实训技能　Practical Skills

I. Read the following material and understand marketing as a process, and discuss about the 7-step marketing strategies.

Marketing as a Process

What is Strategic Planning

Before a production manager, marketing manager, and personnel manager can develop plans for their individual department, some larger plan or blueprint for the entire organization should exist. Otherwise, on what would the individual departmental plans be based? In other words, there is a larger context for planning activities.

Let’s assume that we are dealing with a large business organization that has several business divisions and several product lines within each division (e.g., General Electric, Philip Morris). Before any marketing planning can be done by individual divisions or departments, a plan has to be developed for the entire organization. This means that senior managers must look toward the future and evaluate their ability to shape their organization’s destiny in years or decades to come. The output of this process is objectives and strategies designed to give the organization a chance to compete effectively in the future. The objectives and strategies established at the top level provide the context for planning in each of the divisions and departments by divisional and departmental managers.

Corporate Strategies

When an organization has formulated its mission and developed its objectives, it knows where it wants to go. The next managerial task is to develop a ‘grand design’ to get there. This design constitutes the organizational strategies. Strategy involves the choice of major directions the organization will take in pursuing its objectives. It is critical that strategies are consistent with goals and objectives and that top management ensures that strategies are implemented effectively. As many as 60% of strategic plans have failed because the

strategies in them were not well defined and, thus, were unable to be implemented effectively. Below are various strategies to choose:

Corporate Strategies Based on Products/Markets

One means to develop organizational strategies which focus on products offered and markets served. Using this focus, organizations can achieve their goals in two ways. They can better manage what they are presently doing or find new things to do. In choosing either or both of these paths, the organization then must decide whether to concentrate on present customers or to seek new ones, or both. The following product-market matrix presents the available strategic choices for organizations. It indicates that an organization can grow in a variety of ways by concentrating on present or new products, customers too.

Market penetration strategies--focus on improving the position of the organization’s present products with its present customers. E.g.:

● A snack products company concentrates on getting its present customers to purchase more of its products.

● A charity seeks ways to increase donations from present supporters.

● A bank concentrates on getting present credit card customers to use their cards more frequently.

A market penetration strategy might involve devising a marketing plan to encourage customers to purchase more of a product. Tactics used to carry out the strategy could include price reductions, ad that stresses many benefits of the products, packaging the product in different-sized packages, or making the product available at more locations.

E.g.: P&G decided to implement an everyday-low-pricing strategy, slashing over 40% on prices in order to stimulate consumer demand.

Likewise, a production plan might be developed to produce more efficiently what is being produced at present. Implementation of such a plan could include increased production runs, the substitution of pre-assembled components for individual product parts, or the automation of a process that previously was performed manually, i.e., market penetration strategies concentrate on improving the efficiency of various functional areas in the organization.

Market development strategies--following this strategy, an organization would seek to find new customers for its present products. E.g.:

● A manufacturer of industrial products may decide to develop products for entrance into consumer markets.

● A manufacturer of auto decides to sell auto in Eastern Europe because of the transition to a free market system.

Market development strategies involve much more than simply getting the product to a new market. Before considering marketing tech such as packaging and promotion, companies often find they must establish a foothold in the market, sometimes spending millions of dollars simply to educate consumers that why they should consider purchase of the product.

Product development strategies--the new products would be developed and directed to present customers. E.g.:

● A candy manufacturer may decide to offer a fat-free candy.

● A college may develop programs for non-traditional students.

● A soft drink manufacturer may develop a mid-calorie or clear cola.

Diversification--an organization diversifies when it seeks new products for customers it is not serving at present. E.g.:

● A cigar manufacturer diversifies into real estate development.

● A college establishes a corporation to find commercial uses for the results of faculty research efforts.

The marketing Strategy Process

These are the steps you should follow to create and execute a winning marketing strategy. Let us briefly review each step in turn:

Step 1 Understand Your Customer

Develop a clear picture of your target customer using market research and analysis. Understand their pain points and the benefits of your solution.

Step 2 Analyze the Market

Some basic market research should allow you to find market data such as total available market, market growth (historical numbers and projections), market trends, etc.

Step 3 Analyze the Competition

Ask yourself what other choices your target customers have to solve their pain point. Research and assess the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Step 4 Define Your Marketing Mix

Optimizing your marketing mix is the best way to align marketing activities with your business strategies.

Step 5 Research Distribution Channels

What is the best way to deliver your product or service to your target customers? This will impact your sales strategy and your financials, as well as your marketing mix.

Step 6 Analyze the Financials

Put together your marketing budget and evaluate projected marketing ROI, customer acquisition costs, etc.

Step 7 Review and Revise

Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing strategy, and revise or extend as needed.

II. Concept checking.

1. marketing

2. value

3. want

4. demand

5. relationship era

III. Translate the following sentences into Chinese.

1. Sales are beginning to slip due to increased competition for tourist dollars from the large theme parks.

2. Billboard advertising appeared to be successful at reaching tourists arriving by car.

3. One of the strategies is to buy a series of backlit photographs that are wall-mounted at eye level for maximum impact at the airport that vacationers would see as they get off the plane.

4. Marketing is a fundamental part of our lives both as consumers and as players in the business world.

5. Marketers come from many different backgrounds and work in a variety of locations and organizations.

6. As a result, there has been a trend toward integrating marketing with other business functions instead of making it a separate function.

7. Marketing is defined as an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.

8. Marketing activities play a major role in creating utility, which refers to the sum of the benefits we receive when we use a good or service.

9. You have “market value” as a person--you have qualities that set you apart from others and abilities other people want and need.

10. For an exchange to occur, at least two people or organizations must be willing to make a trade, and each must have something the other.

11. Under these conditions, marketing plays a relatively insignificant role--the goods literally sell themselves because people have no other choices.

12. Services are intangible products that we pay for and use but never own.

IV. Choose the best answer.

1. __________ is developing, pricing, promoting, and distributing goods, services and ideas to satisfy the needs of consumers.

a. Creative planning

b. Advertising

c. Selling

d. Marketing

e. Consumerism

2. The first objective in marketing is:

a. brainstorming.

b. promotion of product to make consumers aware of its existence.

c. product innovation.

d. creating a mission statement.

e. discovering the needs of prospective consumers.

3. As organizations have changed their orientation, society’s expectations of marketers have also changed. Today, the emphasis of marketing practice has shifted from emphasizing__________ to consumers’ interests.

a. social responsibilities

b. government regulation

c. producers’ interests

d. suppliers’ interests

e. competitive activity

4. The paper manufacturer sells rolls of paper to the newspaper publishing company so that the newspaper can publish a daily paper, which is purchased from newspaper boxes by people who are interested in reading about news, entertainment, sports, etc. The people who buy the newspapers to read are examples of what type of market?

a. ultimate consumers

b. institutional markets

c. organizational buyers

d. government markets

e. resellers

5. Alex is three-year old and has a very limited number of foods that he will eat. His mother will often fill his plate with one small helping of an item that he really likes and one small helping of an item he doesn’t like. To get more macaroni and cheese, he must eat his green beans. In marketing terms, the green bean is an example of a __________ because it is something he has learned to like.

a. desire

b. need

c. predilection

d. preference

e. want

6. Stark Brothers nursery has patented a group of miniature fruit trees that can grow in containers and produce full-sized fruit as long as they are able to get full sunlight. The catalog the nursery sends out to tell prospective customers about the miniature trees is part of the _____ element of the marketing mix.

a. promotion

b. price

c. place

d. product

e. process

7. Which of the following acts as a barrier to the development of relationship marketing?

a. changes in the demographic nature of society

b. the ever-increasing usage of the Internet for consumer purchases

c. onset of new cultural traditions

d. a population with a median age of 50

e. recent terrorists’ activities

8. The period of American business history when firms could produce more than they could sell and the focus was on hiring more salespeople to seek out new markets and customers was the _____ era.

a. marketing concept

b. production

c. sales

d. societal marketing concept

e. consumerism

9. The societal marketing concept is most closely related to:

a. the controllable forces within an organization’s environment.

b. social responsibility.

c. micromarketing.

d. the economic infrastructure.

e. macromarketing.

10. Marketing programs are most closely related to:

a. customer relationship management.

b. the ease with which relationship management can be implemented.

c. the four utilities.

d. the marketing mix.

e. mass marketing strategy.