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AboutHello, I am Will Buckingham. ?I am a third year business administration major at CSU Monterey Bay. ?Born and raised in San Luis Obispo, California, I chose this college for it's similar geography and close-knit campus community. ?In addition to being a full time student, I am a resident advisor and student assistant. ?Both jobs have offered me incredibly valuable experience with customer service, confrontation, and communication. ?These jobs are only two of the opportunities I have had at CSUMB to apply what I am learning in the classroom to real situations. ?As a management concentration, these jobs have offered me experience incredibly related to my concentration. ?I have gained knowledge and abilities in customer service, human development, and motivation of others. ?Concentrating on management, I feel the need to understand the many different responsibilities and needs of all positions and departments within a business. ?By taking Principles of Marketing I will be better able to assess how employees, materials, and processes affect the customer-perceived value of products and services offered by my future employment opportunities. ?This Portfolio represents my understanding of essential marketing concepts. ?This documentation is only the beginning of the many ways which I will present and apply these marketing concepts, but it is a great place to start. ?I hope my experiences and learning present you with new information and/or new interests you want to further explore. ?Creating and Capturing Customer Value773531468654SatisfyBenefitLifetime ValueSatisfyBenefitLifetime ValueThe entire purpose of marketing is to effectively create customer value so that the company may obtain long-term customer relationships which reciprocate that value back to the company CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). No matter what the product or service, creating customer value is the key to any firm’s long-term success. Value is created by meeting customer needs and wants through market offerings that lead to beneficial customer relationships, satisfying experiences, and future purchases. It is important not to focus solely on the product or service itself, but also on the experiences and benefits perceived by the customer. Failing to address the experiences and benefits of a product results in “marketing myopia,” which causes failure to meet changing market demands CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). When developing Swipe-A-Load, we acknowledged the fact that commercial laundry services and the corresponding user interfaces have mostly been unchanged for a long time. Some companies, including Wash, have added payment systems that accept card-based payment, but this is the only upgrade this market has had. We identified that customers need more availability and security, while facilities need more machine productivity. We found that upgrading Wash’s current market offering to include these features met the needs of many multi-family laundry users. Additionally, Wash’s customers value not only the usability of Wash’s services, but also the customer oriented experience received when utilizing Wash’s 24 hour call center and repair technicians. This is why we decided that Swipe-A-Load would come with Wash’s great service, as well as improve it by including a complete warranty option. When companies create customer-perceived value, customers are more likely to purchase again and possibly make larger purchases CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). This is because the customer is reassured by his or her satisfied needs, quality experience, beneficial customer-business relationship, and received value compared to costs obtained during original or past purchasing experiences. When a customer continues to return because of continually receiving value greater than costs, the firm receives customer lifetime value via loyalty and retention. Loyal customers and long-term customer relationships result in easier attraction to new market offerings, increased positive word of mouth, and greater customer equity. Customer equity and satisfaction make marketers jobs easier by helping gain sales as consequences of performance rather than implicit advertising. This helps the entire firm by increasing sales, decreasing marketing costs, and improving the public’s perception of the company. References Kotler and Armstrong. (2014). Principles of Marketing. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, petitor Analysis CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014)Successful marketing strategies must be competitive marketing strategies; these are strategies which position the company and its offerings against competitors, as well as their products and services CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Few, if any, products and services exist without competition. This competition is one of the largest external forces impacting the success of a product or service. A company must not only understand how customers perceive it and its offerings, it must understand how customers perceive and accept competitors and their products and/or services. This is because successful strategies are created with the intent of providing more customer value than competitors. Analyzing competitors requires thorough identification and assessment of competing firms, so the best competitive strategies and actions are selected. Identifying competitors is not as straightforward or simple as many people mistakenly think. Competitors can be any firm offering products/services that are similar, satisfying the same demands, or fighting for the same customers. The industry perspective identifies competitors as firms selling the same or nearly the same products and services. The market perspective views any firm satisfying same need or pursuing relationships with the same customers as competitors. Using the market point of view allows companies to understand how they compete not only against identical alternatives, but for the money spent by their target segments. Dole used the market perspective when it identified energy bar producers as competitors for active consumers desiring healthy, high-energy snack food on the go. Energy bars are able to satisfy the same customer need as Dole’s bananas. Understanding what companies are competitors is essential to knowing which companies to invest time assessing.Assessing competitors means the firm understands the objectives and strategies of its competitors, evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of each, and then applies this to its prediction of these firms’ likely decisions. Dole, which sells fruits and vegetables, recognized companies outside of its industry that had strategies to capture the same market segment. Dole identified comparable weakness of energy bars, which is that they are not as natural as Dole’s bananas. Benchmarking is an effective way for companies to understand the specific aspects which it exceeds or falls short of meeting the needs of the same customers. After this level of understanding is achieved, a strategic company will try and predict what actions competitors are going to take in the future. A company that has studied how its competitors will likely respond to economic and industry environments, as well as its own actions, is much better prepared to properly and effectively position itself in the market place. Utilizing this competitor information, a company must select which firms it is going to position itself against. Companies decide if they want to attack strong companies which provide difficult but large gains in market share, or weak competitors which provide easy, less significant gains. Selecting which companies to attack or avoid is important because when done correctly, competition is a good and necessary challenge for businesses. Competition can help develop markets, research segments, and establish demand for products or services offered by two or more companies. Dole selected competitors in the energy bar industry because it saw there were large gains of its desired customer segments to be obtained from these companies. Knowing which companies, as well as their strategies and objectives, a firm is more closely or directly competing against is invaluable to being one step ahead of the competition. Companies that identify, assess, and carefully select the competitors to avoid or rival have much higher chances of producing more competitive, valuable, and profitable products and services. References Kotler and Armstrong. (2014). Principles of Marketing. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.Four Marketing ToolsThe Four Ps of the marketing mix are the essential tools and concepts of modern marketing CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). The four Ps include all efforts a firm may address to increase demand for its market offerings. To fully address and apply the four Ps to a product or service is to fully implement a market strategy.The first Product, price, refers to the combination of goods and services which the company provides as a market offering. The value of each product and service which the offering is composed of influences customers’ perception of how valuable the product or service is. Price refers to the dollar amount which customers are required to pay in exchange for the product or service being offered. Companies must carefully and creatively determine what price they will request, because this is likely the first aspect to be compared to customer-perceived value and quality. Price refers to the customers’ costs to buy, own, and finance the purchasing of the product. Depending on the type of product or service, price often includes payment options, maintenance costs, and disposal fees. Place, the third P, considers the channels and locations which products and services are observable or accessible to customers, as well as how much time, distance, and effort is required to connect customers and market offerings. Transportation and logistics are place aspects which alone are services, but have massive impacts on customer-perceived satisfaction of products. Promotion is how the firm advertises, sells, and builds relationships with customers. Promotional efforts must effectively communicate value-adding features and opportunities, so customers embrace and reciprocate such value through increased purchases.While the four Ps do cover all that is necessary to create desired customer reactions to any market offering, these are strictly evaluated from the firm’s perspective CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). The four Cs address the same concepts, but do so from the mindsets of target market customers. The first C, customer solution, addresses what problems are solved by purchasing this product or service. Customer cost is the summed costs of purchase, use, and disposal required by purchasing a product or service. Convenience acknowledges that customers want the easiest and quickest access to the desired solutions, and that this access does not require a hassle that is greater than costs. Communication refers to any and all customers’ desires for two-way communication that is informative and beneficial to customers’ search for resolutions to their problems. Customers should feel this communication guided them to a solution, rather than obtained a sale for the company. References Kotler and Armstrong. (2014). Principles of Marketing. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.Business-to-Business Marketing- Buying and Selling CITATION Wal13 \l 1033 (Madison, 2013)In today’s economy, marketers must know the largest available sum of customers is the myriad of businesses which buy products and services every day. Business-to-business (B-to-B) markets offer much more benefits and demands than business-to-consumer markets. The benefits of B-to-B markets are more available money, more transactions, and mutual desire for deeper, more profitable long-term relationships. B-to-B customers do require more careful buyer decision processes, which are made more convincingly through partnership between the firms and their members CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Business-to-business relationships are more professional, with each party being much more involved and influential in the other firm’s decision making processes. There are more participants in the buyer decision process and product/service delivery of B-to-B transactions. Business-to-business relationships are more mutually dependent upon one another. This dependency upon the seller by the customer business is why many companies focus heavily on supplier development. Companies work hard to carefully evaluate, connect with, and build relationships with suppliers because these companies enable the purchasing firm to meet the demands of its own customers. If a business customer is unable to buy the raw materials or process tasks it needs in order to produce its market offerings, it will surely lose profits, productivity, and customer satisfaction. This mutual dependency and benefit is why business-to-business marketing is essential, rewarding, and not easy.There are different types of buying situations between businesses, each of which means different things for the buying and selling parties. A straight rebuy is the continuous purchasing of the same good or service with no adjustments. Modified rebuys are used by business customers wanting to adjust the details of the products which are being supplied CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Systems selling involves selling bundled solutions which avoid forcing the company to contract different task to multiple different firms. This creates a more comprehensive, complete, and easier-to-use systems for the business to operate.Many participants are involved in the B-to-B buying decision; Kotler and Armstrong label these members as users, influencers, buyers, deciders, and gatekeepers CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Users are employees who may propose or specify needed purchases. Influencers are technical personnel who aid in weighing out different options as solutions. Buyers and deciders are often one and the same, but the difference is that buyers arrange and select purchase details, whereas deciders give higher approval of the buyers’ decisions. Gatekeepers are any employees that control the flow of information and sales representatives contacting the other members of the buying process. This process requires so many participants because it impacts all aspects of the firm purchasing the product or service. One of the ways which B-to-B relationships have been made more efficient and effective, is by increasing use of electronic selling and delivering of solutions to businesses. This enhances business relationships because it allows business customers to easily manage and view orders, plan according to real time data, and increase reaction times.References Kotler and Armstrong. (2014). Principles of Marketing. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.Madison, W. (2013, October 26). Word Camp Victoria: Marketing Your Online Businesses Cheaply. Retrieved from Word Camp Victoria: Marketing CITATION Cat14 \l 1033 (Davis, 2014)During the past ten years, businesses have been expected to be more sustainable in almost all enterprise practices. This increasing importance of environmental sustainability has been paired with a greater demand for environmental and societal responsibility by businesses. Marketers are the business members that decide what customers need/want, what details are most important, and how it should be communicated to and perceived by customers. Sustainable marketing means meeting current needs without jeopardizing future generations’ abilities to meet their own needs. This means that what a company produces and markets brings short-term benefits while having neutral or positive long-term impact. Truly sustainable companies provide solutions for current and future needs of both the business and the customer. Product offerings should bring long-term customer-value, company profitability, and ecological neutrality or benefits. Marketers must think about all members of the triple-bottom line when creating, producing, and marketing products and services. Marketers have come under question about many issues related to once-standard business practices that are now being radically changed. Many of these issues are the topics that fascinate me and drive my aspirations to find financial profit in the improvement of our natural world and everyday purchases. One criticism of marketers is product safety; many products are made with incredibly harmful effects upon our health, environment, and financial systems. For example, the nationwide push for SUV sales polluted the air and depleted resources inefficiently, leading to poor investments and costs in automobiles and fuel. SUVs serve as a good example of planned obsolescence and promoted materialism by marketers. Many SUVs have been deemed as some of the lowest quality vehicles made in the nation and world. This automotive market was driven by increased marketing of newer, bigger models that made prior ones seem outdated and insufficient. In addition to this, their poor quality led to short product lifespan, increasing consumers’ environmental and financial costs through increased materialism. Another argument is that marketers often advertise unsustainably. The ecological externalities caused by printed advertisements alone is a massive cost which consumers have no way of accurately factoring into their purchasing decisions.Current focus lies heavily on environmental sustainability, but such efforts will be wasted and short-lived if economic sustainability is compromised or ignored. Public scandals of the past decade prove long-term profitability to be the most beneficial business strategy for firms, consumers, and the planet. Unstainable practices now being questioned and changed are overpricing, overstating shipping costs, and unfair competition through acquisitions and barriers to market/industry entry CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). These tactics harm our economy in several ways. Overpricing, especially without corresponding distribution to employees, will only diminish consumer spending on that and other offerings. Acquisitions and barriers to entry detract from the natural competition which economies thrive off. By hurting competition, rather than embracing good competition, companies damage the economy and capabilities of target markets. In addition to this, such companies will lose incentives for innovation, leading to decreased customer-perceived value. A truly sustainable company not only focuses on current sustainability, but designates time and resources to future, improved sustainability. Such companies develop new environmental capabilities of employees, processes, and market offerings. Beyond this, companies should create strategic planning goals that incorporate environmental improvement by the producers, distributors, and users of a product or service. While becoming or maintaining such a company seems expensive, I believe these initiatives are successful because they secure resources, earn consumer trust, meet future demands, and lead to a better future for all stakeholders. ReferencesKotler and Armstrong. (2014). Principles of Marketing. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.Davis, C. (2014, March 6). The Agency Post: Marketing to Socially Conscious Consumers: Does "Green" Translate into ROI? Retrieved from The Agency Post: ModelReferences BIBLIOGRAPHY Davis, C. (2014, March 6). The Agency Post: Marketing to Socially Conscious Consumers: Does "Green" Translate into ROI? Retrieved from The Agency Post: and Armstrong. (2014). Principles of Marketing. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.Madison, W. (2013, October 26). Word Camp Victoria: Marketing Your Online Businesses Cheaply. Retrieved from Word Camp Victoria: Self-AssessmentPrinciples of Marketing is the very first marketing course I have ever taken. I came into this course with a very common, narrow understanding of marketing. I thought advertising and public relations events. Halfway through this semester I now know there is so much more to marketing than I once thought. Some of these realizations may seem basic, but that is why I have broadened my perspectives by taking this course. I once thought that marketing only made the good looks and eloquent sounds of company products and services, sitting down to think of a product for our marketing plan showed me how incorrect this was. I was baffled by the task of creating a product that was needed, marketable, and completely new. I never realized that marketers were the ones deciding what was needed, I thought they just focused on telling consumers why they “need” something. My group and I sat in a circle for a long time creating and rejecting ideas as we continuously found problems with each idea. It finally occurred to me that I was thinking from a product perspective, then finding whether or not corresponding needs were present. I immediately changed my thought processes to search for needs, and then the corresponding products and services which could serve as solutions. Soon we identified a set of needs in one industry which we had all experienced at some point in our lives. This process showed me how hard a job marketers have when developing new product offerings.Throughout the past few months, I have found that I analyze things much more. At my work, I have been able to make a suggestion to our online website because I thought of it differently than I did before. Instead of seeing the website as a large source of information, I evaluated it in terms of common customer questions. I searched for the answers of each question on the sight, some were present, yet others were not. I brought up to my boss that we had some common questions entirely unanswered by our website. He and I both decided that adding this information to the website would increase customer-perceived value by decreasing customer time taken to figure out necessary processes and would cause less frustrations. This is something that not only made my job easier, but increased the value of our on-campus housing services. Another avenue I have found myself applying marketing to is the YouTube channel I manage. I noticed that nothing on the channel offered solutions to needs. I have now planned a series of how-to, cost-effective modifications, and low-cost adventures videos. Instead of offering simple entertaining, these videos offer solutions for saving money on motorcycle parts, maintenance, and use. These videos answer the needs of motorcyclist who are on a budget, whereas the old videos offered no solutions because they did not address any issues. Such thought processes are new to me, I am confident this course contributed to this development. As I continue with this course, work, and personal endeavors I hope to become better at thinking from a needs-oriented perspective. I find myself getting caught up in the fascination of the product when I should be addressing the needs of the consumers. I can strengthen this skill and form this habit by evaluating the tools and processes used in my daily life. Addressing how these could be improved to better meet my needs will help fine tune and exercise these thought processes. With my interest in the environmental and renewable energy markets, I want to develop new ways of assessing what the needs of the future are. I have been interested in future “greening” for a long time, but I am just now finding that really this is a fascination with the prediction of future needs. I want to learn about and apply more marketing principles to my desire to solve the environmental needs of both current and future generations and industries. Pricing Strategies and Elasticity6As I have learned all throughout this semester, marketers must have incredible knowledge and understanding of their offerings. Price is a factor that every marketer must fully understand about his or her product/service in order to effectively market it. Price is the dollar amount a product or service is sold for CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). This figure impacts demand, competitiveness, positioning, and elasticity. Without knowing the implications of a price, effective marketing is impossible. This means effective pricing strategies must be chosen , because a disadvantaged pricing rarely allows for advantageous marketing. Pricing strategies vary among different products and services, but all require specifically chosen pricing strategies.One pricing strategy is value-based pricing, which takes pricing into account during the planning of the product and its marketing mix CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Value-based pricing determines prices not as a result of production and marketing costs, but as a necessary factor planned during product and marketing development. Cost-based pricing is the opposite, it determines price after the product is designed and costs are known to the producer. Marketers then decide on a price that covers costs and creates the needed profits. Cost-based pricing is very product oriented, while value-based pricing focuses more on the consumer. Good-value pricing is a value-based pricing strategy which offers a satisfactory level of quality for a fair price. Ryanair utilizes good-value pricing by offering minimal flight accommodations, but meeting travelers needs at competitive prices. To Ryanair flyers, this company offers a fair price for meeting their needs. Value-added pricing utilizes increased features and prices to increase consumer-perceived quality and value. This is seen by Burt’s Bees which sells its lip balm at three to four times the price of competing brands. Burt’s Bees offers only natural ingredients and higher prices, yet consumers seem to find more value in this than many competing brands selling for 25% the price of Burt’s Bees’ products CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). The success and unmatched growth of Burt’s Bees in the lip balm market shows that for some industries and products, value-based pricing may be the most successful option. Cost-based pricing focuses on the importance of costs to the marketed good or service, as well as how impactful this is to the marketing strategies used. Cost-plus pricing is a cost-based strategy which figures price by adding a decided mark-up to the sum of all costs CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). This is seen in large-scale project bids in which a proposer figures all costs involved to build something, then adds a satisfactory markup to those costs when presenting price to the buyer. Often times, producers use a break-even analysis to determine what price should be used according to reasonable estimation of units sold. The same system used in break-even analysis may be applied to target-pricing. Target-pricing utilizes similar analysis for the point of desired return. Another pricing strategy is competition-based pricing, which bases pricing on competitors’ pricing strategies CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). This requires careful assessment of the market and industry. Marketers using this approach may choose to offer a superior offering for a higher price, or lower prices for somewhat less quality. Both these approaches allow competition-based pricing to be very effective when implemented well. No matter what pricing strategy a marketer chooses to use, elasticity must never be ignored. Elasticity is the measure of how impactful price is on demand for a given product or service. Inelastic goods and services are those which suffer very little or no change in demand due to small price increases. Elasticity is very dependent on economic conditions, because these greatly effect how willing consumers are to spend more than is needed. Even after the Great Recession, consumers all across the U.S. are rethinking how price elastic certain goods are. Knowing the price elasticity of a product is essential to successful marketing. Many if raising prices will result in unsustainable demand, marketers need to know this and find an alternative course of action to meet company goals. Elasticity may change throughout different economic times. Luxury car companies may find that increased prices produce huge profit increases during economic booms, but in a recession the company may need to offer limited-time sales and/or emphasize the unique value obtained with that price. Marketers must be familiar with all these strategies. There is no single strategy which will work for all products and services. Careful attention to the market offering, its target market, its elasticity, and the economy are essential to choosing the most effective pricing strategy. I never knew how much research and analysis could be invested in determining the price of a market offering. Almost all, if not all, products compete on the level of price. As with Marketers’ other jobs, pricing strategy involves careful analysis of the offering, target market, economy, and competition.Advertising and Public RelationsAdvertising and public relations are becoming more and more essential to successful marketing. Kotler and Armstrong define advertising as any paid form of impersonal presentation and promotion of an idea, product, or service CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Advertising and public relations have grown from store signs and community conversations, to million dollar TV ads and daily YouTube and Twitter campaigns.Advertising starts with the selections of the advertising objectives marketers have. Marketers must decide if their messages are to inform, persuade, or remind consumers about their market offering. After selecting an objective, marketers must decide the budget they have available for reaching their advertising objectives and goals. This is important because like any other department of a company, marketing must be financial sustainable and profitable for the company. Depending on the advertising budget, marketers will decide the medium, quantity, and type of messages which will be used to promote the product or service. Once enough time has passed, marketers must evaluate the effectiveness of the advertising channels and messages. Informative advertising communicates customer value, product awareness, brand image, functionality, availability, and correction of false beliefs concerning the product or service. Informative advertising may tell consumers about new product’s value or the increased value of a new product. Informative advertising is used to tell consumers what might be new, uncommon, or previously unreleased information. This has been seen by many of the Hyundai advertisements in the past few years which went to great lengths to ensure consumers knew of fuel economy, features, and unprecedented warranty of its entirely redesigned models. Informative marketing can be incredibly effective for companies like Hyundai which may suffer from a lack of consumer attention and knowledge due to past market offerings. Informative advertising helps a product and/or brand become a known competitor in its market.Increased market competition will bring demand marketers to convince consumers that their products and/or services are better than competitors’. Persuasive advertising attempts to convince consumers to change brand preferences and value perceptions. This type of advertising often convinces consumers to tell others or to make a purchase sooner than they planned. Ford has done this through its use of comparative advertising to promote the Ford Taurus. Ford produced a series of commercials showing the Ford Taurus outperforming German luxury sedans for significantly less money. This was Ford’s attempt to persuade buyers to change their perception of luxury sedans, buy the Ford Taurus, and increase their value-perception of Ford as an entire brand. Persuasive advertising is an effective tool for new offerings, competitive markets, and any product needing increased market share. Reminder advertising is used when markets and products have matured. This type of advertising maintains the customer relationships and brand image the company has built in the past. This type of advertising has been used by many well-established global firms, which try reminding consumers their brand is still the valuable brand it once was, if not even greater. Coca-Cola makes immense effort in reminder advertising, the firm takes all the opportunities available to show consumers it is still the lifestyle drink it always has been. Reminder advertising supports what is already established about the brand and/or product. No matter the advertising style, every marketer must set an advertising budget. The advertising budget is composed of all money and resources used for a company’s or product’s advertising program. The needed budget heavily depends on how mature the product is. New products and services demand much more money and resources to be effectively marketed. Hyundai used a much longer commercial to tell consumers about its redesigned models with the best warranty in the nation than Coca-Cola did during the holiday season to remind consumers that its beverage has been in homes for more Christmases than almost any of its competition. It is simply reminding consumers at a time of increased consumerism, that Coca-Cola is a drink people know they will enjoy- a much easier job than Hyundai’s. The onslaught of new advertising mediums has provided many marketers the opportunity to mesh advertising and entertainment. Advertisers have found consumers enjoy, and effectively respond to, advertisements which entertain and are pleasing to viewers’ values, senses, and humors. This type of advertising has become known as Madison and Vine CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Old Spice and Doritos make great use of Madison and Vine with their hilarious Super Bowl advertisements which consumers actually purposefully seek out on YouTube. These types of advertisements are viewed by most consumers more as entertainment than interruption of entertainment. This is an important quality today, because new technologies have allowed advertisements to be present in almost every daily task. Many firms are starting to acknowledge Madison and Vine as a way to boost customer satisfaction before trying the market offering. This is possible by offering an enjoyable marketing experience, rather than a hard sell. As this advertising becomes more prevalent, marketers will need to assess how this will impact their marketing mixes and budgets. Public relations is becoming more and more important in marketing. Public relations has become more and more profitable as consumers become more constantly linked to communication devices. Social media released to marketers many free or low-cost public relations tools which have proved invaluable to many large firms. Old Spice has built one of the most successful public relations campaigns ever. Old Spice used its Old Spice Man to make a series of response videos to YouTube, Twitter, and other social media sight comments. This campaign has led to unbelievable numbers of marketing impressions. Old Spice made sure every video responded to the commenter, entertaining, and required little time and money to produce. Old Spice is a wonderful example of how a company may use public relations as an effective, low-cost marketing tool. Public relations can utilize free social media sights to reach millions of viewers at fractions of the costs required to air such advertisements on television. Also, having an effective and well-followed public relations campaign creates an effective and rapid response network when companies need to correct poor publicity. Product Life Cycle Stages and StrategiesProducts and services all experience different stages as they begin, grow, and eventually shrink. Acknowledging where resources should be allocated during each life cycle stage is essential to the success of any product. Every product begins as an idea. This idea could be potential new offering, addition/modification to an existing offering, or offering delivery system. No matter what the new product is, it starts its life cycle as an idea. Idea generation may come from multiple internal and external sources. Honda Power Sports sources product ideas from its engineers, designers, technicians, and test riders. Honda also takes in ideas from its many external, sponsored riders, Honda consumers’ forum reviews, and overall market surveys done by many motorcycling magazines and YouTube Channels. Companies as large as Honda receive many ideas each month, effective systems to eliminate the bad and capitalize on the good ideas is drastically important. The next step is to screen all these ideas so the company pursues all the profitable ideas and discards all which are not profitable or beneficial to the company. Idea screening involves only accepting ideas which are realistic solutions to legitimate market needs and demand, promise sustainable competiveness and value, and lastly fits the company. Idea generation is key to ensuring that no resources are wasted on ideas that are unsuccessful or incompatible with the company’s current market offerings.A company must now develop and test its concept. Depending on the proposed market offering, a concept may take many different forms. Honda presents its concepts to its engineers, designers, technicians, test riders, and external riders by presenting a description and mock up picture or animation. This presentation is the result of Honda’s product development, and allows the company to effectively use its partners for feedback. If enough of these market testers believe that consumers would find value in such a market offering, Honda will move forward with the product. Now that the concept has become approved for further investment, it starts to transition from concept to product. This is the product development stage. If Honda is developing a new suspension system it wants to develop for its dirt bike model ranges, it now must financially analyze this idea. If Honda believes the research and development (R&D), production, accounting, and marketing costs will be below the likely revenue, Honda pushes the suspension technology forward. Honda now dives deep into developing this product closer and closer to a legitimate market offering. Honda will build several versions, testing them for functionality, costs, aesthetics, and rider satisfaction. Test riders will put the suspension through harsh and diverse testing so Honda may be confident as possible that this is a reliable and valuable product safeguarded from market failure CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Honda engineers, technicians, and test riders will decide on a version of the product which they believe best meets the needs of consumers and the capabilities of Honda. Now that Honda must risk test marketing before braving the open consumer market CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Honda now contacts informs many of its faithful, external partners that it has a new product it wants quietly tested. Honda will send motorcycles equipped with this new suspension to riders, as well as host a test riding event for these company partners. If majority of reviewers state that they find meaningful increases in value compared to the previous suspension systems, Honda will push the product further. This stage helps eliminate any remaining issues and certify what consumers will find the most valuable when riding on the new suspension. Finally Honda must make the decision of commercialization, this is the introduction life-cycle stage. Kotler and Armstrong define commercialization as the introduction of a new product or service into the market CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Successful commercialization requires properly selected timing, location, and market rollout of the product CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). This means that the company must assess the impact this product will have on the sales of its current and other upcoming market offerings. Honda would not want to launch this product close to the redesign of one of its budget dirt bikes still utilizing the older suspension technology. Honda must also decide where it is going to launch the new, advanced suspension technology. It would likely decide that North America and/or Europe are the best market regions for this product. Honda’s third world and Asian markets prefer older technology that is less expensive and more reliable. Honda now must choose specifically where and how much to rollout of this new technology. The company may target the United States Midwest and West Coast. These regions have incredible dirt biking populations, which likely will quickly purchase and spread word about the new suspension. These three assessments are essential to successful commercialization, because no product or service is successful everywhere and at all times. Once released, every product experiences growth, maturity, and decline. Continually updating and promoting market offerings can help lengthen any of these stages, but all are inevitable. The growth stage involves the fastest acceptance of the product or service CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). During this stage Honda should utilize informative advertising, so more consumers learn of this new market offering. Once the product has matured, Honda should use persuasive advertising to show prove to consumers that no other market offering is as capable as Honda’s. Honda wants to maintain this and the growth stage as long as possible. The final stage is decline. Honda may find after a decade that the once-new technology is losing competitiveness, which is why reminder advertising would be critical here. Honda could remind consumers that this suspension is the proven suspension that beat all competitor offerings. As one can see, the product life-cycle stages greatly impact what marketing techniques and resources allocations must be used and assessed. In this example, Honda would use drastically different marketing communication channels for each of the life-cycle stages. Marketers must know and understand not only where their offerings are in the market, but also in their product life span. Socially Responsible Product Development and MarketingDuring the first decade of this century, consumers became incredibly conscious of social responsibility and sustainability. Companies have been responding to this, offering sustainable offerings produced in socially responsible ways. Many products are now being expected to be environmentally and socially sustainable, and this is increasing to more and more industries. Soon it will be expected that items are designed from idea to market offering with a promise of corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability. Companies are starting to receive increased sales from the use of safe and sustainable raw materials. Unsafe products have been a major ethical controversy throughout the past decade. Consumers have been subjected to lead in toys, carcinogens in baby bottles, and unsafe drinking water. Sustainable marketing now means consumers are certain what is in their products, and one day it will be assumed that no one needs to even worry because no product would be made unsustainably or to be unsafe. This goal may only be reached by the use of safe processes and raw materials, but also by the incorporation of externalities. Each day consumers are learning of horrifying externalities located at production sights, any marketer should recognize such publicity as a massive threat. As population increase dramatically, our world becomes smaller, therefore bringing foreign externalities closer to home.The idea of incorporated externalities has generated a great amount of concern toward physical life cycles of products. Walk into any electronics store and the sense of planned obsolescence surrounds the store shelves. As I have learned this semester, marketers play an essential role in planning and developing market offerings. One must wonder why during a time of needed and valued sustainability, a company would plan such unsustainable obsolescence. The answer is faster and greater profits. Incorporating externalities means that the company incurs some costs that aim to remediate or eliminate any form of social or environmental ill. When our team developed our multi-family laundry interface, Swipe-A-Load, we decided that we would demand this product have a planned recycling solution for the machine’s inevitable obsolescence. Laundry machines do not last forever, so we developed an option to pay for the recycling at the time of purchase. This service was incorporated into our increased maintenance and warranty program called Full Cycle. We believed our offering could only be truly competitive if legitimate responsibility was taken. Marketers need to ensure they provide product life cycle responsibility because such practices are creating more customer-perceived value as time goes on. I have learned this semester that sometimes it is important to change what consumers believe, even if not responsible for consumers believing or feeling such ways. This is exactly the case with a few common assumed ills of marketers. As a marketer, one must acknowledge that many consumers have preconceived opinions concerning marketing. A common belief is that marketers use utilize excessive markups to achieve higher prices other than what consumers originally see when approaching a market offering CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). This is believed by many to be done by excessively marking up distribution costs and spending too much on advertisements and promotions. Marketers are also charged with straight excessive markups, in which they simply get a direct return of absurd levels. These three things are not generic to all marketers, only a common trend which has been experienced by the larger majority of individuals. Lastly, marketers have been charged with aggressive use of deceptive language and high pressure selling CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Deceptive language is seen all throughout the snack aisle of the grocery store, but the most attacked deception is the “green” word consumers see and hear so much of. Many consumers are taking more initiative to look past marketers’ claims, and do the research themselves. Marketers should perceive this as a negative because these consumers now spend more time evaluating before they can purchase. This time is valuable and essentially means the consumer paid more than what was on the tag. Another charge against marketers is the use of hard selling, which is also becoming increasingly disliked. Hard selling damages the customer relationship by invoking the feeling of being a means to an end, not the end itself. BMW has recently decided that it would start transitioning away from the traditional hard sell technique. BMW dealerships in North America and Europe are hiring BMW Geniuses, instead of salespersons. These Geniuses inform and excite customers about automotive offerings and features, as opposed to selling these to the customers. BMW has already seen an increase in sales at its test dealerships. If companies are to maintain competitiveness, profitability, and customer satisfaction, marketers must responsibly create and build ideas from start to finish. I feel that as a marketer I would want to take advantage of social and environmental responsibility. Marketers may utilize corporate ethicality as increased consumer value. The future will bring increased demand for safe, sustainable, and responsible goods and services. Retailing and WholesalingRetailers are businesses which sell directly to the end user. These companies sell products for personal use, not as production or resale inputs. Retailers range from small liquor stores to massive convenience stores such as Wal-Mart and Dollar General. Retailers do not necessarily always sell an assortment of goods, there are many which sell specific items or types of items. Retailers may function from the internet or from brick and mortar locations. The primary types of retailers are specialty, department, supermarket, convenience, discount, and off-price stores CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Despite the many types of retailers, all must utilize marketing techniques and strategies oriented toward end users. Many retailers utilize shopper marketing to specifically target their customers who may be looking for a bargain or special offering. These retailers have made incredible observations and tools used for assessing how to promote items internally within the store itself. Retailers make many of the same decisions necessary for product marketing, but to the scopes of products and the entire retail chain itself CITATION Kot141 \l 1033 (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014). Chain stores such as Safeway and Wal-Mart benefit from the consistency customers may rely on whether they visit a chain location in one county or the other. Wal-Mart’s brand positioning is just as different from Whole Food’s as canned soup is from wild mushrooms. Wholesaling is defined by Kotler and Armstrong as selling goods and services to those hoping to resell or incorporate into their own market offerings. Wholesaling is a completely different marketing job than that of retailing. Wholesale marketers must reach business customers. These customers tend to be much more cost and time sensitive. As discussed earlier in the semester, business-to-business customers require incredibly differing levels of involvement. The customer relationships involved are much deeper, more communicative, and more time consuming for the wholesaler. Examples of wholesalers are sellers of pulp, recycled material sheets, and office supplies. The company we sold Swipe-A-Load from, WASH, is a wholesaling company. WASH interfaced laundry machines and maintenance services to businesses and institutions. Retailers and wholesalers differ greatly in the ways which they must market to their customers. While wholesalers may spend less on advertising, they have much more time-consuming relationships with their customers. I never gave the difference between retailers and wholesalers, but clearly there are significant differences. Marketers must identify not only whether they are selling as retailers or wholesalers, but also the segments within those customer ranges. Wholesaling and retailing require different skills, techniques, and strategies from marketers. Choosing which one I am best at will make a drastic difference in my future satisfaction as a marketer or manager of marketers. OutcomesUse appropriate terminology to communicate with marketing specialists and other about marketing conceptsIt is important that marketers do not blur the lines that separate marketing mix aspects and communication tools. I have really learned to distinguish between words I choose to use when discussing marketing and business in general. I realized this when creating our practicum presentation. Watching the Old Spice public relations campaign videos, it occurred to me I would have called the videos “advertisements” a few months before. I figured public relations was fairly limited to event booths and public statements. I realized that many of the campaign videos mentioned very little, if anything, about actual Old Spice products. I find myself identifying the type of marketing communication not by absorbing pure sensory extremes with a company’s media, but rather at the underlying turns ad literal messages. I feel I use much more accurate words when describing a marketing program. Understand more clearly how marketing affects you as a consumer and how you influence marketing practicesMy perspective truly changed this semester, as I have stated a few times in this blog. I learned that consumers and marketers are always influencing one another. The reality is that I never thought about how much nearly-direct communication occurs between consumers and marketers when goods and services are purchased. The Burt’s Bees case study really put the idea of voting with your dollar. Burt’s Bees decided to three to four times what its competitors sell lip balm for, doing this spawns an entire chain of communication between consumers and Burt’s Bees. As a consumer I can choose to interpret higher prices however I wish. If I buy the product, I tell marketers that I do perceive that much more value in their product than I do in competing brands. After this, the marketers may try to capture my purchase on shampoos or other products hoping I will again respond profitably. I think this is fascinating because I have always just assumed that Burt’s Bees lip balm has that much more expensive ingredients. The reality is the company could easily just be altering my value perception via the price. Identify and interpret changes in the environment which affect marketing activities Marketers may only be successful if they are aware of the environment in which they are marketing. I learned the impact of the environment when I read the Xerox case study. Xerox became the world’s most successful photocopying company, but it was failing. Xerox demonstrated and learned that no matter how amazing a product is, it has to stay up to date with the technology and needs of its environment. Xerox assessed its environment and was able to rescue itself by creating solutions that worked with computers, not aside from them. The environment surrounding a product determines the needs and competition which it must address. Understand the costs and benefits of marketing on society and on those involved in the marketing processMarketing, like any other business function, presents costs and benefits to our society and the companies it is done for. Marketing has led to dramatic increases in consumerism and resource depletion. Some people also argue that marketing clutter has been a legitimate cost to society. Marketing does inform consumers of solutions to needs and increase availability of greater options. Marketing is not inexpensive for companies; Red Bull’s profitable space jump commercial cost over $60 million. Then benefits of marketing to companies is incredible. Companies build entire campaigns and maintain millions of relationships often times with the simplest of marketing tools. This is seen by Old Spice’s public relations campaign which cost the firm hardly anything compared to its benefits. Understand how marketing interacts with and is interdependent with other functional areas within a companyUntil this semester, I was one of those people who assumed marketing was given a product or service and then began work advertising. I had no idea marketing was responsible for understanding current needs and wants, discovering the target markets possessing such needs, designing and improving the product in development, and communicating it to customers. These realization certainly lead to my increased respect for marketers. I never thought about the fact that marketers would need to work with operations and finance to determine proper production and contained costs. Without marketing’s understanding of market needs and perspectives, any company would lose substantial ability to meet consumers’ needs. Describe the role and contribution that marketing plays in organizations and societyMarketing contributes to organizations and society immensely. Marketing allows organizations to become known and form customer relationships. Marketing contributes to society by providing information regarding met needs and wants, so consumers do not miss out on possible solutions. The use of marketing has helped Meredith not only become an advertising giant, but guide people to the solutions of their future needs by being able to accurately estimate what might be the next magazine for them. Marketing helps people find solutions faster, a valuable impact for any user. Develop a good understanding of current marketing concepts, strategies, and techniques I have been exposed to so many different marketing concepts, strategies, and techniques throughout this semester. This blog only touches on a few of the many marketing concepts that exist in this world. I have developed thorough understanding of these though. My group’s marketing plan forced me to analyze an idea according to the different marketing strategies and techniques. It seems that marketing has some overarching concepts which break down into more detailed strategies and then multiple techniques. The most recent marketing concept is entertainment advertising. This is referred to as Madison and Vine marketing. This merges advertisements and entertainment, usually two opposites. This blog displays much of my marketing concepts mastery, which will serve me my entire career. Understand how marketing decisions are madeMarketing decisions are primarily made off the basis of collected, analyzed information. For example, Meredith uses customer surveys to determine who it should market certain magazines to. Similarly, our group used a survey to help determine what markets would be the most effective to sell Swipe-A-Load to: universities, apartment complexes, laundromats, or another market we hadn’t thought of yet. Gathered information is used find opportunities such as needs, target markets, and perceived-value. Marketers always try to solve a problem or meet a need, after that, the marketer needs to determine exactly who is the problem being solved for. The steps to making decisions follow in a similar way all the way till the product is on the market and being improved. I think the most important thing to remember is that as a marketer, or businessperson in general, you should always be trying to solve a problem. Once you have solved that problem, you should continue to try and solve it even better. Know how organizations search for new marketing opportunities and select target marketsOrganizations find new marketing opportunities by searching for unmet needs, uncompetitive markets, or problems that need better solutions. Target markets are selected by carefully analyzing the possible markets for the market the needs, wants, and will provide greatest level of acceptance. Selecting target markets is not easy, but it is essential. Marketers have to know these markets incredibly well so they may effectively reveal the value their product or service provides. I have really seen the value of solving problems by taking this course. No matter what area of business I land in, I hope I always look for valuable problems to solve. Explain how the marketing mix elements are blended into a cohesive marketing programMarketing mix elements create the general overview for successful marketing. When marketers expand and hone in on these marketing mix elements, they have effective tools to successfully bring a product onto the market. A cohesive marketing program includes the marketing mix elements, as well as specific techniques that focus on a cohesive plan. A cohesive plan incorporates values into its entirety. For example, Swipe-A-Load is made from sustainable manufacturing facilities, but its sustainability does not end with that. The product is recycled at the end of its use, ensuring sustainability beyond the product’s useful period. It is important that marketers address all aspects of a product or service to see that it adds value, contributes to solving the problem, and leaves no value opportunities unaddressed. Develop an understanding of the ethical and global issues facing people working in the marketing functionI have developed a wholesome understanding of the ethical and global issues facing marketers. Marketing impacts resource depletion, consumer spending, and many other issues which people all around the world are increasingly disapproving. Marketers are simply trying to do their jobs and earn a living. Marketers have discovered many successful ways to increase sales on virtually an product, but this occurs because consumers want these goods, these are not forced upon them. Marketers are facing increasing globalization, this is something that directly impacts how marketing is done. Marketers in many industries are discovering similarities and differences between cultures, all of which determining how a company does or does not need to further adapt to a market. Marketers will always be increasing the level of analysis and fine tuning they apply to their target markets. As emerging markets become available to current marketers, marketers must create value from the opportunities and issues which will arise. GrowthI finish this semester a much more knowledgeable and business-oriented individual. My growth this semester is attributed to having two jobs, multiple group projects, and this marketing class. I have found myself thinking in newer and more consistent ways. One thing I never thought I would gain from a marketing class is increased ability to think from other people’s perspectives. As a marketer this is an essential requirement of your job. Marketers must know how others perceive value, information, and everything else. I have found myself, in all types of situations, better able to see things as others are. This is something that helps me as a worker, student, friend, and family member. My understanding, and therefore problem solving, improves when I look at a situation from the perspective of who is actually experiencing that dilemma. When someone presents an issue to me, I now analyze what are the areas of value or lacking value for this person. I have applied this in a more creative way to a hobby of mine. I started a YouTube channel a bit before starting this course, but my few videos never got more than 40 views in three months, and few viewers were watching more than half of each video. These are dirt biking videos of my own adventures. I decided one day that I needed to reedit my videos and do something different. I decided I would create shorter videos with the content my target audience found valuable. I shortened the videos to include just technical trail sections, beautiful scenery, and crashes. My next two videos have gained over 150 views in the same time my previous videos could not reach 40. I learned any interaction with others demands that value be present from their perspective.One of my career goals is to hold a management passion in which I play a key role in measuring and/or improving the efficiency and value of either a market offering or the processes needed to produce it. This course has revealed to me how interconnected all departments, functions, and members of a firm really are, In such a position, I would not be meeting a quality standard set by my department, I would be meting the quality standards set by the expectations of our target market. These expectations would be discovered through the marketing department, which would be the source confirming that there was profit to be made from such quality levels. I always thought that solely accounting would determine profit figures, but really it is marketing which knows what prices, features, and qualities are value attributes to customers. I have decided that not only am I going to try and always see the functions of my job from the value perceptions of clients. In my future, I want to take the effort to discuss with the marketing members the value attributes most impacted by my area of work. I feel this would help me be a much better manager because I would know what production decisions would increase the relevant value attributes. Overall, this course has showed me that no matter what position I hold in the future, I must constantly assess how I may increase customer-perceived value. This course has taught me a great deal about human nature, especially the nature of our interactions. I learned that humans really do enjoy events that are entertaining. What I mean by this is that even when a group must be serious and really focused, ensuring an enjoyable setting and casual rapport goes a long way toward achieving cohesion. Twenty years ago, marketers would never believe consumers would seek out commercials after seeing them aired. With the emergence of Madison and Vine advertising, we have proved that humans respond well when slightly entertained or intrigued. I have noticed this in my group projects, which always seem to be more efficient when a balanced level of rapport is involved. When group meetings have lacked enthusiasm, I notice there is much less productivity. I am hoping to carry this observation to the position I have just been promoted to for August. I will be training people, and I believe that I will do best if I make it a slightly entertaining, intriguing, and exciting program. I think the reality is that we live in a very moment-by-moment society, which means there is value in creating entertainment within something intended for another purpose. I have learned so much about marketing and its roll in business. I first discovered in this class that marketing does not begin nor end at advertising and promotion. It is almost as if all market offerings start and end with marketing. This came as a surprise to me, I never really saw product ideas as a function of marketing. The more time I spend at CSUMB, the more I realize that major business functions never stand independent of other major business factors. I never realized how incredibly cohesive all departments and functions of a business must be. I know it may seem obvious, but courses like this one are what really make it clear to me that nothing in a business should just function within its own department. All business efforts need to sustain or improve the current standing of all the business departments and initiatives. Overall, I have a greater understanding of and appreciation for the value chain within any company. I hope this course helps me become the value-creating employee and then manager I wish to become in the future. ................
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