Marketing Management - Essay Example

The Lamplighter Corporation, a highly successful consumer goods producer of lamps for the home, is contemplating entry into the business market. Through their research, the marketing managers at Lamplighter discovered that the central fixture component in their lamps may have profitable applications in the industrial setting. Top management at Lamplighter, however, recognizes that marketing lamps to ultimate consumers differs significantly from marketing electrical components to a diverse array of business marketing customers such as toy manufacturers.

Identify the critical differences that Lamplighter will confront when developing a marketing strategy for the business market versus the consumer goods market. One of the greatest differences between marketing to business and marketing to consumers is that B2B marketing is more dependent on relationship building, thus increasing the value of relationship and building brand identity on the basis of personal relationship. Another difference is that the target market is smaller and should be carefully identified.

A marketing strategy for the business market should be developed taking into consideration multi-step buying process and longer sales cycle. In addition, while the goal of consumer marketing is to make a shopper a customer (emotional buying decisions can be made), the major aim of business marketing is to provide the business with business value – organizations, in most cases, make rather rational buying decisions. Therefore, multiple individuals within the target organization should be educated on the value of the product, because business procurement is a multi-step process.

Historically, the auto industry is heavily affected by the 5 external environments (macro-level). For each of the five (social/cultural, political and legal, competitive, technological, and economic) discuss three aspects within each environment that would impact the marketing planning for the next couple of years. Be sure to explain why the aspects are important in the development of a marketing plan in the auto industry. Examples of the factors that will be impacting the automotive industry in the social/cultural environment marketing are people’s lifestyle, buying behavior and social norms.

Lifestyle determines to which group of audience the person belongs. Buying behavior determines marketing strategies to be used, while social norms can help to define how value should be created for a particular group of people. Political and legal issues of the nearest future include anti-pollution legislation, which makes the marketers find ways of making their autos ‘greener’. The same can be said regarding safety restrictions. Finally, the third factor to name might be political climate of different countries – it determines how well a particular company will do in each country.

Competitive factors – brand identity, market share, unique resources – give an advantage to the company that can be expressed in marketing. Technological factors – innovation, research and development, popularization of electric vehicles. These factors determine the target audience and contents of the marketing campaigns. Economic factors – purchasing power of the target audience, economic stability of the country, and labor costs influence the pricing and, consequently, marketing strategy.

Your first task as a product manager at Dow Chemical is to evaluate the market segmentation strategy followed by your predecessor. For the past four years, this manager had been dividing the market on the basis of NAIC codes and developing a separate marketing strategy for each of 5 different NAIC industries. Describe the specific steps that you would follow in evaluating the existing segmentation plan. What factors might prompt you to seriously consider making a change in the existing segmentation approach?

While NAIC segmentation might work quite well, the results of marketing campaigns can be improved if some additional factors are taken into consideration. Microsegmentation, for instance, might be used for a more precise targeting of the audience. Such variables as demographics, sales cycle, or customer analytics can be used for further segmentation of the market with the purpose of increasing sales though better-targeted marketing. Identify one product of interest in the B2B market. Research the product.

Given what you know about the product and the market, which forecasting approach do you believe would be appropriate for use in developing the marketing plan? Why? Which approach would be least appropriate? Why? The product I chose is textiles. I would use micro forecasting to determine market shares of the product in chosen industries to find out the potential of my product’s success in the particular industry. This will help me to choose the target industries and business to market my product to.

Then I would determine company demand and develop a sales forecast on the basis of sales target and budget. In addition, to predict future trends, I would make a time series analysis. Research in Motion developed BlackBerrya€”a five-ounce two-way pager that gets e-mail messages, includes a calendar, and can fetch stock quotes, flight information, and other data from the Web. Merrill Lynch bought 1,500 of them for employees at its New York City headquarters. Using positioning analyses examine the competitive position of the product and develop a clearly-defined strategy for the BlackBerry.

In developing your marketing strategy include the technology adoption life cycle as a guide to propel the BlackBerry into mainstream market acceptance. The product’s function is to solve problems (ease communication and interaction with the outside world and within the company), and, as of an innovative product, to enhance self-image. Since 1,500 pagers have already been sold to a reputable company, other companies are likely to follow the example in an attempt to show their care about the employees and technological development.

Therefore, BlackBerry should be positioned as a challenger of the market, and use product differentiation as a competitive advantage.