs

You should also consider the factors such as the following when deciding which marketing segments to target:

• Is the segment large enough to support your marketing goals?

• Does your business have the skills and expertise to deal with the chosen segment?

• Is there growth in the segment?

By focusing on the smaller segments, you can learn a lot about them and structure your marketing campaigns accordingly.

Follow-up