Unit 4 Various Elements of Marketing Principles Assignment

Program	Diploma in Business (Marketing)
Unit Number and Title	Unit 4 Various Elements of Marketing Principles
QFC Level	Level 5

Introduction

It is important to understand the meaning of marketing, marketing orientation and marketing process. Analysis of marketing environment factors are necessary because it is important to know about the micro and macro environmental factors that affects an organisation. Instead of this, to know about market segmentation is also important so that an organisation can identify and specify its target market segment. People have different buying behaviour as well as different purchasing power, so according to that only they can buy things according to their taste and preference.

Both marketing mix and extended marketing mix are important for an organisation to understand the product life cycle, new product development, promotion mix etc. Marketing mix helps an organisation to understand about customer’s needs and satisfying the same by providing them quality products and services. There is a difference between marketing of product and marketing of services as both are different in nature.

Task 1

1.1 Explain the various elements of the marketing process.

Marketing refers to a process that includes social and managerial activities by that an individual or a group of individual can satisfy their needs by the createand exchange of value and products with others. the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large. The marketing era has emerged at the time when marketing concept was accepted by the people. It was assumed that the motive behind a business is to satisfy customer’s needs. An organization should understand the needs of its target market and deliver the desired products or services to them in order to satisfy their wants in an effective way than the competitors so that they can improves the well- being of consumer and society. There are some limitations of marketing concept-

• It is difficult to determine the needs and wants of the customer because of complex human behavior.(Milligan, 2012)
• It is not necessary that satisfaction of consumer’s needs shows good heath of an organization.
• It mainly emphasizes on needs of the customer of the target segment that result in causing harm to other market segments.

Marketing process contains many steps. Firstly it is important to scan the environment so that an organization can get  information and knowledge  about the expectations of the customers. It is known as marketing audit. Companies conduct many types of research to know about consumer behavior. Market has been divided into segments, once the market analysis has been done in consideration to all the environmental factors, marketing objectives etc. Market analysis also involves SWOT analysis that describes the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats of an organization. Segmentation refers to a process in which the large market has been divided in segments i.e. smaller groups according to their demographic, psychographic and behaviouralistic factors.(Malhotra, 2010) Marketing mix is considered at the time of segmentation as it defines all the angles related to a product. After segmentation, an organization selects the market segment, which it wants to target. In the process of targeting, all the market segments are analyzed as per the pre-defined criteria and according to it, an organization selects the target segment which can give it more profits and customer satisfaction. Product positioning strategy has been selected according to the features. It creates an image of the product in customer’s mind. The selected strategy should be in accordance with organizational goals and market conditions.(Diller and Ivens, 2006)

1.2 Evaluate the benefits and costs of a marketing orientation for a selected organization.

Marketing orientation means the reaction of a business in accordance with customer’s needs and how they satisfy the same. There is a high level of competition in the market and it creates an importance for an organization to maintain its position so that it can meet with the requirements of the customers by providing them goods and services of best quality.

Marketing orientation includes-

• Production- It involves the integration of resources that results in affordable and quality products that possess a capability to satisfy needs of customers.
• Product – A product can be a tangible good or an intangible service that have a capability to satisfying the needs of customers.
• Selling – Consumers will buy product or service of a company when a company puts efforts in selling and promoting the same.Selling refers to the efforts by which an organization can make their product saleable.(Pike, 2008)
• Marketing- Marketing includes activities undertaken by an organization that are related to buying and selling a product or service. It is a wide term that includes advertising, selling and providing goods to people.
• Social responsibility- Social responsibility refers to an ethical framework that describes that an organization has an obligation to do some acts for the benefits of society.

It is important to know about consumer buying behavior to maintain a standard of products and services because it has a changing nature. Relationship marketing is a process that helps an organization to maintain a healthy relationship with the organization that leads in retention of customers. It includes providing customer care services, after sale services etc. It is the responsibility of an organization to resolve customer’s issues and provide them necessary guidance and services.(Lin, 2013)

Sainsbury incurs many costs in order to maintain a standard of its product and services. It spends on conducting several researches in order to know about the change in customer’s needs and expectations. There is an increase in sales as well as in marketing share of Sainsbury because they are spending a high amount on business development by providing services like online ordering etc. By having a proper marketing orientation, Sainsbury can have many opportunities for introducing new product and service because there is a less chance of failure. As per marketing orientation, they are serving products as per the needs of the customer and due to this; the product can survive for a long time period and can make high profits.(Kerin, 2006)

Task 2

2.1 Show macro and micro environmental factors which influence marketing decisions.

Business decisions and operations of Sainsbury are affected by environmental factors. Macro factors include legal, social, technological, economic, political, and cultural factors. Sainsbury has highly affected by economic and socio-cultural factors because there is no control over these factors. Christmas and New Year are considered as the best time to attract customer according to Sainsbury. For these two occasions, Sainsbury has adopted different strategies and tools to attract more and more customers. The socio- cultural factors that create an impact on Sainsbury are size of population, cities, regions, age distribution, education level, household patterns etc.(Pushparanjan, 2009)

Micro environmental factors that effects the operations of Sainsbury are consumers, employees, suppliers and substitute products effects. There are suppliers that supply goods to Sainsbury like vegetable supplier, grocery supplier, labour supplier etc. It is important for every organisation to maintain a healthy relationship with the suppliers and maximize bargaining power to sustain in this competitive market. Employees are the human resources that contribute their skills in order to achieve organisational goals and objectives. So, it is important to create a good organisational culture so that employees can work in an effective way. Porter’s five forces model provides guidance to Sainsbury to cope up with micro environmental factor. It includes-(Misiura, 2006)

• Industry rivalry- It refers to the competitors within the same industry and offering the same products and services.
• Threat of substitutes- It means a situation, when customers adopt a substitute product instead of the actual product they need due to any reason.
• Threat of new entrants- It means the new players entering in the market.
• Bargaining power of supplier- It means the power of supplier to increase price and decrease quality of the goods when there is a high demand.(Kerin, 2006)
• Bargaining power of customers- When customers have the power to decide that which product they want that offers them high quality and charges low cost.

2.2 Propose segmentation criteria to be used for products in different markets.

Growth of an organization is totally depends upon the needs and wants of the customers. So, it is important to categorize customers according to their buying behavior and purchasing power. This is known as segmentation.(Milligan, 2012) For example: Sainsbury is going to introduce its latest cloth range in the market that is for every age group and for male and female both.(Pushparanjan, 2009) Segmentation helps Sainsbury to segment the customers according to their homogenous characteristics and needs so they can provide services to them according to their requirements. They have to segment the market on geographic and demographic basis where market is segmented as per age, location and gender. According to the age, it can segment the market in four groups i.e. kids, youngsters, professionals and aged people.(Lin, 2013)

2.3 Choose a targeting strategy for a selected product/service.

Target Marketing refers to a strategy in that market is segmented into segments and then an organization can put efforts only towards the market segments to which it wants  (Pike, S. 2008)to serve its product or services. When market segmentation has been done, an organization can focus on targeting its customers. It is important to focus on the selected market segment. Before targeting, it is necessary to find out necessary information about customers. The main reason behind targeting is to find out the desired customer group to whom the organization wants to serve.(Malhotra, 2010) There are three types of targeting strategies-

• Undifferentiated- This strategy is for everyone. It includes sending same promotional message to each type of customer.
• Differentiated- It includes creating more than one promotional message that communicates benefits to different segments.
• Concentrated- It includes sending a message that describes the benefits to just one segment.

2.4 Demonstrate how buyer behavior affects marketing activities in different buying situations

It is a difficult task to understand consumer behavior, their thinking and purchasing criteria. At the same end it is necessary to understand all these things to sustain in this competitive environment. An organization can understand the buying pattern or buying behavior of customers according to their previous purchase records so that an organization can develop its strategies, policies and product according to that. Behavior of a customer is influenced by some personal as well as social factors. Personal factors that affect customer’s buying decisions are age, income, lifestyle etc. Every person buys products according to his capability and preference.(Pike, 2008)

Social factor that affects customer’s behavior includes traditions, customs, values and recommendations from family and friends. Likewise in terms of latest clothing range, behavior of kids is affected by their thinking and behavior of youngsters is depends upon the prevailing fashion and trend. They have a changing buying behavior. For aged people, behavior is affected as per their comfort ability and convenience factors.(Kerin, 2006)

2.5 Propose new positioning for as selected product/service.

Positioning refers to change in the perception of customers in reference to a particular brand as per their competitive brand. The aim of market positioning is to set a clear and unique position of a brand in customer’s mind. It is a technique to position a product or service in the market. For e.g. Sainsbury want to position its latest ranges of clothes in the market. So, firstly it is important to clear the benefits and the uniqueness of his brand in comparison to other brands. Like Sainsbury has providing clothing range for each age group. So according to it, Sainsbury have to create strategies to position its products in the minds of all target groups i.e. customers of every age group.(Milligan, 2012)

For positioning the kids wear range, Sainsbury need to connect children through cartoon characters or superheroes. For youth, they can choose a celebrity to influence them as they can easily influence by celebrities and for professionals, Sainsbury can use social websites and company websites as usually they are very busy and they prefers to shop online instead of going to brand stores. (Sarli and Baharun, 2013)

Task 3

3.1 Explain how products are developed to sustain competitive advantage.

A product refers to goods and services that have a capability to satisfy needs of customers. A product can be of many types like medicine, eatables, cosmetics etc. A person can get a product in exchange of some value.(Diller and Ivens, 2006)

Product mix consists of the product lines a company is offering to its clients. There are four parts of product mix-

• Width- It is the number of product lines which an organization offers, if anorganization is offering two products, then it is said that its product mix width is short. Businesses with small capital mostly have a short width of its product mix.
• Length- It means the number of total products a company is providing.
• Depth- Depth refers to different variations exists in a product. It can be according to size, flavor, quality etc. (Misiura, 2006)
• Consistency- It describes the closeness between two product lines in terms of use, distribution etc.

Product life cycle refers to the product’s life and stages involved in it. Product life cycle creates an impact on marketing mix as demand of a product depends upon its stage of product life cycle and according to it all the strategies of marketing mix has been developed.

It is important for every organization to have the sustainable competitive advantage. Competitive advantages helps an organization to remain sustain and competitive in the market. It is important for an organization to conduct a proper research for getting proper knowledge about the competitors and customers. A company can take many advantages by new product development and by giving better products or services to the society. An organization should understand the technological advancements, government regulations and changing needs of the customers. Like Sainsbury can get a competitive advantage by  decision making  their clothes of better quality as people in UK focuses more on the product quality rather than it price.(Pushparanjan, 2009)

3.2 Explaining how distribution is arranged to meet customer convenience requirements.

Location plays a vital role for making a product or a service successful. It is necessary to make a product easily available to the target group of customers. Every organization has its distribution system that consists of different channels and intermediaries. It is necessary to select an appropriate channel so it can be easily accessible for customers to acquire it and as a result company’s revenue can be increased. There are three distribution strategies that companies uses.

• Intensive- It is related to cover the market by utilizing all available outlets. It is used when a customer has so many brands in front of him and he has to choose one.(Sinkovics and Ghauri, 2009)
• Selective- It includes selected outlets in a particular geographic area for selling products. It is used when customers prefers a particular brand.(Micheaux, 2000)
• Exclusive- It refers to a strategy in which a single wholesaler, single retailer or distributor handles a particular geographic area. It is used when an organization distributes its product by one or two main outlets.(Malhotra, 2010) Exclusive strategy should be used by Sainsbury as its clothes are available at its outlets and online websites only. It should connect more and more customers through website and can know about their needs and demands for providing products according to them.

3.3 Explaining how prices are set to reflect an organization’s objectives and market conditions.

Meaning of price is the exchange value of a product. There is a proper process of setting price and it is important to follow it-

• Objectives identification
• Calculate an initial price
• Set adjustments on standard price
• Calculate promotional price
• Assess payment options

There are four kind of marketing strategy that an organization can adopt-

• Penetration pricing- In refers to setting low price in reference to increase sales and market share.
• Skimming pricing- It refers to set a high price in the starting and then slow down the same so that the product will be available to a large market.
• Competitive pricing- It means to set price in comparison to competitors.
• Product line pricing- It means to set different pricing for the products belongs to same product range.(Sarli and Baharun, 2013)
• Bundle pricing- When two or more products are bundled and offered as one. In bundle pricing, an organization sets a low price for the bundle.
• Premium pricing- It means high prices for exclusive services.(Lin, 2013)
• Psychological pricing- In this, the seller sets a price according to his psychology related to price within the market.
• Optional pricing- It is used when an organization offers optional products with the main product so that it can maximize the turnover.(Micheaux, 2000)
• Cost plus pricing- It means to set a cost by adding production cost and profit that a company wants to earn.
• Cost based pricing- It is same as cost plus pricing but it considers other market factors too while setting prices.
• Value based pricing- It is based upon the value of the product rather than the production costs involved in this.

Competitive pricing strategy is suitable for Sainsbury in reference to its new product. By adopting this strategy, Sainsbury can achieve a leading position in the market. Sainsbury has decided the prices in accordance with the income level of people. For a market that is price sensitive, it should adopt low cost pricing strategies.

3.4 Illustrate how promotional activity is integrated to achieve marketing objectives.

Promotional activities are used to create awareness and an image of the product in customer’s mind. It is necessary for an organization to communicate with the customers in an effective way so that a clear picture of the product can be delivered to them. There is a proper integrated communication process required to be followed by every organization.(Kerin, 2006)

There are five promotional mix elements by which an organization can market its product-

• Advertising
• Publicity
• Sales promotion
• Direct marketing
• Personal selling

Marketing objectives can be achieved by adopting push and pull strategies. Push strategy refers to take the product directly to the customer so that he can become aware about the product. It includes trade shows, packaging design etc. Pull strategies means to motivate customers to seek out a brand in an active process. Promotional strategies used by Sainsbury are advertising, personal selling and sales promotion. (Sinkovics and Ghauri, 2009)

• Advertisement strategy refers to the combination of place and price in that a company advertises its product and describe its price and location that where the same can be available.
• Personal selling is a combination of price and promotion because in this strategy a salesman tries to sell the product on the basis of its price.
• Sales promotion is the integration price, product and place as it works to achieve goals and objectives of the organization.(Malhotra, 2010)

Analyse the additional elements of the extended marketing mix.

Marketing mix includes existing 4 P’s and additional 3 P’s. Extended marketing mix includes-

• People- It includes the human resources that are working for an organization. It is important to recruit right people and provide them trainings so as to achieve organizational objectives. They are the people who directly deal with the customers. It includes customer care representative, service man, sales people etc.
• Physical evidence- It is important to know that how a product is presented to the customers including its surroundings. It involves the behavior of customer care representative, his way to greet etc.(Sinkovics and Ghauri, 2009)
• Process- It refers to a process that includes customer service, complaint handling, resolving issues etc. It creates a confidence in customer’s mind when he buys a product, if all these things are clearly defined.

Task 4

4.1 Plan marketingmixesfortwodifferentsegmentsin consumer markets.

It is easy for an organization to achieve its objectives with the help of marketing mix. It includes Product, place, price and promotion. Sainsbury has segmented its customers into two segments-

• Segmentation according to Age and gender- Sainsbury has segmented its customers according to the age group because it is providing clothing range for customers belongs to every age group.  With the use of right promotion strategy, it can sell its product at right price and at right place. Like if it wants to promote a product for youth, it uses celebrities to influence customer’s mind.(Misiura, 2006)
• Segmentation by location- If an organization segments its products according to the location then it requires a different strategy. There is no use to promote a trendy clothing range in South Africa, Korea etc. because they do not prefer these type of clothes. Hence, it is necessary to use correct marketing mix at correct location.(Milligan, 2012)

4.2 Illustrate differences in marketing products and services to businesses rather than consumers.

Business marketing refers to sale a product or service by an organization to the other, on the other hand consumer marketing means to sell a product to consumer. In  business management  marketing, an organization needs to focus on accessibility, recognition, response and continuity. In consumer marketing, an organization focuses on demographic, psychographic and geographic usage rate. There are two types of business marketing-

• Business to business- In this the marketers of an organization are treated as information seekers because they always tries to know about the company’s information.(Malhotra, 2010)
• Business to consumer- In this, the main emphasize is on the benefits and advantages of the product. So it is necessary for a company to highlights its product’s features.(Diller and Ivens, 2006)

4.3 Show how and why international marketing differs from domestic marketing.

International marketing is different from domestic marketing in many ways. As there is a huge difference in the culture and lifestyle of people belongs to some other countries. Because of all these things, their buying behavior is also different. In reference to all characteristics, marketing strategies for other countries should be developed in other ways. The differences are-

S. no	Basis	Domestic marketing	International marketing
1	Meaning	It refers to carry out marketing activities within the geographical boundaries of the nation.	It includes the activities of production, distribution, promotion, selling and advertisement that are extended over the geographical boundaries of the country.(Micheaux, 2000)
2	Area	Small area is served.	Large area is served.
3	Government interference	Less(Lin, 2013)	High
4	Operations	Only in a single country.	More than one country.
5	Technology usage	Limited	Latest technology has been used.
6	Risk	Low	High
7	Capital needed	Less	Huge

There is a different international marketing mix –

• Product- It does not refer to just providing a product to satisfy the needs of the customers. It considers some other factors also like their culture, background, religion etc.
• Promotion- It is necessary to consider political climate, language, culture and religion while promoting a product.
• Pricing- It includes determination of price by considering fixed and variable costs, competition, target customers, taxes and duties etc.(Kerin, 2006)
• Place- It is important to provide right product on right time at right place. Distribution channels are different there, so goods need to be moved properly in foreign markets.

Conclusion-

Creation of marketing strategies is very important as it delegates responsibilities to different individuals in order implement the plan. There should be a proper procedure to achieve market feedback as it helps to measure success in reference to short term goals. There are various aspects related to marketing activities. It includes marketing mix that can help an organization to achieve its goals. Strategies are developed in accordance with marketing mix i.e. for product, price, place and promotion. There are different strategies for international marketing and domestic marketing. Extended marketing mix is also used in strategy formation as they are also considered as an important part that affects the sale of a product. The extended marketing mix are- people, physical evidence and process. Market segmentation, targeting and positioning are important because it helps an organization to simplify its  international marketing  process by focusing on the selected target market. Marketing of a product has been done according to the stage of its product life cycle.

References-

Books-
Kerin, R. (2006). Marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Lin, L. (2013). Promotion. Shanghai: Chois
Malhotra, N. (2010). Review of marketing research. Bingley, UK: Emerald.
Milligan, S. (2012). Marketing strategies. Delhi: Research World.
Misiura, S. (2006). Heritage marketing. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.
.Pushparanjan, A. (2009). Integrated marketing communication. New Delhi: Sumit Enterprises.
Sinkovics, R. and Ghauri, P. (2009). New challenges to international marketing. Bingley: Emerald Jai.
Journals-
Diller, H. and Ivens, B. (2006). Process Oriented Marketing. MAR, 28(JRM 1), pp.14-29.
Micheaux, A. (2000). New Marketing Strategies. Interactive Marketing, 1(3), pp.328-329.
Sarli, A. and Baharun, R. (2013). Exploring Psychographic Traits in Tourism Maketing: Causal Relationship from Destination Image to Loyalty. JurnalTeknologi, 64(2).
Image-
mrdashboard.com, 2006, product life cycle, (online)
Available at: http://mrdashboard.com/index.php/product-life-cycle/
Accessed on: 2nd August 2016