Marketing

Marketing is making it easy for people to buy your products.

It includes:

• Market research
• Market segmentation
• Marketing Mix (The 4 P's)
• Branding
• Product lifecycle

Secondary research

• Secondary research is usually carried out to find out what people want generally.
• It's often carried out using online sources, trade journals and government data.
• The data used could possibly be out of date.
• Also called Desk Based Research.

Primary research

• Used when a company wants more detail.
• Could conduct a questionnaire or survey.
• Gives detailed, up to date research.
• Also called Field Based Research.

Companies will usually carry out both types of research.

The data received will be either quantitative or qualitative.

Quantitative Data

• Facts and figures.
• Easy to analyse.
• Can give precise answers.

Qualitative Data

• Opinions and point of view.
• Can't easily be analysed.
• Does give more background to quantitative data.
• Usually comes out of focus groups/open ended interview questions.

It's extremely hard for a business to appeal to every potential customer there is so instead they focus on certain groups.

Markets are usually segmented by:

• Age
• Gender
• Income
• Social class
• Psychographically (hobbies/interests etc.)

If a business gets these right, selling will be easy.

Product

Is it the correct product? Does it meet a customer want or need?

Price

Is the price right? Too expensive steers people away, but too cheap can lead people to think the product is bad quality. Will it use destroyer pricing? Price skimming? etc.

Place

Is the product being sold in the right places? It is easy for customers to buy?

Promotion

This is how to tell customers about a business. How will you get customers to return (repeat purchasing)? Advertising? BOGOF? Special offers? etc.

• A product that is seen as different to its competitors.
• If people like a brand, it can mean they might buy other things from that brand.
• Good branding means you can sell for more money.
• Higher prices = higher quality
• Supermarkets create cheaper lookalikes to tempt customers.

This shows how the sales of a product increase and decrease as it is introduced.

Standard layout:

• Sales start slowly as the product begins to get known.
• Then sales take off.
• As sales decline, companies will need to use extension strategies to keep going (The 4 P's)

Despite a company's best efforts, a product just might not sell. Some basic reasons include:

• Customers might dislike the campaign.
• Promotion might break the rules of trading standards and receive a negative message.
• Consumer laws lay down standars. A company can be prosecuted if the standards aren't met.
• Pressure groups might object a firm/marketing campaign and protest to sway public opinions of the firm e.g. WWF, Greenpeace, PETA etc.