The four kinds of market-product strategies - Essay Example

Marketing Everyone around us is an expert of marketing in some sense and practises it in some way or other. For example we, in our life someway practise marketing. When we make presentations in class we try to present our idea in the best form and try to convince our class fellows towards our idea in an attractive ways. .similarly when we go to take admission in another university or school, we try to present ourselves in the best possible way so as to convince the admission authorities in the school to grant us the admission. Therefore we as a student experience marketing in its different forms. When we talk about advertising, it is a time of paid public and non personal advertisement persuasive message. It is a kind of promotion technique that is directed towards the existing and the potential clients. On the other hand marketing is the planning of right mix of business activities that is carried out to gather buyers and sellers at a common point for transaction of goods. Advertising is like one arm of marketing activities. Consider marketing as a cake, advertising would be a slice of pie from that cake. “The systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products (Lake L., 2007)”. The four kinds of market-product strategies that organizations may follow depending upon the availability of their resources and requirements are: Same Market New Product (Product Development) In this strategy, an organization introduces the same product in the market that he is currently catering to. It is a type of product development that an organization does to retain and increase its potential customers by providing solutions that based on the identified requirement of customers. Same Product New Market (Market development) In this strategy, an organization takes the same product that it is currently dealing in to new markets, to turn its prospective customers into its routine and regular customers by identifying a need in that segment. It has much more to do with the identification of the right market segment and then offer them with the products from an organization’s portfolio. Same Market Same Product (Penetration Strategy) If an organization wants to cater the same market with the same product then it must have to follow the penetration strategy. It means organization will have to take the steps to increase its market share in the existing market and to follow strategies that will help organization to beat the competition. The most widely accepting activity that organizations do is to reduce the prices. The reduced prices will take the market share away from its competitors. New Market New Product (Diversification Strategy) this strategy is followed when an organization divert its path away from the product that it is currently dealing with.. It identifies a new market segment that has some need which is away from the current product portfolio of an organization and this organization then takes into consideration that new product and provides it to the newly identified market segment. There are four marketing mix elements which include 4 Ps. It is a generally accepted name for marketing mix elements. Product is the first P in marketing mix which comprises of the features of the product. It depends upon what kind of pricing strategy an organization is following and the kind of segment it is catering to. The third P is called Promotion. It means how the product or the offering of the company is publicized to the existing and potential customers it includes all the above the line and below the line activities. The fourth P is called the placement (distribution). It answers to the question that how the product or offering will be made accessible to the customers and what kind of distribution strategy will be followed by the organization. The routine problem solving includes the structured method of problem solving technique that includes specified method that needs to be followed to solve a problem. Limited problem solving includes minimum effort in the problem solving process and it is used when the buyer has already some experience from his previous problems of same or similar nature. Extended Problem solving is done when the problem is complex and high amount of risk (financial, physical or social) is involved. It is usually used when an important need or problem is to be catered by the problem solver. Family life Cycle concepts include the studies of changes in the forms of a family over time and the changes in their income and consumption of products and offerings. It is purely related to Consumer Behaviour Branch of Marketing. It studies families form young single individual to newly married couples, full nest and then an empty nest and the final survivor stage of family individuals. Through out the family life cycle their consumption pattern changes over time and thus it is important of organizations to keep track of family life cycle of its customers to tailor its products and offerings as per it’s customers’ needs. The three types of organizational markets are Producers markets, Reseller’s markets and Government or institutional markets. Producers market involves all kind of customers that buys an organization’s product and services, utilize them to produce its own products and then market their own products to the customers. For example, Starbucks is an organization that buys coffee beans from suppliers from different countries, brews them in its own particular style, uses them in preparation of coffee and then market that coffee to its customers under its own name. Reseller’s Markets are the organizational customers that buys product from a producer and sell them directly to the customers with the same name keeping their percentage of profit. For example Wal-Mart is a kind of super markets that buys products form different producers and manufactures and directly sells them to the customers keeping its profit. Government or institutional buyers are large scale buyers that buy products to utilize them in an offering to the public service whether on for profit or not for profit basis. The five stages in organizational buying processes are: identification of need, the formation of evaluation criteria, and search for suppliers, evaluation of quotations and choice and implementation of supplier to complete the buying process. The three types of companies in global market place are: Sole Proprietorship also known as single owner company. The owner is liable for all kind of commitments and promises that it makes to the suppliers and customers. All the profits and losses go the owner. Another type of organization is partnerships. It is formed when two or more persons join hands to start up a business. It is same like sole proprietorship with a difference that the liabilities and profits are now divided into all the partners and all the terms and conditions regarding the conditions of business are written at the time of formation of partnerships. The third type of organizations is corporations. It is formed when an organization’ partnership shares are publicly traded to generate funds. In such case there is a limited liability towards the share holders of the company. References (Lake L., 2007). “Marketing Vs Advertising”. Retrieved on June 16, 2007 from: http://marketing.about.com/cs/advertising/a/marketvsad.htm Read More