Chapter 18: Setting the Price Right

Chapter 18: Setting the Price Right

The 4 Step Process to Set a Price Right:

1. Establish Pricing Goals
2. Estimate demand, costs, and profits
3. Choose a price strategy to help determine a base price.
4. Fine-tune the base price with pricing tactics.

Price Strategies:

• Price skimming- lowering the price. Price skimming works best when the market is willing to buy the product even though it carries an above-average price.
• Penetration Pricing- charging a relatively low price for a product as a way to reach the mass market.
• Status Quo Pricing- meeting the competition or going rate pricing.

The chapter also explained other ways of pricing including: discounts, allowance, rebates, and value-based pricing. All of which are pretty self explanatory.

The class comes to an end and I am glad to say that I enjoyed it. I learned a lot about Marketing and was able to see through the eyes of a businessman.

Chapter 16: Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

Chapter 16: Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

Sales can be boosted by using a sales promotion which is a short-term incentive.

Tools for Consumer Sales Promotion:

• Coupons and Rebates
• Premiums
• Loyalty Marketing Programs
• Contests and Sweepstakes
• Sampling
• Point-of-Purchase Promotion
• Online Sales Promotion

I fall for all of these promotions when purchasing assets. It was good learn about them so I know whether I am being scammed or if it's a good deal.


Steps in the Selling Process:

1. Generating Leads
2. Qualifying Leads
3. Approaching the Customer and Probing Needs
4. Developing and Proposing Solutions
5. Handling Objections
6. Closing the Sale
7. Following Up

Chapter 15: Advertising and Public Relations

Chapter 15: Advertising and Public Relations

Advertising

Major types of advertising:

1. Institutional Advertising-

2. Product Advertising

• Pioneering- intended to stimulate primary demand for a new product or product category.
• Competitive- Influence demand for a specific brand.
• Comparative- Directly or indirectly compares two or more competitive brands on one or more specific attributes.

Being creative in advertising is essential to build the consumer's interest. This is called "advertising appeal". Identifying a products benefits and appeals is a good way to do this.


Public Relations

Major public relations tools:

• New-Product Publicity
• Product Placement
• Consumer Education
• Sponsorship
• Internet Web Sites

Chapter 14: Integrated Marketing Communications

Chapter 14: Integrated Marketing Communications

The role of promotion in the marketing mix:

Promotion: communication by marketers that informs, persuades, and reminds potential buyers of a product in order to influence their opinion or elicit a response.

The Promotions Mix use several ingredients to reach a target market:

• advertising
• public relations
• sales promotion
• personal selling

Communication: the process by which we exchange or share meanings through a common set of symbols.

• Interpersonal communication- direct, face-to-face communication between two or more people. People can respond immediately when using this type of communication.
• Mass Communication- communicating a concept or message to large audiences. i.e. TV, newspaper, online, blogging etc.

Communication Process:

1. Sender
2. Encoding
3. Receiver
4. Decoding
5. Feedback

Goals and Tasks of Promotion:

1. Informing
2. Persuading
3. Reminding

Chapter 12: Marketing Channels and Supply Chain Management

Chapter 12: Marketing Channels and Supply Chain Management

Marketing Channel (channel of distribution)- is a business structure of interdependent organizations that reach from the point of product origin to the consumer with the purpose of moving products to their final consumption destination.

Supply Chain- the connected chain of all of the business entities, both internal and external to the company, that perform or support the marketing channel functions.

Supply Chain Management- is to coordinate and integrate all of the activities performed by supply chain members into a seamless process from the source to the point of consumptions ultimately giving supply chain managers “total visibility” of the supply chain both inside and outside the firm.

The social dimensions of channels are:

·         Power

·         Control

·         Leadership

·         Conflict

·         Partnering

Although this is an important chapter, my interest for it was low.

Chapter 10: Developing and Managing Products

Chapter 10: Developing and Managing Products

This chapter discusses the importance of new products. New products are important to sustain growth, increase revenues and profits, and replace obsolesce items. We would all get bored and never succeed if there were never new products introduced.

New-Product Development Process:

All of the steps are important in introducing a new product.

PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE (PLC)-

1.       Introductory Stage

2.       Growth Stage

3.       Maturity Stage

4.       Decline Stage

The stages are pretty self explanatory; each product gets introduced and after they are popular they faze out.

Chapter 9: Product Concepts

Chapter 9: Product Concepts

This chapter explains the different products:

·         Business product- used to manufacture other goods or services or resell to other customers.

·         Consumer product- bought to satisfy and individual’s personal wants.

·         Convenience product- inexpensive item that merits little shopping effort.

·         Shopping product- requires comparison shopping because it is usually more expensive than a convenience product and is found in fewer stores.

·         Specialty product-particular item that consumers search extensively for and are very reluctant to accept substitutes.

·         Unsought project- unknown to the potential buyer or a known product that the buyer does not actively seek.

Packaging, labels, and brands are all different ways that influence consumers to buy the product. The eye is drawn to familiar brands and to things that are appealing.