Marketing strategies

Marketing people do not like to admit that they have anything to do with sales, but, obviously, the whole purpose of marketing is to create а situation in which а sale саn be made.

Buying, selling, market research, transportation, storage, advertising – ­these are all parts of the complex area of business known as marketing. In simple terms, marketing means the movement of goods and services from manufacturer to customer in order to satisfy the customer and to achieve the company's objectives.

Marketing can be divided into four main elements that are known as the four P's: product, price, placement and promotion.

The marketing strategies of determining product, price, placement and promotion are not planned in isolation. Marketing analysts often look at а combination of these four factors. This combination of these four P's is known as the marketing mix. In order to develop а successful marketing mix researchers first ask two important questions: Who is going to buy the product? What is the potential to sell this product?

The product element of marketing refers to the goods or services that а company wants to sell. Next, а company considers the price to charge for its product. There are three pricing options the company may take: above, with or below the prices that its competitors are charging. Most companies sell their goods or services for average prices established by major producers in the industry.

The third element of the marketing process - placement - involves getting the product to the customer. This takes place through the channels of distribution. А common channel of distribution is: manufacturer - wholesaler - retailer - customer.

Wholesalers generally sell large quantities of а product to retailers and retailers usually sell smaller quantities to customers.

Finally, communication about the product takes place between buyer and а seller and is known as promotion. There are two major ways of promotion: l) through personnel selling, as in а department store; 2) and through advertising, as in а newspaper or magazine, etc.

Risk

Companies face four types of risk and that is firstly the risk of simply doing nothing. Another type of risk is what’s called credit or guarantee risk. There is also political risk and a final example is the risk of catastrophe or other disruption happening to a business.

Business is all about striking the right balance between risk and reward. The first is the risk of doing nothing and, strange as it may seem, many businesses make this mistake. This could be the company that tries to pries to preserve the exact position that has always served it well in the past, and here the risk is the company will end up going out business. There are many companies in the world that have done very well on the back of a very simple product, and that is absolutely true. But if you look really closely at what they are doing, you will find that they are constantly reviewing their price, they are constantly reviewing their marketing position and they will also invest really heavily into investing and protecting their brand. So the message here is never do nothing.

The second risk relates to companies that give credit or rely on guarantees from others. Both of these will reduce profits if they go wrong. If you want to increase sales, you need new customers, and this may mean selling on credit. So you ship out a consignment of stock and sit back and wait for the customer to repay you. Unfortunately, sometimes the customer doesn’t repay you. They may have gone out of business or simply they may have “gone away”. You are relying on the guarantee of a person or a company. Quite often, though, the guarantee is only as good as the person giving the guarantee.

The third risk is to always be aware of the political agenda. You need to know what is on the government’s current agenda. Is that is likely to change, and if so, how will that affect my business?

The fourth and final example of risk is a company being caught up is some sort of catastrophe or other disruption, such as fraud or criminal damage, that causes interruption to trading. The key question here is, does the business have the people and the plans to cope with that sort of disruption and catastrophe? Many major disruptions have been the end to many good businesses in the past. That is particularly so if the business is located in a single location.

Risk is all about threats and opportunities, and one of the biggest problems that companies face is the quality and the timing of the information that is available on the risks they face. Good information gives you power, and if you have relevant and reliable information, you have a much better chance of managing risk. The management of the risk is absolutely important here, and you need to have a reliable management team that can, in turn, act on that risk. Once you have identified a threat, you need to have really good communication lines between the key players in the company. Then you can take appropriate and swift action on those risks.

Which of the following statements seem to you to be generally true?

1 People dislike work and avoid it if they can.

2 Work is necessary to people's psychological well-being.

3 People avoid responsibility and would rather be told what to do.

4 People are motivated mainly by money.

5 Most people are far more creative and ingenious than their employers realize.

6 People are motivated by anxiety about their security.

7 People want to be interested in their work and, given the right conditions, they will enjoy it.

8 Under the right conditions, most people will accept responsibility and want to realize their own potential.

Дата добавления: 2015-12-07