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.

Chapter 8: Decision Support System and Marketing Research

Chapter 8: Decision Support System and Marketing Research

Definitions:

Decision Support System (DDS)- an interactive, flexible computerize information system that enables managers to obtain and manipulate information as they are making decisions.

Marketing Research- the process of planning, collecting, and analyzing data relevant to a marketing decision.

The 7 Steps in a Marketing Research Project:

3 Sub categories of Marketing Research:

Descriptive- Gathering and presenting factual statements
Diagnostic- Explaining data
Predictive- “what if?”

I learned in this chapter how important research is. If a company doesn’t follow the marketing research process, it is likely that the company will lose money because they didn’t find most accurate way to advertise.

There are many types of surveys, including: telephone, mail, focus groups, in-home, and in the mall. They are each vital in their own way, depending on the product.

Chapter 7: Segmenting and Targeting Markets

Chapter 7: Segmenting and Targeting Markets
February 8, 2012

Definitions:

Market Segmentation- the process of dividing a market into meaningful, relatively similar, and identifiable segments or groups.

Marketers commonly use one of the following characteristics to segment markets:

1. Demographic Segmentation- age, gender, income, ethnic background, and family life cycle.

2. Geography Segmentation- segmenting markets by region of a country or the world, market size, market density, or climate.

3. Psychographics- market segment on personality, motives, lifestyles, and geodemographics variables.

4. Benefits- process of grouping customers into market segments according to the benefits they seek from the product.

5. Usage rate- divides market by the amount of product bought or consumed.

"Six Steps to a Segment"

1. Select a market or product category for study.

2. Choose a basis or bases for segmenting the market.

3. Select segmentation descriptors.

4. Profile and analyze segments.

5. Select target markets.

6. Design, implement, and maintain appropriate marketing mixes.

Chapter 5: Consumer Decision Making

Chapter 5: Consumer Decision Making
February 1, 2012

Definitions:

Consumer Behavior- processes a consumer uses to make purchase decisions, as well as to use and dispose of purchased goods or services; also includes factors that influence purchase decisions and product use.

Cognitive Dissonance- the inner tension that a consumer experiences after recognizing an inconsistency between behavior and values or opinions.

Consumer Decision-Making Process- a five step process used by consumers when buying goods or services.

5 steps of consumer decision-making process:

1.       Need recognition (stimulus or want)

2.       Information search (internal or external)

3.       Evaluation of alternatives (narrow the number of choices)

4.       Purchase (make the purchase or not?)

5.       Post purchase behavior (judging the product)

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs- explains why people are driven by particular needs at particular times.

~My favorite part of this chapter was learning the definition of ‘cognitive dissonance’. I have that feeling more often than I should.

Chapter 3: Social Responsibility, Ethics, & the Marketing Environment

Chapter 3: Social Responsibility, Ethics, & the Marketing Environment

January 25, 2012

Definitions:

Corporate Social Responsibility- business's concern for society's welfare.

Target Market- a defined group most likely to buy a firm's product.

Demography- the study of people's vital statistics, such as their age, race, and ethnicity, and location.

Ethics- the moral principles or values that generally govern the conduct of an individual or a group.

Morals- the rules people develop as a result of cultural values and norms.

Code of Ethics-a guideline to help marketing managers and other employees make better decisions.

Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility- a model that suggests corporate social responsibility is composed of economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities and that the firm's economic performance supports the entire structure.

~Demography was the most important concept in this chapter. It's important to study the different generations (Tweens, Generation Y, Generation X, Baby Boomers) so you know where you need to target your market for the product.

Chapter 1: An Overview of Marketing

Chapter 1: An Overview of Marketing
January 18, 2012
Definitions:

Marketing- the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communication, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients.
Marketing Concept- the idea that the social and economic justification for an organization's existence is the satisfaction of customer wants and needs while meeting organizational objects.

Customer Value- the relationship between benefits and the sacrifice necessary to obtain those benefits.

Customer Satisfaction- Customers' evaluation of a good or service in terms of whether it has met their needs and expectations.

The 4 "P"s of Marketing-

1. Promotion
2. Product
3. Price
4. Place


The 4 Marketing Management Philosophies:

Production- What can we make or do best?
Sales- How can we sell more aggressively?
Market- What do customers want and need?
Societal- What do customers want and need, and how can we benefit society?


~The concept that was the most informative and intriguing to me is the 4 "P" of Marketing. Professor told us that we will be using the 4 "P"s not only throughout this class, but in the life of marketing. All marketing deals with one the 4.

Welcome to my marketing blog!

This is a blog to talk about, and post notes about my marketing class at Utah State University. This class is January through May 2012. I will be posting about every chapter we learn.

The book referenced to these posts is called "MKTG" by Lamb, Hair, McDaniel. I happen to really enjoy this book!

All pictures in this blog are courtesy of the book.

I am happy to have this blog as an assignment so I can refer to it for future references.