Marketing strategy

Alumna: Geraldine Katherine Martínez Vázquez

Marketingstrategy

Involves two major activities: 1. Selecting a target market and determining the desired positioning of product in target customers’ minds.2. Specifying the plan for the marketing activities to achieve the desired positioning.

Its strategy:

Is the process via which a firm creates value for its chosen customers by meeting their needs.

Marketing:

Schematic of Marketing Process:

Context

Collaborators

Competitors

Company

Customers

Marketing analysis (The 5 C's):

Marketing analysis (The 5 C's):

The advantage of solving the positioning problem is that it enables the company to solve the marketing mix problem. The marketing mix is essentially the working out of the tactical details of the positioning strategy.

The firm’s selecting a target market is tantamount to choosing the rules of the game, and consequently target market selection should consider some points.

Markets can be segmented in a variety of ways

“Markets of one” - marketing campaigns can and should be customized to individuals.

Target Market Selection and Product, Positioning

4. Pricing

3. Promotion (Communications Strategy)

2. Place (Channels of Distribution)

1. Product

An aggregation and regrouping of these elements has become popular. The “4 P’s” are often used to set out the “marketing mix” in an easy to recall way. We now discuss the following sequence:

Set of activities comprising a firm’s marketing program

The Marketing Mix:

Answer the question: What needs do we seek to satisfy? Effective marketing requires in-depth understanding of customers’ purchase and usage patterns. There is two areas Decision Making Unit and Decision- Making Process, to understand better there is five major roles in buying situations and it should be understood who assumes each role: Initiator(s), Decider(s), Influencer(s), User(s).EXAMPLE: in a decision to purchase a computer for the home, the initiator role may be held by the oldest child who saw value in it for her school assignments; the decider on brand was a relative with computer knowledge; parents and all children influenced the product features and price point; thepurchaser was the same as the decider; and the user was all family members. Other considerations include:• where do customers wish to buy?• how is the product to be used? • how frequently/intently will it be used?• how important is the problem which it solves?

Customer

Company

Answer the question: What special competence do we possess to meet those needs? Corporate strengths and weakness need to be understood since the fit of the product to the company is important as well as the fit to the market. Assessing product/company fit requires an understanding of the finances, R&D capability, manufacturing capability, and other assets of the firm.

Competition

Answer the question: Who competes with us in meeting those needs? Marketers need to identify both current and potential competitors. Competitors’ strengths and weaknesses must be understood as the firm seeks differentiation possibilities. Similarly, in order to be able to predict and shape competitive reactions, the firm must assess competitors’ objectives and strategies

Collaborators

Answer the question: Who should we enlist to help us and how do we motivate them? Frequently, two key collaborators are the downstream trade and upstream suppliers. With respect to the trade, the firm must understand their cost structure; expectations about margins and allocation of tasks; support and training requirements; and the nature of their relationship with the firm’s competitors.Increasingly, suppliers are being seen as critical collaborators in making marketing strategy work.

Answer the question: What cultural, technological and legal factors limit what is possible? Context shapes what is possible and it is always changing, is a reliable path to competitive success. Products and services acquire meaning from their place in a culture, and they acquire economic value from that meaning. Value, then, is vulnerable to shifts in the culture (we call trends and fashions.) The systematic analysis of cultural trends is increasingly an integral part of strategy formulation. Similarly, politics, regulation, law, and social norms are not fixed features of the marketing landscape, but factors to consider and monitor for signs of disruption. It is dangerous to design marketing strategy for such environments without a carefully developed point of view on the regulatory context.

Context

Two key questions

1. Which potential buyers should the firm attempt to serve? (Process of segmentation) 2. How much customization should the firm offer in its programs, which point on the continuum from Mass Market- Market Segments - Market Niches - Individualswill the firm construct plans?

Lifestyle

Other

hedonistic vs. value oriented

derived by using segmentation bases which describe a customer’s behavior or relationship to a product.

Geographic

nation, region of country, urban vs. rural)

Demographic

age, income, gender, occupation

Target market selection should consider:

• The firm’s comparative strengths and weaknesses vis-a-vis competition giventhe target market’s purchase criteria.
• The firm’s corporate goals and the fit of the segment with these goals.
• The resources necessary to market successfully to the target segment.
• The need for/availability of appropriate collaborators to market successfully.
• The likely financial returns from the segment

5. Life Cycle Managment

4. Product introduction

3. Testing

2. Desing

1. Opportunity identification

Five step process:

Decisions on individual items need to be considered within the context of the firm’s full product line due to item interrelationship, decisions to be made are whether to undertake efforts to: • Delete an item from the line reposition an existing product within the line.• Improve the performance of an existing product to strengthen its positioning• Introduce a new product within an existing line• Introduce a product to establish a new line

Product line depth

Product line length

Product line breadth

Start with an understanding of what a product is, the product offering is not the thing itself, but rather the total package of benefits obtained by the customer. The product has to be considered from the point-of-view of value delivered to the customer. VALUE For example, a shirt from the Lands’ End Catalog is not just a shirt but one shipped within 24 hours of order and unconditionally guaranteed.

New product development

Individual items decisions

Product line planning decisions

Product definition

The two major decisions in channels are: 1. Channel design. An understanding of customer requirements in place, a primary question is whether distribution will be “direct,” “indirect” or both. In direct, there is no independent party between the firm and its customers. In indirect, there is a third party. In dual wherein different systems are used to reach each market segment efficiently and effectively. 2. Channel management what policies and procedures will be used to have the necessary functions performed by the various parties? Attention to proper design of contracts and other explicit understandings can help to reduce the potential for conflict. Good communications, e.g., through dealer panels, can help facilitatedevelopment of understanding and trust which will almost always be necessary to resolve issues since contracts cannot typically anticipate all the situations which may arise.

Marketing channels

Is the set of mechanisms or network via which a firm “goes to market,” is “in touch” with its customer for a variety of tasks ranging from demand generation to physical delivery of the goods. 8 “generic” channel functions which serve as a starting place for assessing needs in a particular context:1. Product Information2. Product Customization3. Product Quality Assurance4. Lot Size5. Product Assortment6. Availability7. After-Sale Service8. Logistics

d) Constructing the communication mix

c) Personal selling

b) Nonpersonal vehicles

a) Tasks and tools

Helps deciding the appropriate set of ways in which to communicate with customers to foster their awareness of the product, knowledge about its features, interest in purchasing, likelihood of tryi g the product/and or repeat purchasing it. Effective marketing requires an integrated communications plan combining both personal selling efforts and non-personal ones such as advertising, sales promotion, and public relations.

c) Price leadership

b)Price customatization

a) Pricing basis and objective

To a large extent, the combination of the 3 P’s determine the target customer’s perception of the value of the firm’s productin a given competitive context. This value represents the maximum pricewhich the customer is willing to pay. This should be the primary guide to pricing the product. Once the firm has created value for customers, it is entitled to capture some of that value for itself to fund future value-creation efforts.