In order to market your service, it is important that you tailor your efforts to a particular group of the population so that the people seeing your product/service will be the most likely to buy it. So it is very important that you first clearly identify who your customers are. This is not to say that people not in your target market will not buy your product-it is quite to the contrary. If you have a good product, the chances are high that almost anyone could be interested in it. However, your success will be greater if you market purposely to one group.
Retail
when a Company sells to a retailer whose salespeople then sells to the customer. Selling organically grown herbs to a local grocery store is an example of indirect sales.
Wholesale
This is when a company sells to a wholesaler or agent who sells products to retailers. The wholesaler most likely represents several companies.
Multi-level Marketing
This method is when products are sold to both directly to customers and to other sales people you have recruited to sell products.
These are the three methods of distribution:
Method 1
The producer is distributing the product directly to the consumer. However, this in only done with small businesses.
Method 2
The producer sells its goods to the retailer, who then sells to the consumer. This method is usually common with electrical goods.
Method 3
The producer sells to a wholesaler, who sells onto the retailer, who sells onto the consumer. A wholesaler buys goods in large quantities; generally in food sectors. Wholesalers deliver to retailers. Also trade credit card can be given.
Public relations
Public relations provide a service for the company by serving to give the public and the media a better understanding of how the company works. Within a company, public relations can also come under the title of public information or customer relations. These departments help customers if they have any problems with the company. They are usually the most helpful departments, as they exist to show the company at their best. With PR, a company does not pay the newspapers and TV channels for the media exposure it secures. PR also helps the company to achieve its full potential. They provide feedback to the company from the public. This usually takes the form of research regarding what areas the public is most happy and unhappy with.
Public relations can play an important role in achieving a competitive advantage by, for instance, opening new markets, attracting high quality employees, giving more access to funding and investors, creating a high value for products and services, and protecting businesses in times of crisis. All organisations, whether it’s local or international, big or small, they all benefit from public relations.
Good quality of PR is important for a successful business. Businesses will especially need this when their business gets bigger. The business community is a very social community so your own relationship with the people around you matters a lot. Bad PR can affect the reputation of your business; your personal reputation and the ability of your business to generate profit. Large companies hire PR people to do this. These people are hired to make sure that the business maintains good PR with its customers and the public. However, hiring people to handle public relations means you have to spend money; this is all good if you have a big business. You can hire a PR manager to take care of things for you and having a PR manager leaves you free to do more important things.
Promotion
A business' total marketing communications programme is called the promotional mix and consists of a blend of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public relations tools.
Promotion uses a range of methods to reach a targeted audience with a certain message in order to achieve particular organizational objectives. Nearly all organizations, whether for profit or not for profit, in all types of business, they must engage in some form of promotion. Promotion is also about how you present the product.
1) Advertising
Advertising is a 'paid for' communication. It is used to grow attitudes, create awareness, and spread out information in order to gain a response from the target market. There are many advertising media such as newspapers local, national, free, trade, magazines and journals, television local, national, terrestrial, satellite cinema, outdoor advertising such as posters, bus sides.
Within this purpose there may be a range of advertising objectives. For example:
Promoting goods and services
-To assist with selling.
-To increase sales.
-to develop awareness of new products or developments to existing products
-to provide information that may assist with selling decisions
-to encourage a desire to own a product
-To generate enquiries.
Developing the image of the organisation
-to provide information for a target audience
-to soften attitudes
-to assist with public relations activities
-to change views
-to provide a better external environment
-to develop support from a community
Advertising is often classified under one of three headings:
- Informative advertising, this gets across information and raises consumer awareness of the features and benefits of a product. It is often used in the introductory phrase of the product life- cycle or after change.
- Persuasive advertising is concerned with creating a desire for the product and interesting purchase. It is used with recognized and more mature products.
- Reinforcement advertising, is concerned with reminding consumers about the product, and is used to reinforce the knowledge held by likely consumers about the benefits to be gained from purchase.
Advantages: Good for building awareness, effective at reaching a wide audience, repetition of main brand and product positioning helps build customer trust.
Disadvantages: Impersonal - cannot answer all a customer's questions, it’s not good at getting customers to make a final purchasing decision.
(2) Personal Selling
Personal Selling is a useful way to run personal customer relationships. The sales person acts on behalf of the organization. They tend to be well trained in the approaches and techniques of personal selling. However sales people are very expensive and should only be used where there is a real return on deals. For example salesmen are often used to sell cars or home improvements where the margin is high.
Advantages: Highly interactive - lots of communication between the consumer and seller, Excellent for communicating complex / detailed product information and features, relationships can be built up; important if closing the sale make take a long time.
Disadvantages: Costly - employing a sales force has many hidden costs in addition to wages; this is not suitable if there are thousands of important consumers.
(3) Sales Promotion
Sales promotion tend to be thought of as being all promotions apart from advertising, personal selling, and public relations; for example the BOGOF promotion, (Buy One Get One Free).
There are many different types of sales promotion:
- Dealer loads, are in between the inducements to attract orders from retailers and wholesalers. They may include a free case with so many cases bought. For example, thirteen for the price of twelve is known as a breaker’s dozen.
- Competitions, may interest dealers and consumers. For dealers they may be linked to sales with attractive prizes for the most successful dealer. Scratch cards, free draws and bingo cards are popular promotional methods for consumers.
- Promotional gifts such as bottle of spirits, clocks, watches or diaries are considered as being useful to encouragement dealers.
- Price reductions and special offers are usually popular with consumers. They can however, prove expensive as many consumers would otherwise have been prepared to pay the full price.
- Premium offers may offer extra product for the same price. Coupons which offer money off or money back may also be attractive incentives for consumers. These may appear in magazines, be distributed door to door or appear on the side of a pack.
- Charity promotion can be popular with younger consumers, who collect box tops or coupons and send them to a manufacturer, which then makes a donation to charity.
- Loyalty encouragements, are today in increasingly used form of sales promotion. Dealer’s loyalty might be rewarded with bigger discounts, competition and prizes, or they might even have their names published as stockists in advertisements. For consumers, loyalty incentives such as loyalty cards and points may provide cash back, free gifts or a variety of other tangible benefits.
Advantages: Can stimulate quick increases in sales by targeting promotional reasons on particular products, good short term planned tool.
Disadvantages: If used over the long-term, customers may get used to the effect; too much promotion may damage the brand image.
(4) Publicity
The communication of a product, brand or business by placing information about it in the media without paying for the time or media space directly, or else known as public relations.
Advantages: It is more convincing when the message seems to be coming from a third party example: magazine, newspaper, and cheap way of reaching many customers - if the publicity is achieved through the right media.
Disadvantages: there is a high risk of losing control; it’s difficult to always control what other people write or say about your product.
(5) Sponsorship.
Sponsorship is where an organization pays to be associated with a particular event, cause or image. Companies will sponsor sports events such as the Olympics or Formula One. The quality of the event are then associated with the sponsoring organization.
(6) Trade Fairs and Exhibitions.
Such approaches are very good for making new contacts and renewing old ones. Companies will rarely sell much at such events. The purpose is to increase awareness and to encourage trial. They offer the opportunity for companies to meet with both the trade and the consumer.
(7) Direct Mail.
Direct mail is very highly focused upon targeting consumers based upon a database. As with all marketing, the possible consumer is clearly based upon a series of quality and similarities. Creative agencies work with marketers to design a highly focused communication in the form of a mailing. The mail is sent out to the potential consumers and responses are carefully monitored. For example, if you are marketing medical text books, you would use a database of doctors' surgeries as the basis of your mail shot. It is estimated that consumer’s direct mail generates nearly £27 billion worth of business every year.
(8) Broadcast media
Broadcast media involves commercial television and commercial radio. Television is the most powerful medium-reaching 98% of households- and viewing figures for some programmers’ can go above 20 million. However, Television advertisements are expensive and advertising messages are short-lived; meaning that they are not remembered and recognized too often.
(9) Printed media
This type of group consists if all newspapers and magazines, both local and national, as well as trade press periodicals and professional journals. They allow the advertiser to send a message to several million people through the press or to target magazines of special interest such as business education today, which allows the advertiser to communicate with people in the teaching profession. As a result, the media allows for accurate targeting and positioning. The advantage of printed media is that long or complex messages can be sent and, as the message is durable, may be read repeatedly. If an advertisement appears in a prestige magazine it may take on the standing of that particular publication.
The roles of the following departments:
Marketing department must act as a guide and lead the company's and other departments in developing, producing, fulfilling, and servicing products or services for their customers. Marketing is not just about sales, promotion or market research. It creates a base for an organization’s business plan, which then affects the entire organization. Marketing must also work with promotion and operations to be aware that the range, choice, needs and requirements of costumers are met. It needs to make sure that the finance department invests in promotional activities and other activities that help to communicate products and services to customers.
The finance department is responsible for keeping track of all the records, such as sales and capital spending at a business; meaning spending for long term advantages such as, equipment, factories, more goods and services. Managers need the most present information to build the greatest choices for their departments. The finance department has a responsibility to provide them with the most correct and sensible information possible. This would include information such as costs to produce a product. Finance departments are a key part in all organisations besides business, such as universities, charities and governments. Marketing departments must work within the budget particularly by the finance department and this can often state the type of marketing activates a company will use. The amount of money owed to marketing a product may depend on the amount of income a product is likely to make. For instance, coca-cola may spend millions on sponsorship, televisions and radio to promote their products while a smaller company may only spend thousands to market their orange juice.
- Customer service department
For customers the quality of customer service decides whether to buy, and mainly whether to remain a customer. Therefore customer service is very important in the business sector and for any organisation. Gradually more organisations are now becoming very customer focused and adding more value to their goods by focusing upon developing relationships with customers through the quality of customer service. Feedback is needed for customer service, to the marketing and production functions to ensure that customer needs are fully met.
Production and planning department sets standards and targets, to the required quality level, at the clear quality cost, for each section of the production process.
Production is the area responsible for turning inputs into finished outputs through a chain of . The person that is responsible for making sure that raw materials are provided and made into finished goods effectively is the Production Manager. He or she must make sure that work is carried out smoothly, and must run procedures for making work more capable and more enjoyable.
- Research and Development department
Research and development has an important role in the innovation process which is increasingly very important to present and future profits for UK companies. It marks in the technology that brings new products and services to the market place. Innovation results in high quality jobs, successful businesses, better goods and services and more well-organized processes. International research has consistently demonstrated the positive connection between R&D investment strength and company performance measures such as sales growth and share price in the sectors where R&D is important. Businesses are in a better position to achieve and maintain competitive advantage in the increasingly global market place with constant R&D and other related investment at the right levels. For instance, Sony and Nintendo are competitors in the highly well-paid games market. Millions of pounds are invested in research and development and testing with key markets before a games console can be produced and sold to consumers. However, research and development requests significant support from finance to make sure that good quality development can take place. Researchers also need to work with operations to find out whether new product developments can be manufactured at an capable cost as well as meeting customer service needs. Demand
- Quality assurance department
Quality for most people is an issue to be discussed and argued; the reason for this is because many people argue that quality is one of the major factors in formative order for many goods and services as consumers often search for quality rather than value. The quality assurance department has a massive influence upon how well marketing objectives are met, by trying to ensure that the quality of products or services meet customer expectations. However, if quality is poor, the reputation and customers view about the organisation will dip. So, this could influence an organization’s market position and would cause to lose business competitors. The work of QAD is focused, firstly, on preventing the claims from customers. In case of receiving such claims on quality of provided products and services, the department starts searching the reasons and effects of the given away difference. Quality Assurance means the conclusion of a project in agreement with the previously agreed conditions and functionality required without faults and possible problems.
- Human resources department
Those who work in Human Resources are not only responsible for hiring and firing, they also handle contacting job references and administering . Human Resource Management (HRM) is the purpose within an organization that focuses on recruitment of, management of, and providing direction for the people who work in the organization. Human Resource Management can also be performed by line managers. Human Resource Management is the organizational function that deals with issues related to people such as compensation, hiring, performance management, organization development, safety, wellness, benefits, employee motivation, communication, administration, and training.
- Administration and ICT department
Information and communication technology have a huge impact upon how well customer needs are met. If a major system decreases, it possibly will be difficult for the organisation to process a payment or provide a customer with appropriate access to information. Increasingly, as e-commerce and e-business activities have a larger power upon supplying goods and services for customers in the right place at the right time, information and communication technology activities have become all more critical. All of the departments listed below are likely to be related in more than one way through a range of information technologies. For instance, they may all be accessing the same system and be able to see what orders are on the order book and how that relates to operational needs over the next few weeks. For human resources this might mean employing more people; for operations it could mean greater selections and choice in meeting customer needs; and for quality assurance it might mean looking at procedures that help operations produce larger batch runs with greater efficiency and with better quality.
Coca-Cola is the most recognized trademark in the world; the Company's portfolio includes 12 other billion dollar brands, including Diet Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Coca-Cola Zero, glaceau vitamin water, PowerAde, Minute Maid, Georgia Coffee, Oasis, Lilt, Schweppes, Dr Pepper, Kia Ora and 5alive. Globally, it is the No. 1 provider of sparkling beverages, juices and juice drinks and ready-to-drink teas and coffees. Through the world's largest beverage distribution system, consumers in more than 200 countries enjoy the Company's beverages at a rate of 1.5 billion servings a day. With an enduring commitment to building sustainable communities, the Company is focused on the plans that protect the environment, save resources and improve the economic development of the communities where they operate.
The Coca-Cola Europe Group employs approximately 1,600 Company associates who work with European bottler employees numbering more than 60,000 strong. Approximately one third of the Company team of 1,600 provides shared services for all of the Europe Group and beyond and manages group-wide resources, while 12 business units, consisting of one to four countries each, execute plans at the local market level.
Coca Cola Company spends millions on advertising each year. Its campaigns are legendary. John Pemperton, the inventor of coca cola, advertised it in the Atlanta journal 29th of May 1886. He labelled it as "delicious" "refreshing" "exhilarating" and "invigorating".
Coca-Cola is a sold in stores, restaurants, and internationally.
In an oligopoly, there are at least two firms controlling the market. Coca cola is one of the companies that dominate the same market. Such as Pepsi, coca cola zero, Pepsi max. The world’s soft drink market is dominated by two players; Pepsi cola and coca cola.
The image below indicates that coca cola is more popular and is sold more in markets than Pepsi. They have been successful throughout their existence because of their names and their ability to promote their products.
is usually second to Coke in sales, but outsells Coca-Cola in some markets. Around the world, some local brands compete with Coke.
New Coke
Coca Cola is responsible for one of the biggest blunders in marketing - New Coke. In 1985 New Coke came out because in blind taste tests, people preferred Pepsi to Coke. The revelation was startling and Coca Cola decided that it was time to change their formula to make it sweeter like Pepsi. After months of tweaking the formula, doing blind taste tests, research and changing their packaging, New Coke was launched.
In taste testing a new Coke method, Coca Cola Company used three different methods, which it tested against traditional Coke and Pepsi.200, 000 consumers took the test, however, only 30,000 or 40,000 actually tasted the new formula which was at last introduced. In addition, most consumers were not informed what they tasted; meaning that most consumers simply had no idea that their preferences were helping the Coca Cola Company to decide whether it should introduce a new formula for Coke. If informed of the full ramifications of their preferences- in other words, a vote for new Coke also meant choosing to get rid of the old, standard Coca Cola – perhaps many consumers, moved by an emotional attachment to the familiar drink, would have registered a preference for the old Coke. As the taste tests were constructed, however, a majority of consumers, about 53% versus 47% who tasted both the old and new Coke liked the New Coke better than the original formula. This result was apparently instrumental in the company’s decision to use this new formula and replace the old one. Besides conducting the taste tests, the company also surveyed a different set of consumers to see whether or not they favoured the Coke change.
Primary Research is research used to collect data for a specific task. Types of primary data collection methods include:
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Personal Observation: The observation of the respondent by a trained observer or by electronic equipment, such as camera. The aim is to observe consumer responses and behaviour to a product or customer service.
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Personal Interviews: Face to face interview between an interviewer and the respondent at home or in shopping centres.
- Questionnaires
To collect primary data a business must carry out field research. The main methods of field research are:
Face-to-face interviews – interviewers ask people on the street or on their doorstep a series of questions. Face to face discussions are a direct way of finding out relevant information.
Telephone interviews - similar questions to face-to-face interviews, although often shorter.
Online surveys – using email or the Internet. This is an all the time a popular way of gathering primary data and much less costly than face-to-face or telephone interviews.
Questionnaires – sent in the post for example a customer feedback from sent to people who have recently bought a product or service.
Focus groups and consumer panels – a small group of people meet together and who asks the panel to examine a product and then asks questions. This method is often used when a business is planning to introduce a new product or brand name.
In most cases it is not possible to ask all existing or possible customers the questions that the business wants answering. Therefore, primary research makes use of surveys and sampling to get suitable results.
The main advantages of primary research and data are that it is:
- Up to date.
- Specific to the purpose – asks the questions the business wants answers to.
- Collects data which no other business will have access to (the results are confidential).
- In the case of online surveys and telephone interviews, the data can be obtained quite quickly
The main disadvantages of primary research are that it:
- Can be difficult to collect or take a long time to collect.
- Is expensive to collect.
- May provide false results if the sample is not large enough or chosen with care; or if the questionnaire questions are not worded properly.
Primary research delivers more specific results than secondary research, which is an especially important thought when you're launching a new product or service. Besides primary research is usually based on statistical methodologies that involve sampling as little as 1 percent of a target market. This tiny sample can give an accurate demonstration of a particular market.
Secondary Research is based on information taken from studies previously performed by government agencies, chambers of commerce, trade associations, and other organizations. This includes Census Bureau information and Nielsen ratings. A census is the process of gathering information about every member of a population. It can be contrasted with sampling in which information is only obtained from a subset of a population.
For example, if you ran your own business, you would be interested in the state of the UK economy for marketing and other purposes. It would however be very difficult to conduct your own survey to find out about the economy, you would therefore have to rely on information compiled by other people i.e. Secondary data.
Another source of secondary data is that businesses often use is to look at company accounts. The marketing department may use their company accounts to check the sales figures, as these have been compiled and produced by the company accountants the data is secondary to the marketing department. There may be other reasons for looking at company accounts, for instance looking at the accounts of competitors, suppliers or business customers.
Every department within an organisation will have its own records that represent a potential source of valuable data. For instance, records of past advertising campaigns within the marketing department can be compared with copies of invoices held in the sales department in order to judge their effectiveness and get ideas for future campaigns. Past sales figures can also be used to spot trends and forecast future figures
Rival product Price Store
Pepsi 55p Asda
Tango £1.00 Tesco
Fanta Twist 38P Morrison’s
Sprite 32P Asda
Lilt 55P Sainsbury’s
7UP 60P Corner shop
KA 55P Corner shop
Lucozade 78p Asda
Ginger Beer 38p Tesco
Ting 38p Asda
Rubicon 59p Tesco
Coca Cola 32p Asda
Sampling, is the way in which a business chooses who will answer their primary research questions.
Random sampling gives everybody an equal chance of being chosen. This is beneficial for product sold in mass market that everyone buys. This is the ideal choice as it is a ‘perfect’ random method. Using this method, individuals are randomly selected from a list of the population and every single individual has an equal chance of selection.
This method is ideal, but if it cannot be adopted, one of the following alternatives may be chosen if any shortfall in accuracy
Quota sampling is when you take a selection of the population. Example teenagers, men, children, women. In quota sampling the selection of the sample is made by the interviewer, who has been given quotas to fill from specified sub-groups of the population. For example, an interviewer may be told to sample 50 females between the age of 45 and 60.
Stratified Sampling is when you target a specific market; questions are only asked to those in that particular market. A stratified sample is constructed by classifying the population in sub-populations (or strata), base on some well-known characteristics of the population, such as age, gender or socio-economic status. The selection of elements is then made separately from within each section, usually by random or systematic sampling methods.
Snowball Sampling, this is when a business struggles to get consumers to answer their questionnaire they will ask a few questions and ask those consumers to ask their friends and families.
