bài giảng bộ môn Marketing

Sam Moghini

FOCUS

10.02.2016

Week 3: Marketing
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All organisations face the challenge of understanding what customers want, and ensuring
they can meet those expectations. Managers of successful firms often attribute their success
to placing marketing at the heart of their strategy.

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Understanding customers and market:
- The underlying idea is that if managers understand what current and potential
customers’ value, they find it easier to develop products which ensure customer
satisfaction.
 Customers are willing to pay a price that will earn the company a profit
(marketing brings value to both parties, and if managers use marketing well, they
can increase the value that they offer).
- Needs – Wants – Demands: People have needs (physiological/basic and intangible) that
they try to satisfy. Wants are the form which human needs take, as they are shaped by
someone’s personality and culture in which they live. People have limited resources, so
needs and wants only become relevant to a supplier when the person can pay – when a
want becomes a demand. Given their needs, wants and resources, people demand
products and services they believe will satisfy them. The more effort an enterprise makes
to understand these, the better it will satisfy them. This involves investing in research
and development to create an attractive market offering.
- The market offer – products, services and experiences: Information about customers’

wants and demands helps companies to develop a market offer. Effective marketers look
beyond the basic attributes of their products, aiming to create brands which mean
something significant for their customers. They are then willing to pay a higher price.
- Exchanges and transactions: People aim to satisfy needs and wants through exchange.
Mutual agreement leads to a transaction in which they exchange this of value at a
specified time and place. These transactions take place in a market (all the actual and
potential customers with similar needs).

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Sam Moghini
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FOCUS

10.02.2016

The marketing environment: Marketers spend a lot of time and money identifying trends and
events in the marketing environment that may influence consumer demands.

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Macro-environment: Is similar for all those in an industry, and organisations have little
direct influence over it. -> PESTEL analysis.
Micro-environment: Each organisation has a unique competitive micro-environment
which has a significant influence on its market. -> Porter’s five forces analysis.
Understanding consumer behaviour: A consumer’s decision to buy something reflects

internal and external factors. Marketers can use these factors to influence consumers to
buy a product.

Marketing information systems: Marketing managers need a marketing information
system. It contains internal and external sources of data (micro/macro marketing
environments), and mechanisms to analyse and interpret the data so that marketing staff
can use it.

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Sam Moghini
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FOCUS

10.02.2016

Segments, targets and the market offer:
- Organisations use market segmentation to satisfy the needs of different people within a
market. Customers are more likely to respond positively to offerings which appeal to the
needs of their particular segment of the market, from product design through to
promotion and advertising.
- Segmenting depends on identifying variables that distinguish consumers with similar
needs. Three major categories which contain many variables: Demography (age, gender,
etc.), Geography, and Socioeconomic. When segmenting consumer markets, marketers
typically use a mix of these variables to provide an accurate profile of distinct groups.
- Having segmented a market using these variables, marketers have to decide which to

select as their target market, usually based on the criteria that it: 1. Contains demands
they can satisfy. 2. Is large enough to provide a financial return. 3. Is likely to grow.
Using the marketing mix:
- Marketing managers select the tools to satisfy the customers in their target market. A
convenient way to group the factors in the marketing mix is known as the “four Ps”.

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Product: Product refers to the range of goods and services which the company offers the
target market. The extent to which offerings are tangible or intangible affects how
marketing staff deal with them. Services present marketing with particular challenges
because they are perishable and intangible, heterogeneous and inseparable.
- Price: Price is the value placed upon the goods, services and ideas ex hanged between
organisations and consumers. In selecting the price that will position a product
competitively within consumers’ minds, the marketing manager must be aware of the
image that consumers have of the product.
- Promotion: Properly referred to as marketing communications, this element of the mix
tells customers about the merits of the product, and tries to persuade them to buy. This
is done through: advertising, sales promotions, personal selling, publicity, websites,
online communities, etc.
- Place: This refers to how products can best be distributed to the final consumer, either
directly or through intermediaries.
 In developing a marketing mix that will place products competitively within the
minds of consumers, marketing managers aim for coherence.
The product life cycle:
- In managing the organisation’s product decisions, marketing managers use a concept
called the product life cycle.
- Development: In many markets companies only survive if they can show a steady stream

of new products, a small proportion of which will be profitable. Sometimes they acquire
already-developed products from other companies, as a way of quickly filling a perceived
gap in their product range. Alternatively, they depend on their own R&D to develop new

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Sam Moghini

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10.02.2016

or improve products. This is expensive and means the company is spending large sums
with no immediate return.
Introduction: Profits are still negative because sales from the early adopters have not
reached the level needed to pay back investment in R&D. The aim of the marketing
manager at this stage is to invest in marketing communication and make as many

potential consumers as possible aware of the product’s entry into the marketplace.
Growth: At this stage consumers are aware of the product and have started buying it.
Sales rise quickly and profits peak. As people buy the product, more consumers become
aware of it and the high profit levels attract new competitors into the industry. The aim
of the marketing manager at this stage is to fight off existing competitors and new
entrants. This can be done by encouraging consumer loyalty, distributing the product as
widely as is demanded by consumers, and cutting selling prices: production costs fall as
total units increase, due to the learning curve effect. Competitors arriving later have not
had time to cut costs so may baulk at entering the market.
Maturity: With profits peaking during the growth stage, profit and sales start to plateau
and then decline towards the end of this stage. By this stage many consumers are aware
of and have bought the product and there are more competitors. The marketing
manager may react by reducing the price or differentiating it by, for example altering its
packaging and design. At this stage product differentiation can successfully reposition
products to an earlier stage in their life cycle.
Decline: There is little demand and all competing organisations are considering removing
the product from the marketplace. It is important that, by this stage, the marketing
manager has a new product ready to enter the marketplace and replace the product that
is being removed. Certain rarity products can still generate profits in decline.

Customer relationship management (CRM):
- Many companies choose to focus on what they call CRM, aiming to develop long-term
profitable relationships with customers in the hope that this will add more value to both
parties. By increasing customer satisfaction they hope to build their loyalty to the
product or service, so that they continue to make purchases over many years.
- A narrow interpretation of CRM is to gather data on individual customers, and use that
to build customer loyalty.
- CRM also has a broader meaning which includes all aspects of building and maintaining
close relations with customers by understanding their needs, and delivering superior
value to them.

A marketing orientation:
- Four marketing orientations that could be assimilated to an organisation’s culture:
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Sam Moghini

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FOCUS

10.02.2016

1. Product: in units with a product orientation people focus on the design and perhaps
the perfection of the product itself. This could mean focussing on developing highly
sophisticated products using the latest scientific developments; or it could mean
continuing to deliver a familiar product in a familiar way.
2. Production: the aim is to produce large quantities of a limited range of products
efficiently and economically. This works well in situations where few goods and
services are available, as customers have little choice. Companies with a production
focus may suffer if conditions change towards greater competition and wide choice.
A focus on volume production may make it hard to meet the needs of customers
who expect variety and change.
3. Sales: units with this orientation aim to turn available products into cash, often using
aggressive sales techniques. This may be the only way to sell products which people
do not enjoy buying. Companies also use this approach when they must raise cash
urgently to meet pressing financial commitments.
4. Marketing: the focus is on understanding and satisfying customer needs and
demands. This approach is likely to be especially useful when the supply of goods
exceeds demand, so that competition is intense.

- Marketing orientation: Most commercial organisations have a marketing function (i.e.
market research, promotion, etc.). A marketing orientation means much more than this,
in that it refers to a situation where the significance of marketing is deeply embedded
throughout the organisation. This means that staff who are not in direct contact with
customers nevertheless understand their needs, and give time and effort to satisfy them.
A marketing orientation is hard to achieve, as it depends on the culture encouraging
appropriate behaviour in relation to customers, competitors, and co-ordination.
Concentrating on the market and being a customer centred organisation enables
managers to discover what consumers want.
 Developing a marketing orientation: While a marketing orientation is a desirable
goal for companies in volatile markets, such cultural change is hard to achieve.
All staff need to share a common commitment to work together in the interests
of customers.
Integrating themes:
- Entrepreneurship: entrepreneurial marketing is very different from that in large firms. It
tends to be much more informal, simple, reactive, opportunistic, etc.
- Sustainability: marketing could be seen as a problem and a solution. A problem because
companies used marketing to promote a greater consumption of goods that have
contributed to the current world situation. A solution because marketing could be used
to propose changes in people’s lifestyle therefore reaching a sustainable economic
system.
- Internationalisation: use marketing strategies to become an international company.

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