Marketing Intelligence and Business intelligence Roadmap - Assignment Example

Part 1 Task 1 Marketing is an important concept in business and appropriate marketing strategies influence the progress of any business thereby increasing its scope of customers and profit margin. Business organizations should adopt efficient marketing strategies to be able to survive in the stiff market competition. Consumer buying behaviour can be defined as the acts and decision processes that people undertake when purchasing and using products. This behaviour is usually influenced by personal and psychological attributes of an individual. Social factors such as the group that one belongs to or their social class play a major role in influencing buyers’ decisions. Conducted studies and research have also shown that the cultural background of an individual also influences the type of products and services they purchase and use (Moss and Atre, 2003). As a marketer it is important to understand the behaviour of consumers to be able to influence the decisions that they make. This includes the reasons that influence buyers to purchase certain products. In our case we should strive at understanding the reasons that make consumers use perfumes, deodorants, body sprays and after shaves. It is also important to understand the factors that influence consumers to make their buying decisions. The society and the changes it faces also influence the buying decisions of consumers. Therefore, it is necessary to study it to effectively understand how it affects consumer buying behaviour. This can be achieved by creation of marketing programs that will interest customers especially when launching new products into the market for instance the use of advertisements. Such kind of knowledge will enable the firm to easily determine the priorities and preference of consumers. In our scenario the firm will be able to determine the reaction and perception that the buyers will have towards the marketing strategies that will be implemented. Therefore, the firm will be in a better position of predicting the success rate of the marketing strategies formulated by studying the response that the consumers will portray towards our new cosmetic products. The firm will also be able to appropriately elaborate on the marketing mix concepts which include what, where, when and how factors that will satisfy consumers and at the same time lure them. Consumers make purchases in order to satisfy their needs which may be basic (clothing, housing, food, shelter and medical attention) or survival needs which vary depending on an individual’s preference and priorities mostly referred to as wants. Consumer buying behaviour within the cosmetic industry may be influenced by internal, external and marketing factors as elaborated below. Internal influences comprise of perceptual filters i.e. individual’s perception of themselves and their surroundings. Perceptual filters in this instance refer to the information that consciously or subconsciously influences the mind of consumers to determine their behaviour when making their purchases. For instance, the knowledge of products available in the market, their attitude towards those products, personality, lifestyle, role they play for instance they may be parents or children and the personal involvement of product affects an individual’s decision of purchasing it. Perception is achieved through various steps comprising exposure which involves sensing stimuli. For example, our firm can create advertisements to market the new products. The advertisement will act as a stimulus thereby exposing consumers to our new range of products (Moss and Atre, 2003). The next step is attention which is effort emanated to recognize the nature of stimuli. The attractiveness and effectiveness of our advertisements will make consumers recognize and pay attention to the advertisements. The third step entails awareness which includes the process of attributing meaning in a stimulus. Therefore, our advertisements should be relevant to make consumers acknowledge the importance of the products that we are introducing into the market. Lastly is the retention step which involves accepting the importance of products. Therefore, our advertisements should make consumers develop the need and interest to purchase our new products. It is essential for the firm to monitor our advertisements to ensure that their original message is not distorted to negatively influence the consumer buying behaviour. This mostly occurs when comparison advertisements are created by other market competitors. From the above it is possible to deduce that consumer buying behaviour process entails the need for recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase process and post purchase (cognitive dissonance) (Moss and Atre, 2003). The marketing factors comprise of social factors such as the group or social class to which a customer belongs to. For instance, in a group there exist an initiator i.e. the person who comes up with the idea of purchasing a certain product, an influencer i.e. the person that influences people to purchase certain products and the decider i.e. the person that has the financial power to make the final decision on whether to purchase the product or not. The group also comprises of a buyer who makes the transactions of the products and the user who utilizes them. Therefore, our main challenge will be to understand how the above group will affect the decision of consumers to purchase our new cosmetic products. It is also important to remember the situation of families which also influences the decisions they make to purchase certain products. The external factors include the cultural background of an individual. The values that were taught to an individual in their childhood play a big part in influencing their purchase preference. Each culture consists of sub-cultures that determine the nationality, geographical and religious regions that an individual belongs to. The sub-cultures play a part in reinforcing the values instilled by the cultural beliefs and practices. Therefore, it will be important to diversify our marketing strategies to ensure the message we pass along will be appropriate to all sub-cultures. This will ensure we influence the buying decisions of most people. Task 2 The UK cosmetic market is one of the most dynamic and progressive markets in Western Europe. There is potential for future growth as more consumers find the need to use cosmetics. About 3.5% of new cosmetic products are estimated to enter the cosmetic market yearly. Also in the next few years the market for cosmetics is estimated to grow by approximately 5%. It is quite evident that the UK cosmetic market still has plenty of room to grow despite the fact that it has reached its maturity level because of its modest growth. This growth is contributed by the market value created by cosmetic providers. This is because consumers will willingly pay an extra coin for the perceived product value (Moss and Atre, 2003). The Body Shop, L’Oreal and Avon cosmetic companies have dominated the UK cosmetic market. They are currently distributing their products domestically and expanding to other countries that they have managed to extend their market to for example South America. The UK cosmetic market is also dominated by multinational companies. The leading multinational competitors include Unilever and Procter & Gamble. Currently the UK cosmetics market contains approximately 4,000 cosmetic manufacturing companies which operate at small-scale and medium-scale levels. However, the UK cosmetic market size for domestic companies is decreasing because of import cosmetic products from France, Germany, Italy, Spain Netherlands and The Republic of Ireland which are available at cheaper prices compared to the prices of local ones. This may pose a great threat to the introduction and expansion of our new product line. This is because most of the cosmetic products that are imported lie in the fragrance category. However, UK is dominated by a population of the young generation that purchase cosmetic products especially perfumes, deodorants, body sprays and after shaves more than the older generation. Therefore, our new product line has a high possibility of attracting a huge percentage of the market segment. Part 2 Task 3 Cosmetic markets involve determining the demographic, location and needs of consumers purchasing cosmetic products. Therefore, this entails defining the target market for cosmetic products where customers that are likely to purchase the products offered are described. The potential customers are divided in accordance to their gender. The target gender should form approximately 75%-80% of the total potential customer base. Also determine the age bracket of your target customers which should range between 10-20 years. Consider their location of residence and what they do for a living. This will help to determine social and personal factors influencing their purchasing behaviour. Also examine their lifestyle to determine if they can allocate time to visit shopping malls or if they mostly undertake their shopping online. Demand is the quantity of products that is required by consumers. It is reflected in a relationship created between price and the product. Demand can be measured by determining the amount of the products that the consumers are willing to buy at that given price. Other factors that affect demand include income, change in preference, population size and composition, educational level, climatic and weather conditions, change in geographical location and expectations of price change (Moss and Atre, 2003). The relationship between the above factors and the cosmetic products may increase or decrease demand. These factors affect the price of commodities thereby affecting demand. Demand can effectively be measured by use of a demand curve which portrays the relationship between the demand for a certain product and its price. After conducting a primary market research to determine the attitude of consumers towards cosmetic products I learnt the following; the increase in the number of women that are now employed has increased the demand for cosmetics. This is because women strive to look beautiful and good looking than men. Also the society dictates that the looks of women greatly determine what they will wear. Today the UK population is a very busy working community. Some people even handle more than two jobs in a day. This depicts their shopping habits which are mainly done through online services. Therefore, the cosmetic market must be attractive and promise to offer essential services and products to the consumer. Also today the cosmetic market is keen on the ingredients that make up the products. This is in relation to the introduction of green cosmetics and cosmetic products containing organic compounds. The synthetic ingredients are deemed to cause potential risk to the health of the consumers. A cross-sectional study design was used to conduct the primary research for determining the market attitude towards cosmetics. This study design was preferred because it quantified the results attained thereby enabling ease in studying and understanding them. The primary research was conducted on the young generation of the UK both the male and the female as they seem to dominate the cosmetic market for fragrance products. The research focused on the employed, unemployed and those still undertaking their studies whether in college or lower educational levels. The research paid particular attention to the study group in the age bracket of 12 years to 35 years. A probability sampling design was used during the research because random, systematic and cluster samples from the study group were collected. Both the qualitative and quantitative approaches for data collection were used. This gave various approaches to our research objective thereby enabling the gathering of conclusive results. Questionnaires and semi-structured interview questions were used. Some of the questions used were close ended ones as they had choices which enabled me to collect selective responses while others were open ended questions that respondents could answer in accordance to their understanding (Moss and Atre, 2003). Example of the questions asked included; how often the consumers purchased cosmetic products, what consumers did when they run out of makeup; did they buy the same brand that they were using before or did they try new brands of the same cosmetic product available in the market, where did the consumers get information about cosmetic products available in the market, which cosmetic brand did the consumers use most of the time, what is their age, where do the consumers live, more specifically the state they reside in and what is the occupation of the consumer. Task 4 Therefore, as a marketer I would recommend Passionate Ltd to target young UK generation when launching the new cosmetic products ranging from perfumes, deodorants, body sprays and after shaves. This is because the young generation will form a potential market for these products unlike the older generation which seeks to purchase anti-aging products more. Passionate Ltd should also ensure that it includes the concept of green cosmetics products and use organic ingredients to attract a larger base of the targeted consumers. Lastly, Passionate Ltd should formulate marketing strategies that will attract online shoppers as most of the target consumers have adopted the online shopping habit because of their busy life schedules. The marketing strategies formulated should thus be able to effectively expose the new products, be able to lure the attention of potential customers, create awareness of the new products and enable potential customers to find the need and interest of purchasing them. References Moss, T. L. & Atre .S. (2003). Business intelligence roadmap: the complete project lifecycle for decision-support applications, Addison-Wesley, Boston. Read More