Economia aziendale

Marketing

In the past, companies were product- or sales-orientated, which means that everything started with the product itself. Nowadays, instead, companies are no longer product-orientated, but they are market-orientated or customer-orientated, which means that everything starts from the customers’ desires.

So, the potential customer becomes the centre of all the activities of an organisation. Business today is highly competitive because a lot of companies produce similar things and all of them want the consumer to buy their goods.

In order to be successful, a company has to develop a product that meets the needs and wants of consumers better than other products. That’s why marketing is so important. Marketing is a planning process that identifies, anticipates and satisfies customers’ requirements profitably. To understand exactly what the customer needs and wants, a company has to do market research.

Marketing steps

Marketing can be broken down into four main steps:

• Situation analysis: The situation is analysed to understand and anticipate customers’ needs and desires and to identify business opportunities.
• Marketing strategy: A marketing strategy is developed.
• Marketing mix decisions: Tactical decisions are made regarding the marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion).
• Implementation and control: The plan is implemented and the results are monitored.

Situation analysis

Market research is the study of market characteristics (for example age, income, attitudes, etc.) to obtain clear information about what consumers want or need. This analysis influences the production, the price, the distribution and the promotion of a product or service.

Methods of market research

There are 2 methods of market research:

• Primary or field research is carried out directly with consumers. It is a useful way of collecting up-to-date and relevant information about consumers’ needs, wants, attitudes and opinions, but it can be expensive and time-consuming. The research methods include the Internet, telephone or mail surveys, product testing and face-to-face discussions with consumer groups.
• Secondary or desk research uses existing information such as sales figures, statistics from official publications and market research reports. It is a useful way of examining the entire market and analysing future market trends. This type of research is cheaper than field research but the available data is not always relevant to a specific product and is sometimes out of date.

Marketing strategy: STP

An important aspect of the marketing strategy is the STP process. STP stands for Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. The STP process enables companies to examine the market as a whole and decide on who they are going to target within the market and what position their target or service will have in relation to other similar offers. The goal is to help the company develop and implement an appropriate marketing mix.

• The first step, market segmentation, is used to divide the market into smaller groups with similar characteristics, needs and wants. The market may be divided by factors such as age or gender, interest, lifestyle, for example, or other indicators, such as location or income.
• When you have created segments, it’s time to choose which is the most suitable for a company marketing program. This segment is known as the target market. So, the Target is a group of consumers who have common characteristics to which a specific product or service is intended.
• After a target market has been selected, a company has to consider how it wants the customers in that market to perceive their products or services in relation to their competitors’ offers. For example, they want consumers to think that their products are of high quality or are basic compared to other similar items. This stage is called positioning.

When a company has a clear idea for all these steps, it can start to think about specific aspects of marketing (for example price, placing and promotion) to develop an appropriate marketing mix.

The marketing mix

The marketing mix refers to the set of actions that a company uses to promote its product in the market. The 4Ps make up a typical marketing mix - Price, Product, Promotion and Place.

• The product is the most important factor in the marketing mix. Each product has elements that distinguish it from similar products, for example its design, shape, colour and size. Branding goods is another traditional and successful method of differentiation. A brand name is a trade name that can only be used by the company that has registered it. The brand name often helps sell a product, particularly when the name is well known, for example Coca Cola or Microsoft, because the consumer knows that this product is reliable or because it is loyal to this brand. Another important role is played by the packaging because on the one hand it distinguishes the product, but on the other hand it can contain a lot of information, for example the name of the product, the ingredients, the fair trade product, how to recycle the packaging, the expiry date, etc.
• The price of a product can depend on internal factors, such as the cost of production, raw materials, workers, machinery, etc., and external factors, such as the price of competing products on the market. External factors are often more important than internal factors because prices are set using market strategies which consider factors like supply and demand, the state of the economy and the amount of competition. The price is the most direct way a business can transmit the quality of its products. It can be used to reinforce the marketing campaign and to attract the selected target market.
• The (distribution) place relates to how a business sells its products. In order to do this, companies need to consider how and where the target market prefers to shop, whether that be in a traditional outlet or over the phone or via a catalogue or online.
• The Promotion is the way in which a company draws attention to itself and its products to make these known to consumers. Includes elements such as Advertising such as billboards, Public Relations and Sales Promotion.

The 4 Cs

The 4 Cs is a more consumer-oriented model of the marketing mix, taking into consideration the customer’s point of view. The four factors are consumer, cost, communication and convenience which focus on what consumers want or need, the costs they support, all the interactions with them and how and where they prefer to purchase the product or service.

The 4 Cs can be considered an important part of relationship marketing because the marketing strategy focuses on establishing a long-term relationship with customers instead of just concluding the sale, which is the goal of transactional marketing.

Branding

A brand is the idea of