Marketing Process Questions - Essay Example

Running Head: HYDRO TECH CASE STUDY Hydro Tech Case Study [The of the will appear here] [The of the will appear here] [The name of the Professor][Course]Q1. Why have Hydrotech sales not met company expectations? Hydrotech had been very successful in gaining traction in other market segments (e.g., consumer and health care). What mistakes did they make in selling to the hospitality industry?Hydro Tech sales have not met company expectations since they have failed to effectively capture the new target market which is the hospitality industry.

When entering a new market, the marketing department has to conduct thorough review of the needs of the consumers in that particular market. In this case, the needs of the hospitality industry differ a lot from what Hydro Tech was offering to them. Even though the customers at the hotel are satisfied with the service that Hydro Tech offers and there is a demand for such service, but the buying power remains in the hands of the manager who has to check for the feasibility of such cleaners. Hydro Tech vacuum cleaners are more costly than the average vacuum cleaners and since the consumers in the hospitality industry usually buy at low bulk price, they are not willing to spend almost double of the price of the average vacuum cleaner.

Furthermore, vacuum cleaners by Hydro Tech require initial training before they can be used by the average consumer. Thus Hydro Tech would have train the entire cleaning staff of the particular hotel and for this the manager would have to allocate time for the training. Q2. How does the marketing process help you to avoid the mistakes Hydrotech made? Which of the four fundamental truths of marketing did Hydrotech ignore? The marketing process allows an organization to understand its target market and to develop marketing strategies that suit that particular target market.

When an organization is catering to different target markets, it is imperative that the marketing strategies for different target markets are different. For example, in the airline industry, the marketing tactics for first class passengers differs from that of economy class. In a similar way, when Hydro Tech moved from the health industry and towards the hospitality industry, it was important that they revise their marketing tactics to suit the needs of the target market. Hydro Tech was unable to develop a marketing strategy that catered to the needs of the target market and this is because of lack of understanding of the marketing truths.

Firstly, Hydro Tech did not analyze the situation properly, that is, it failed to understand the decision making process of the consumers in that particular industry, Secondly, since Hydro Tech failed to understand the target market, they did not produce a marketing strategy that would attract to this target market. Thirdly, they did not make any revisions in their product offering to suit the needs of the consumer. And fourthly, they failed to monitor the situation. If they had properly monitored the situation, they would have understood the reasons for the failure and adopted quickly. Q3. Identify and discuss marketing tactics used by hospitality and tourism companies to manage the characteristics of services.

Marketing tactics used by the hospitality and tourism companies differ from the marketing tactics of companies selling tangible products. Since the consumers in the hospitality and tourism industry cannot experience the product directly, marketing has to be evolved in this case to make them experience a good service through non-tangible and even tangible products. The hospitality and tourism industry focus on developing differentiation from their competitors. This is done by closely monitoring the competitors and offering better quality than the competitors.

The quality in the service industry is much dependant on the employee-customer interaction since employees become the face of the company in that case. For this reason, front-line employees are trained specifically for the purpose of interacting positively with the customers. Another tactic used is to show the service as a tangible product. For this the company depends on employee’s appearance and uniforms; building exterior; equipment used; furniture and other electronic material and even through promotional campaigns.

The physical surroundings in the hospitality and tourism industry also play a major role in enhancing competitive advantage for the company. This is because consumers are greatly impacted by the quality of products used and the maintenance checks that the company puts on these products (Baum, 2006). ReferencesBaum, T. (2006) Human resource management for tourism, hospitality and leisure: an International perspective, Ohio: Cengage Learning