Marketing - Strategy and the New Economics of Information - Assignment Example

Some Aspects of Marketing Question Technological advance explored in this essay concerns video gamingthat has impacted the discipline of Information and Technology (IT). The video gaming industry has impacted IT owing to its massive and competitive nature. Due to changes in the global trends and free online videos, video gaming has undergone re-structuring programme. Focusing on the technological advancement, the industrial growth and expansion, for example, of the GameStop are majorly influenced by video game components, innovation, market changes, business structures, and suppliers. For instance, consumer empowerment and increasing sophistication trends have prompted the video gaming makers and dealers to search for new markets, which are specialized, among the ones that are already saturated with customer diversity bases. A good example of such a market is the one in the United States. Therefore, it is important to note that venturing in the newly emerging markets, especially in the Latin America and South East Asia has promoted the video gaming dealers to establish production facilities in the overseas. This implies that such establishments have lead to business strategic partnerships and global alliances with foreign video gaming dealers, an achievement that is credited with the information technological advancement. Drawing arguments from sociocultural forces, it is necessary to note that businesses cannot exist as single entities and there is absolute need for them to be informed of the cultural and societal changes, which take place in their business environments. In this regard, businesses must adapt to sociocultural changes so that they can stay ahead of their business competitors and to remain relevant in the market. For such businesses to remain relevant, especially among their consumers and to outcompete their competitors, there is need to adopt new technology, and this is where, for example, online video gaming has found a lot of relevance in this discussion. Sociocultural forces include, but are not limited to changing preferences, demographics, advertising techniques, and internal environment. Changing preferences can be regarded as one of the major sociocultural factors, which influence businesses and decision making processes. For example, some items that were popular in the last two decades are no longer popular among the consumers. Various priorities and styles can derail the success of products and services in the market. Drawing reference from the clothing industry, a clothing company ought to be acquainted with the changing trends in the industry for it to remain relevant and up-to-date. Changing demographic trends also play significant role in business. In this regard aging population ultimately reduces the market for online video gaming technology and fashions, which healthcare products and luxury goods increase. Moreover, changing gender proportions, religious groupings, different race, and ethnic groups in a given society has significant effects on the way IT business is carried out. Advertising techniques are closely linked to sociocultural changes. Advertising sets trends for video gaming; keeps track and engage the society in the business. Values, moral and fashion changes are put into account when putting in place appropriate advertising technique. Drawing arguments from the internal environment, sociocultural forces affect the internal decision making process of a company. For instance, rising family life emphasis and dynamic gender roles have necessitated both maternity and paternity leaves in several organizations. In addition, attitudes regarding sexual harassment and racial discrimination have changed significantly due to sociocultural changes, which also impact on the video gaming business. Question 2 Marketing directly involves taking the products to the consumers, thus relieving them from looking for the products. This implies that customer orders for the products and, on paying for the cost, the products would be delivered within a given period. Sometimes, the payment could be made on delivery of the products. Under the direct marketing to consumers, the guerrilla marketing would be appropriate for outdoing the competitors. The justification is its ability to create contact with the consumers. Direct marketing to consumers also use a personal selling approach, in which retailer sells directly to the consumers, therefore promoting the contact and relationship between the buyers and sellers. Through this interaction, the customers are free to ask questions pertaining to the use of the products, or seek more information on the constituents. This selling approach is appropriate because it increases customers’ confidence in the products, thus retaining. Different types of influences that affect the sales efforts of a pharmaceutical manufacturer like Pfizer on physicians, patients, and hospital committees can be analyzed Michael Porter’s model. Michael Porter came up with five major forces, which influence industrial performance. The forces identified are “barriers to entry, supplier power, and degree of rivalry, buyer power and threats of substitutes” (Evans and Wurster 102). Considering other industries that operate under the free market and capitalistic economy, for example, analyzing the video gaming industry through the use of Porter’s Five Forces Model, it is very important to understand the market dynamics. However, in this discussion, the main focus is on the analysis of the barriers to enter the existing video gaming industry. Electronic video gaming industry has low entry barriers that only allow many firms to enter the market. In fact, there are many companies that dominate the video gaming industry since there are fewer barriers to entry. In such business environments, there are high economic rents, which make the video gaming industry attractive to many investors, both the local and foreign. A newly established retail faces the threat of startup capital. It is such substantial barriers that are evidenced in the video gaming industry. The working capital that is required for a new retail to set up a manufacturing capacity, which helps in achieving the intended level of production, is prohibited. Therefore, it is not easy to attain the minimum efficient scale of production. The limitation can be attributed to the nature of the video gaming industry that has a very specialized manufacturing facility. In case the video gaming retailing facility fails, it is not easy to re-tool it. It is only possible for the new retailers to enter the video gaming industry through mergers, acquisition and strategic partnership arrangements. Analysis of situational, psychological and social influences on consumer buying behaviour Situational influences on consumer buying behavior Situational influences or factors such as amount of time, location and circumstance, which affect consumer behaviour and decision making. This influences the action of the consumers at any buying stage process. It can also lengthen, shorten or even terminate the process of buying. Situational factors include physical surrounding such as location, lighting, store atmosphere and weather, which affect the buying decision process. On the other hand, social surroundings engage characteristics of those present during the buying process and when the product is consumed. This also applies to the condition of the purchasing environment, for instance, a crowded retail store may make a buyer to terminate his/her decision on buying process. Time is also a major situational influence since a great deal of time is required by a buyer to search for the product, familiarize with the product, purchase and use it. The buyers consider the product frequency usage, product life and usage time. Time of day, week, month and holiday/season influence the purchase of a product by a consumer such as time constraint make a buyer engage in making a quick purchase decision or even delay in making such decisions. Monetary conditions of the buyer affect his or her buying behavior. Such moods or conditions include illness, fatigue and having cash. They affect the buyer’s ability to look for information, receive and even evaluate its alternatives. Psychological influence on buying behavior Psychological factors determine individual’s general behavior, thus influencing their consumer behaviour. They are internal in nature, but are influenced by external social forces. Psychological factors in corporate perception that deals with selecting, organizing and interpretation of input information to give meaning. A buyer bases his or her interpretation of what one is familiar with. It is necessary to note that a market is not capable of controlling a buyer’s perception, but influences the consumer through information. Social influence on consumer buying behaviour Social influences can be viewed as forces exerted by other people on a consumer buying behavior. Every individual has a role to play in an organization, institution or group. The roles given to individuals affect general and buying behavior of consumers. In addition, family roles have direct influence on individuals’ buying behavior. For instance, individuals in a household perform certain roles regarding buying decisions. It is also necessary to note that reference groups play crucial roles in making buying decision, especially on product or brand. A marketer, therefore, make use of reference groups to promote the sale of his or her products, especially on purchase and high satisfaction of product within a certain group. Question 3 Indeed, there is need to market services differently from goods since the former involves selling the intangible or invisible and delivering non-tangible services as main product offering. The intangibility or invisibility factor differentiates marketing of services from product marketing. Coupled with perishability, variability and inseparability characteristics influence the consumer buying behavior and the way sellers interact with their clients. Marketing services involve marketing value or relationship. Such kind of value and relationship marketing is done differently from that of actual products. This implies that when a customer is buying a service, then he/she is buying something that is intangible, instead of buying a tangible product like a computer. Service marketing should also be carried out differently from product marketing because consumer concept regarding a service is based on the mere reputation of a single person. A service is based on how well a service provider delivers on a certain service, for instance, how well an investment advisor to a firm does with a company’s investment portfolio. In addition, it is easy to make a comparison of the quality of products offered for sale. For example, a buyer is able to compare how efficient one mobile phone works more than the other. However, it is quite difficult to make a comparison of the quality of similar services offered. Products can be returned to sellers when a consumer is not satisfied. However, services cannot be returned to their providers. Marketing of products involves the use of 4P’s namely, product, promotion, price, and place. On the other hand, marketing of services requires 7P’s, three P’s more than the four traditional P’s, which include people, process and physical evidence. Though similar to product marketing business, it is evident that the startup capital for service marketing business is tied for the daily operation of the business, and this money is not invested elsewhere. Therefore, it is difficult for the small and up-coming retailers to get enough money to finance their daily operation. This can force them to rely on borrowings from various financial institutions that offer loans at high interest rates. The economies of scale that exist in in the service marketing business, for example, video gaming industry creates a high barrier to entry. Firms that operate in the video gaming industry must meet the required scale size. Though, the firms can achieve the economies of scale, they do not enjoy the associated learning curve benefits in the short run. It is a difficult task for the firms to prove the existence and probably the non-existence of the economies of scale, which is not tangible in nature. It is a big challenge to smaller firms in the video gaming industries since their brand identity is still very low. For instance, electronic video gaming buyers often make buying decision based on the retail’s brand identity. This presents a major entry barrier in the industry. In such cases, the small retailers tend to incur a lot of expenses against the sales revenue. Such a downward trend on the revenue earning discourages other small firms from entering the market. Focusing on absolute cost advantage, legal constraints such patents and copyrights in the video gaming industry which present a very high barrier to entry, and these are created by the legislation of the government. Such government documents create a monopoly in the industry, thus barring new entrants. Question 4 Dear [insert name] How a marketing course will help you in your career A marketing course incorporates research influences market strategy development and its implementation since it is a systematic approach, which involves the objective data collection and their analysis regarding a specific target market, its competitors and business environment. In essence, market research is crucial, because it plays important roles, for example, in engineering business ventures. Marketing research helps companies to obtain important information on market opportunities and business problems. This enables companies to make informed decisions on their marketing strategies. In this regard, the following analysis explores different ways in which marketing research influences marketing strategy development and its implementation. First, a marketing research helps in identifying business opportunities, which are necessary in developing more effective marketing strategies. In a business, the target market is the potential customers that it seeks to get and maintain for its products. For example, a business that deals on perfumes (whose production is based on some engineering and technology work), the target market is the adult consumers of the middle-income class who have the financial capability to purchase such products. The increased demand for the products created the need to start the business and make sure that the products could reach the potential consumers. Specific perfumes that the customers need are manufactured in small quantities and outside the country, meaning that the local consumers might not access them in time. Through extensive marketing of the products, a company would be able to reach the targeted consumers who require such perfumes to meet their luxury needs. The broad target market for a company includes the primary consumers and small scale businesses supplying similar products. Different kinds of buyers have unique preferences for the products. A market research helps companies to segment their market, which enhance the appropriate marketing strategy that leads to a competitive advantage in a particular marketplace. This strategic approach is attained by using secondary market research, which helps in determining relevant market segment, while taking into account, factors such as behavioral patterns, usage rate and demographic. Market segmentation is dividing the potential consumers according to different categories and unique characteristics. The consumers could be classified into various classes such as gender, income, age, level of education, family size, and religion. The segmentation is very useful, because it enables a company to select the promotion style it would use to sell the products. In this regard, three segments namely gender, income and age are explored. The consumer’s gender determines his or her choice, for example, perfume preference, because of one’s orientation and makeup needs. Research indicates that females have a higher preference for a wide range of perfumes than their male counterpart. Therefore, when marketing the products, a company should understand its target market based on their gender and choices. Since men and women’s preferences and behavior vary and affect their choices of the products in the market, appropriate analysis should enable a company prioritize the varieties to purchase in larger quantity. It is evident that marketing course, especially research is crucial in engineering course as well. Yours sincerely, [Insert name] Works Cited Evans, Phillip and Wurster, Thomas. Strategy and the New Economics of information. Massachusetts, Harvard Business Review, Print. Read More