Martin is giving a presentation to management about the positioning strategy he has developed with his team. Listen and answer the questions below.

1. What is the company's target market?

2. Why is their product superior to other packages?

3. How can they prove that their product is the best?

Listen again and complete the phrases from the presentation.

1. We are ________________ customers who are…..

2. Extensive testing _________________that we provide…

3. Speed of access is _______________ why our product is better.

4. Another reason is that we _______________ every new customer with a free…

Output

Read the following article from marketing guru Cheryl Hattiaghandi's website and answer the questions below.

Cheryl Hattiaghandi helps you see what's in your company's stars

Cash cows? Dogs? Stars? Are we in the marketing department or in a children's book?!

Don't worry; you haven't clicked on the wrong link. These items all refer to parts of the Boston Matrix, created by members of the Boston Consulting Group to analyze a company's product portfolio.

While the names are strange, the matrix is extremely useful when writing your marketing plan. Let's look at each quadrant in more detail.

• Cash cows are mature products that have a large market share and that are earning a lot of money. The market is static, so there's not much opportunity for growth, but that's not a problem. These products require little attention from the marketing department.

• Stars are recently-introduced products with a large market share. But, unlike cash cows, the market is growing, so stars have the chance to attract even more new customers. If stars are successful, they become cash cows once the market has stabilized.

• Question marks, as you might guess, are products where no one is positive what's going on. They have a low market share, but they are also in a growing market area. It's possible that they will become stars if given time.

• Finally, there are the dogs. Dogs are products which have a low market share in a market that's not growing. And, as you can guess, the best thing to do with a dog is take it for a walk - outside of your product portfolio. Dogs are in the decline stage of the product life cycle and should probably be retired.

So, cows, question marks, stars, dogs: use this handy tool the next time you're trying to decide 'what next' when writing your marketing plan!

1. How useful do you think the Boston Matrix is?

2. What products do we call “Cash Cows”?

3. What products are called “Stars”?

4. “Poor Dogs”, what are they?

Unit 4

Дата добавления: 2015-10-13