Marketing reflections on learning outcomes

MRK 106 FQ VALERI OPARYCHEV

CASE STUDY

SUBJECT: MY INTERPRETATION OF THE COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

The purpose of this case study is to present a brief overview of the

marketing study outcomes and personal interpretation of the key points of

marketing theory covered in this course. The interpretation will be aimed

at emphasizing the practical importance of marketing today.

MARKETING: EVOLUTION AND PURPOSE

The idea of marketing must have existed for many centuries. Yet, at the

beginning it probably was not so sophisticated theory as it is today.

Because of the globalization and rapid development of information

technologies people, or market participants, have been urged to systematize

their market experience into a well-organized theory. In our course of

study the marketing has been defined by the term that sounds more specific:

«an approach to business focusing on satisfying customer needs and wants».

To serve its key purpose, the marketing strives to find an answer to such

questions as why customers do not or, conversely, do readily buy products

offered by the sellers, who the ideal buyers are, and what should be done

to have the buyers buy what the sellers offer. In fact, the terms «buyers»

and «sellers» are not absolutely accurate as applied to marketing. To be

more accurate, the marketing approach implies that the business activities

are centered on customer, because the concept of business here means both

profit and non-profit organizations. So, the words «buy» and «products», or

«services», can be identified as the key terms reflecting the idea of

marketing. It should also be noted that the words «buy» and «services»

represent a wide range of services, non-profit activities, and behavior.

STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING CONCEPT

The key points of marketing concept are customer satisfaction, profit, and

properly organized efforts to make profit through customer satisfaction. At

the same time, strategically, it is important to understand that a business

can be profitable, or successful, only if it finds a way to satisfy

customers better than its competitors. This means, that today's business

can attract customers only through successful competition. Because of the

highly competitive environment, today it is not enough just to satisfy. The

important thing is to be better. In other words, if a business is unable to

compete, it fails to implement the key marketing ideas simply because such

business will fail to satisfy customers. Moreover, under the competitive

environment it becomes important not only to meet, but also to exceed the

customers' needs. In an organization, the role of marketing concept is more

profound: here the marketing concept implies that everyone's job is to

serve the customers directly, or to serve those who serve the customers.

For example, to contribute to profit through saving costs or, in other

words, to serve the internal customers. This idea is especially important

to emphasize in terms of the roles we may play in an organization in our

day-to-day life: we do not necessarily have to deal with customers directly

to contribute to the common goal of customer satisfaction. But our roles in

it can be significant without doing so.

COMPONENTS OF MARKETING STRATEGY AND THEIR IMPORTANCE

The key components here are target market (a group of customers to satisfy)

and product mix (product, price, place, and promotion). In real life, these

components boil down to the following objective all businesses need to

fulfill: to increase the number of customers so as to increase sales. To

achieve this goal, the marketing strategy should give us tips on how to do

that. In every particular situation we face in day-to-day life we have to

find answers to specific questions. For example, to sell an accounting

service like filing a personal income tax return we would need to determine

what has to be done to attract customers (Product), what kind of office

would be needed to deliver the service (Place), how much it would cost and

what price would be right (Price), and what should be done to attract more

customers (Promotion). It is easy to see that this pattern would have to be

followed in every real-life situation. Even looking for a job we would have

to be concerned with where we can work (Place), what we can do (Product),

at what remuneration (Price), and how to attract employer's attention to be

employed (Promotion). And in every case we would look for specific

customers who need to have their income tax return filed and a specific

employer who employees specifically like we are (Target market). So, one

way or the other, the marketing strategy will work for our purpose. The

question is just how to identify its components in specific terms as

applied to every specific objective.

UNCONTROLLABLE ENVIRONMENTS AFFECTING MARKETING DECISIONS BOTH DOMESTICALLY

AND INTERNATIONALLY

Unlike the 4P’s of marketing that can be controlled by us, some

environments are uncontrollable by nature, because we just have no chance

to influence them. They may include, for example, cultural, economic,

legal, political, technological, and social environments. This should not

mean, however, that we should let them control us without any response. To

succeed, businesses have to re-adjust themselves and find the best ways to

work in them. The important point is that we need not only identify them,

but also try to see if there are new opportunities. For example, the

changing demographics inside our country should make us look around to see

how to readjust our products and services to different tastes and

preferences. Internationally, we should always be aware of tariffs and

quotas and estimate our competitive potential. Watching the changes we

develop possible scenarios, make relevant decisions, and get ready to

implement them. What can be the consequences of the war in Iraq for

marketing decisions? Tremendous, to say the least of it. So there are a lot

of things for marketing specialists to think of both internationally and

domestically.

IMPACT OF SUPPLY, DEMAND, AND ELASTICITY

The supply, demand, and elasticity have a direct impact on marketing

decisions. The low demand may point to the necessity for better promotion

of products and services simply because the consumers may turn out to know

too little about the product, or be unaware of it at all. There would be

little wonder if our specific product is not in demand, even though our

competitors sell the same one very successfully. What if we fail to sell

fresh water in hot summer time? Such paradox is quite possible if we do not

follow simple marketing principle of 4 Ps. In terms of marketing, demand

should not be viewed as something static. Even as applied to fundamentally

new products, it can be created through marketing decisions. To say nothing

of basic needs like fresh water in hot summer. We just have to remember of

4 Ps. The idea of supply in marketing is especially important in terms of

competition: if we fail to provide supply that meets demand, our

competitors will do it for us fast enough to their own advantage. The idea

of demand elasticity is also important in terms of marketing decisions. For

example, inelastic demand for a product usually results from a lack of

substitutes. For this reason, marketing decisions might be aimed at

identifying or creating a new product or service to substitute for the one

with inelastic demand.

MARKET SEGMENTATION AND CONCEPT OF POSITIONING

In simple terms, the idea of market segmentation (naming and segmenting) is

how not to lose the focus. For this purpose, identifying most promising

consumers is really a critical part of marketing activities. Would it be a

reasonable decision for us to try selling air conditioners in Northern

Territories and snow-removing equipment in South California? Hopefully not.

The idea of positioning is also important in terms of consumers'

psychology. With the diversity of products today, it becomes important to

be able to have a proper understanding of consumer’s needs and attitude, to

see what and why they need and how their needs are satisfied by the

existing market.

CONSUMER PRODUCT CLASSIFICATIONS, PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE, PACKAGING, AND

BRANDING

The idea of consumer product classifications is important in terms of

understanding how they think of them and what can be the motivation to buy

them. This understanding is really critical, because to project our own

perceptions on what we want to sell should be the last thing to do. Since

the human nature is really a complicated thing, therefore the accumulated

knowledge and observations made by the marketing scientists can be really

helpful in making decisions. This may apply to certain particular classes

of consumers' products like convenience, shopping, specialty, and unsought

products. The useful thing to realize is that in selling a specific product

or service we need to take into account specific qualities they offer, in

terms of both material and psychological implications. Branding is also an

important factor in marketing decisions. The idea of branding is to win

wider and steadier recognition, though in real life a brand would not

necessarily ensure a desired quality. Yet it works and, therefore, should

be taken into account for competitive considerations. One of the important

real life implications here is that to sell a branded product we would have

to think well of what kind of advantages might contrast our product or

service against the competitor’s one. The product life cycle is especially

important to in terms of planning of our marketing activities. For example,

when dealing with a new product on the market it is important to be aware

of the main stages of product’s life. The low sales at the introduction and

market growth stages would affect our marketing decisions in many ways,

specifically in terms of promotion approaches, pricing policies, scale of

production, financing, risk taking, etc.

CHANNEL INTERMEDIARIES

Intermediaries, as an indirect channel of distribution, play a very

important role in selling, which is one of most critical marketing

functions. In real life it could hardly be possible to properly identify

and effectively use all channels of distribution as they may represent

quite complex ramifications of different channels. For example, for a small

or medium-size production company it just might not be affordable to keep a

large enough marketing department to deal with all problems of products

distribution. Therefore, the services of intermediaries could be

indispensable, even though they may take extra costs. Intermediaries help

us cover larger market sectors. On the other hand, the value of

intermediaries consists in their practical experience in trading. If our

business is focused on production, we may need to concentrate more on

production problems rather than trading, otherwise we lose the focus and

there is always price to be paid for it. So the use of intermediaries might

pay back.

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

Integrated marketing communications may be defined as what we manage to

achieve through all our efforts to promote a product or service. In simple

terms, it might look like our ability to work out the right way to

influence consumers using our communications skills. The practical approach

(defined in theory as AIDA = Attention + Interest + Desire + Action) could

be basically described as a complex process of informing and persuading. In

other words, we need to design our messages to influence the consumers’

perception about our products. The importance of this ability in real life

can hardly be overestimated. In today’s world of tough competition the

communication process should be viewed as one of key elements of success.

Life is full of practical examples of how the effective communication just

works wonders. In a literal sense, the power of word can just be

materialized. A dentist would not attract many clients without sending a

specific message saying that he or she can do a good job, and accountant

would not attract many customers and would not be employed by a company

without convincing them he is a good specialist.

PRICING OBJECTIVES AND POLICIES

The important thing the marketing theory makes us understand about pricing

is that it should not be viewed just as adding up the values of costs and

markups guided by supply and demand. Such an approach would be incomplete

to reflect the reality. The process, in real life, is much more complex.

The real economic life makes us set various objectives and choose different

policies. Reasons and objectives may be numerous. To win more customers we

may need first to give them a chance to use our products at affordable

prices to see, for example, that our product is in no way inferior to a

similar branded one, or simply to increase sales. A lawyer or an accountant

beginning a new business might choose to work harder at comparatively low

prices for their services with an objective to gain more popularity and

recognition. Or, besides competitive reasons there can be different

motivations, such as survival. A monopoly may set prices without caring

much about how it affects consumers’ interests because of inelastic demand

for its products: in such a case a monopoly is just not interested in

working harder, because the inelastic demand would reduce its efforts to

zero. In other words, the economic reality requires us to be especially

aware of the problem of pricing. Too many factors have to be taken into

consideration, and, therefore, a very good understanding is needed to

choose the right policies.

CONCLUSION

The most important conclusion regarding my learning outcomes in this course

of study might be summarized as follows: the complex reality of today's

economic life requires a comprehensive knowledge and profound understanding

of the marketing theory. The great variety of specific marketing decisions

the businesses have to make in day-to-day life always relies not only on

our specific accumulated experience and skills, but also on our learning

process and ability to filter and make use of specific marketing

information in every particular case, be it a small family business or a

large corporation.