If marketing doesn’t understand customers needs the company would loose customers because they were not satisfied. If customers are not satisfied they wouldn’t recommend the business to other people. To retain existing customers and to attract new customers marketing must find out what customers want and need in their life. Marketing encourages the production of products that people don’t need, so production does not make the products that are less likely to make sales. Products that don’t make much sales, brings company into loss. Products or services that don’t make sales are products that didn’t meet customers’ requirement.
Keeping ahead of competition
Keeping ahead of competition is really important to the business, because if competitors business does better than your, customer might switch to competitors business and you would loose customers. If you want to be successful, you have to make sure customers would like to go to your business, not the competitors. There are many different ways how businesses compete between each other.
Many businesses try to compete on price. They try to make costumer believe that they offer the cheapest products or services. Some of the businesses advertise their products or the company accenting the price of the products or services sold in the company. For example, TK maxx always advertises its company accenting the price of the products sold in the shop, so customers know that prices of the products sold in TK maxx are not very high. Other business that advertises its company accenting the price of the products is Fredge. They show customer and tell exact price of the product, so customers are more attracted to go to that shop. Argos uses a very good method of advertisement on TV. They explain customer why products are so cheap in Argos, they explain that because they don’t need to spend money on renting or buying the big shop where they could store all the products, they use catalogue instead. Catalogue cost less than to buy a shop, so that’s why the products are cheaper in Argos. Marketing found out that when customer hears about a cheap product, some of them might think that if product is cheap it has poor quality. So Argos decided to explain customers why the products are cheaper than anywhere else. They say it’s not because the quality is poor, it’s because we don’t need a big shop where we could store our products. Products come directly from the manufacturer to the customer.
All the businesses try to become more popular, so they attract more customers. Once a company becomes popular and well known, customers buy the products because it’s fashion. These days many people buy Nike clothes because of the Nike logo. It became very popular in young age people group. People buy Nike clothes not only because it’s good quality, but because it became fashion. Many companies try to compete on their company name. They try to make their logo popular so everyone would like to go to the business because it is well known.
Many businesses try to compete on excellent service. People want convenience, so marketing is trying to find out as many possible ideas to make customers life more convenient. That’s why know we can purchase our products online or from the catalogues. Many companies now have their products available online. Amazon.com is a very popular web site for buying books. Some of the products are difficult to buy online, such as clothes, shoes etc. because these products customer should try it on before buying, because in the picture it might look different, companies that sell clothes online might not make high profit, because most people like to try clothes to see if it fits them. Amazon.com sells books online, it’s a very good idea to make customers life more convenient, and customers can buy a book online, and see the descriptions of the book before they buy it.
Now most of the insurance companies are online businesses. They compete by advertising the website. On TV advertisement they say that the web site is really simple and easy to use, because they know why customers choose online service. They choose it because it’s more convenient, people want convenience. For example, confused.com has named its company to tell customers, if you are confused about your car insurance you can visit comfused.com web site because it easy and simple to get your insurance on this web site. Many online companies compete on their names of the web site. It should be as simple as it could be, so customers can remember it easily. More customers remember the web site more customer will visit it.
Marketing compete on the advertisement, they try to make advertisement very interesting, so customers would be attracted to buy products/services that business offers. Sometimes businesses can even create customers’ needs- they use marketing to create needs where none may have existed. For example, they advertise new product so well, that customers get attracted to the product and it becomes fashion to have it.
Companies try to compete on products; marketing found out that customers want smaller things. Companies compete on products, for example, Cannon produced a very small waterproof digital camera, if any other company wants to compete with Canon, they have to make a product which has more features than Canon waterproof digital camera.
One of the most important factors in market is strength of competition. The better you compete, more customers you will attract to your business because you make customers believe that your business can do better than competitors.
From time to time companies make different products to satisfy customers. If the new product is successful this will lead to a flurry of business activity as existing producers try to come up with rival versions.
Many marketers spend a lot of to find out what their competitors are doing. Finding out about competitors involves a considerable amount of research. They try to go into the company to get as much information as possible about the products competitors sell, services they offer etc. so they can think about what they could produce before their competitors do or what better they could do than their competitors do.
Communicating effectively with consumers
Every business must communicate with its customers. Even the best product, effectively distributed at the right price to the target market, may experience poor sales if the promotional support is ineffective. An effective network of communication is essential for any form of promotional activity. It enables the organization not only to communicate with customers and meet their expectation, but also to build an image with the world at large. Marketing uses the various tools to communicate with its customers, to meet their expectation.
Businesses use more and more modern technology to communicate with its customers; this is because new methods make communication:
- More reliable
- More targeted
- Quicker
- More convenient
Internet (World Wide Web)
Most of the organizations use internet to communicate with their customers. They use internet for many different purposes. Some businesses advertise their company of the internet; some do marketing research on the internet. Most of the companies have created web page for cutomers, so customer can log on to the web site and see what the company can offer for them, they can find there company’s contact details and many more information about the company. Customers can email to the company to ask some questions. For example, if you go to (it is Zara’s company’s web site) you would have to choose the country you are in. when you choose your country you can then see some of the products that Zara sells, also if the company has any vacancies at the moment, contact details the history of the company and etc.
The advantage to marketing of the web site is that they can do questionnaires, for example ask customer to answer some question by ticking yes or no. it’s easy for customer to do this kind of questionnaire, so most of the customer who visit the web site would answer few questions. They also could do a questionnaire before the customer really gets into the web site. Instead of the home page they could do an easy questionnaire and only when the customer answers few question can log on to the web site.
Many companies advertise online. For example, if you go to any web site you can see in the corner or at the top of the web site advert. If you click on the advert you would be able to go straight on the web site which was advertised online. Sometimes adverts online can be very aggressive, called aggressive marketing. If you click a link to any web site you might be greeted by a full-screen advertisement for any other web sites. Sometimes customers get adverts from the similar web sites they often use. There is a program called spam. Most search engines define spam as something website owners do in order to subvert the normal ranking guidelines. They can see on what web site pages customers often go to and they send aggressive adverts to the customers similar to the web sites customer visits. For example if you often go to poker web sites, you might get adverts encouraging you to visit some game web site, it might be other poker web site, similar to poker web site and etc. also there are other two kind of online marketing. One is called push marketing and the other is called pull marketing. Push marketing when companies advertise using flash banners, aggressive banners and other kind of adverts in order to attract more customers. Pull marketing is when customers go to the search engines to find the web site they are looking for. is one of the pull marketing web sites, customers can type in the word or phrase and they will get many web sites linked to the word or phrase they typed in. for example, if customer types in ‘tower hamlets college’ they will get the Tower Hamlets College web site and other web sites that got information about Tower Hamlets College.
The company also can see what customers are looking for once they get into the web site. They have a special system where they can see how many people clicked on ‘Contact details’ page, how many people clicked on ‘Products page’ etc. so the company can see what customers are interested in, and improve their service or products in order to meet customer expectations.
Many companies advertise using Emails. They find out what web sites you mostly visit and they send emails to you advertising their own company. Emails sometimes can be used for fraud. If you have ever received an email asking you to type in you pin code, you should never do this, because it’s fraud. Companies (even banks) should never ask you your pin number, because it’s your personal detail and no one else accepts you should know it.
TV
Most of the companies advertise on TV. They do it because, most people watch TV every day, it’s the easiest way to inform customer about new products or services. Advertisements on TV can be very successful, because marketing has many different ways how to attract customers through TV advertisement.
They can do very funny adverts, for example for kids. If kids would like the advert they would like to get the product which was advertised on TV. Kids like lots of bright pictures and nice funny music. Most of the kids’ adverts are bright musical and eye caching. If child likes an advert he/she would definitely ask mum/dad to buy a product that was advertised on TV.
When marketing advertises beauty products on TV such as shampoos, creams etc, they use science. They show customer what the product does for customer’s hair, skin; nails etc. for example, most of L’Oreal adverts say that the products are scientist proven. People believe in science, because science is fact and people believe in fact, because fact is true. Companies use science to make people believe that the product they sell is really good for customer.
Some companies advertise their products using peoples’ feeling. For example, match.com advertises its web site on TV using people’s feelings; they show how people enjoy each other when they find a right man/woman for them.
Most of the restaurants advertise the company on motorways. They advertise the restaurant of the posters, for example, 2 minutes drive to McDonald’s. McDonald’s restaurants mostly advertise on motorways, so if the driver is hungry he/she can stop to McDonald’s and have some food.
Many companies use leaflets to communicate with people, for example McDonald’s has a special leaflet where customers can write any complains or comments about the restaurant.
Using new technology
Marketing must use new technology in order to be successful in business. New technology is now considered by many marketing managers as a key marketing principle. This marketing principle only gained in importance in recent years. There are many different reasons why new technology is one of the marketing principles.
It provides a new worldwide channel of distribution. For example, there are some products that can be bought and delivered over the internet. For example, films, music Antivirus and other software. Customers can download the program from the internet once they have bought the permission to do that. They can buy films on the internet; however it would take some time to download it on your computer. For example, people can go to the Norton.com web site and download for free the antivirus program, but once customer has downloaded it, customer has to buy a license for a period of time he/she wants the antivirus to use. Some products witch have to be physically delivered to the customer, such as books, are also selling well. This is because the customers like conveniences, if they want to buy a book they don’t want to go out, they can buy it on the internet and it will be delivered to customers’ house. Amazon.com is one of the most popular web sites that sell books online. Book is something customer can buy without toughing it, however they want to know before they buy the book, what is it about, if it is a good book or not. What amazon.com did is they put customers’ reviews about the book, so customers can see if customers liked the book or not.
Many companies advertise using SMS or MMS messages via mobile phone. They send advertising messages to customers’ mobile phones. If you have few phones that you have bought recently, you will probably receive same messages from telephone companies offering you some special offers. This is because that marketing goes into different companies and they try to get customers’ details, so they can ‘still’ the customers from other companies.
As I said before, most of the advertisements are done using new technology. Advertisements on TV, online are all done by using new technology.
From all my researches that I’ve done, I can see that new technology helps other marketing principles to achieve the best customer service and to satisfy the customer. It would be much harder to understand customers’ needs, keep ahead of competition and to communicate effectively with customers if new technology wouldn’t be used.
All marketing principles are to help the business to satisfy the customers and to increase profit. Companies also want to satisfy shareholders/stakeholders. Marketing uses their principles in order to help the business to survive, increase profit and to become popular business.
Marketing Mix
Marketing mix is four main areas of marketing responsibility referred to as the 4 Ps: Product, Place, Price and Promotion. Product includes research and development, packaging, labeling and branding. Place would include all distribution activities. Price covers pricing, discounts and credit. Promotion includes personal selling, advertising etc. The product range and how it is used is a function of the marketing mix. The range may be broadened or a brand may be extended for tactical reasons, such as matching competition or catering for seasonal fluctuations. Alternatively, a product may be repositioned to make it more acceptable for a new group of consumers as part of a long-term plan.
Before buying the product customer always thinks about if the product is going to be useful for them. Marketing is responsible for finding out if the customer needs the product, if they are going to buy it or not. They are also responsible for creating the package for the product. Marketing does the research to find out what packaging customers need. The package should be comfortable to use, open and store. Marketing designs the labels for the product; they try to make eye caching labels, so customer more customers would buy it. Marketing designs the labels that present companies brand. For example, all Fuji packages are green and white, so customers can distinguish the product from other product in shelves. Marketing is responsible to make company’s brand or logo very popular so a ‘brand name’ establishes the product is the customer’s mind, e.g. Nike, Adidas. There are many decisions to be made on quantity, timing, quality, style, packaging and branding. Marketing decides how many products to produce, when they should reach shops shelves. What style customers want and etc.
Before buying the product customers look at the price, if it’s not too expensive for them. Marketing is responsible for finding out the right price for the product. Customers always want the lowest possible price, and the suppliers want the smallest possible price. Marketing must do the research to find out the equilibrium price, the price that customers would be prepared to buy and suppliers would be happy to sell the product at this price. Customers want discounts, for example, discounts for customers who often shop at the particular shop. Business customers are the customers who mostly want discounts, because they buy products in bulk.
Customers wouldn’t know about the product if it wouldn’t be advertised. Marketing is responsible for promoting the product, so customers know about the product and they can buy it. If the advertisement is successful the company will get higher profit. This is because of the different reasons for example, some people might buy a product only because, and they like the advert. Some people think that the product is going to be very useful to them. For example, kids often buy products because they like the advert, they think it’s funny and they want to try it.
Lastly customers want product to be available at all times. If they like the product, they want it to be available. Also they want fast service, for example delivery at your doors. Many people complain to Argos, because they have to want for the products to be delivered over a month. If customer bought the products, this means customer needs it as soon as possible.
Other marketing functions
These are the board areas of marketing activity that contribute towards the achievement of the marketing principles.
Establish a distinctive identity for a product or organisation.
There are very few unique products nowadays, so organisations develop brands to give themselves a distinct image in the market. Companies use brand names, logos, symbols, phrases that company use when they advertise its products. Something that customer would have an image of the product that company sells only when they see the logo of the company or they hear the phrase the company uses a lot. For example, all L’Oreal adverts use the phrase ‘you’re worth it’ so when customers hear this phrase they know its L’Oreal. Companies use they logo as an identity of the company, so when customers see the logo they know what that company is, what they sell etc. Nike is world wide known company, they use their logo as an identity of the company. Whenever customers see Nike tick, they know that this is a company that sells sports ware. McDonald’s is another world wide company. Customers can recognise that this is McDonald’s of its logo (big M) and the phrase they use in adverts (I’m love in it). When customers hear the phrase or they see the logo they start thinking about food, because they know it’s a company that sells food.
Many companies seek to create a corporate image in the market. If many people know your company’s logo that means the company is popular. Many companies try to make a character of a company and wishes to establish for itself in the minds of the public. They do this because, they want the company to be well know, so more customers would come to the business, as they know it’s well known, popular and recommended business.
Co-ordinate marketing activities effectively.
There are many different functional areas within the business.
- Human resource- dealing with employment, health and safety training etc.
- Administration- keeping files, sending emails, keeping records etc.
- Finance- deals with all the money coming in and out the company, paying staff wages, financing other functional departments.
- Production- making products
- Customer service- dealing with customer complains, after sales service.
- Marketing- responsible for advertising, promotion and marketing research.
All these functional departments must work effectively together to provide best customer service and to satisfy customers. The departments do many different activities, to satisfy customers, but they also communicate with each other and work for each other in order to attract more customers, increase profit and to satisfy customers. It is very important to plan marketing activities, so each department works effectively providing the best service.
Human resource department deals with employing the right staff for the company. They do the interviews for employees to make sure the employees will be productive to the company. Also they dismiss employees, if employees cannot do the work probably; if employees are not productive Human Resource department has to dismiss employees and to find new employees. If employees are not doing so well, Human Resource should do training for them, so employees can work more effectively. Human resource department deals with other departments when it comes to employing people, dismissal, training health and safety etc. for example, administration needs part time assistant to help on busy Christmas time. Administration department contacts HR, so HR can find the right person for to help Administration department to do the work better.
Administration department is responsible for keeping records. For example, marketing did research on customer needs. Administration department keeps all the records for reference.
Finance department deals with all the money coming in and out to the company. They support other functional areas. For example production department needs money for materials to make the product. Finance department provides production department money, so they can make the products. They pay wages for staff. Finance department finances marketing to do marketing research, for advertising and etc. the money received from Sales department for goods or services sold goes back to finance department, so finance department could pay wages, support other department financially.
Production department is responsible for making the products or service. Production department mostly deals with marketing. Marketing department does the marketing research to find put what customers need and then they go to production department to tell what they should make to increase sales. For example, marketing department of Cadburys’ Company did the marketing research and found out that customer need low calorie food. Marketing goes to production department and tells them that they need to do low calorie food.
Customer service department deals with customers complains, after sales service and etc. if customers are not happy about received customer service, customer service report that to marketing department, so marketing could find out what exactly customers are not happy about and solve the problem out.
Plan, co-ordinate and monitor the marketing mix
It is important to co-ordinate marketing mix, so company knows if there is a problem that dissatisfies customers and in what area the problem is. For example, if a customer likes the product but when he/she looks at the price they decide they not going to buy it, so then the problem is on the price. Marketing should reduce the price, so they sell more products. If customers often ask for a refund, that means there is something wrong with a product. It might be not poor quality, so those marketing should deal with production department to solve the problem and satisfy customers. If customer likes the product it’s not over their budget, but they cannot buy it because it’s not in stock, that means the problem is in place, because customers cannot get the product when they want it. If customers like the product, they are happy about the price of the product and it’s available at the shops, but the company still doesn’t make sales, the problem might be that customers are do not know about the product, so this means the problem is on promotion. If marketing effectively co-ordinates marketing mix, the company will increase profit, because co-ordinating marketing mix help marketing to define the problem quicker, so the company doesn’t loose many customers, because the problem is solved out quickly.
