Chapter 4 - Sales and marketing Flashcards
Marketing mix
The marketing mix is defined as the planned mixing of the four controllable
fundamental elements of the marketing plan for a particular product. These
elements are commonly referred to as the four Ps. They are:
Product
Price
Place
Promotion.
The 4 Ps must be optimally balanced in order to meet the customers’ demands
while generating the required profit. The marketing mix is the mixing of several marketing ingredients namely:
Product planning
Branding
Advertising.
Product
The product is a tangible or an intangible service or item which is mass manufactured or produced in a certain number of units with a purpose of being sold to the customers. There are several aspects which affect decisions about products. Some of the more important ones are: Brand name Styling Quality Packaging Safety Repairs Support Accessories Servicing or warranty.
Product differentiation
Product differentiation is a process by which a product or service is distinguished from the range of similar offerings in the market.
Product life cycle
The product life cycle includes the growth phase, stagnant phase and the decline period that follows the stagnant phase.
Price
Price is simply the amount that the customer pays for the product. A company uses
price to determine its profit. Pricing depends on a variety of aspects:
Quality of product
Brand name
Market competition
Market condition
Product’s life cycle.
Promotion
This element actually represents the communications which marketers use in the
marketplace. It may be further divided into four basic categories of activities,
namely:
Advertising
Public relation
Sales promotion
Personal selling.
The factors which come into the picture while making promotion decisions are:
Type of promotion strategy (for example, push–pull)
Marketing communication budget
Sales force or type of publicity required.
Place
This final element of marketing mix is basically the channel of distribution – or
place – that serves as the medium of getting the product to the end customers.
Segmentation
Segmentation is another essential process in marketing. It refers to the process of dividing the market into smaller but clearly identifiable and defined segments.
Moreover, it also makes it possible for businesses to tailor marketing
mix strategies for each segment specifically, so as to better satisfy the customer needs.
A well-defined market segment can be described as:
Measurable
Substantially profitable
Easily accessible through the various communication and distribution
channels
Having different responses to the same marketing mix
Static over a long period of time
Business market segmentation
- Geographic segmentation - This type of segmentation considers the geographic location of buyers.
- Buyer behaviour - Segmentation on the basis of buyer behaviour depends on buyer usage patterns,
loyalty to suppliers and order size - Customer type - Customer type segmentation of the market depends on factors like the size of the
company, its industry types and the position of the company in value chains
Customer market segmentation
- Geographic segmentation
- Psychographic segmentation - This type of segmentation is based on variables such as the lifestyle of consumers, their attitudes and values
- Demographic segmentation - This segmentation is based on factors such as age, gender, education, ethnicity, occupation, family status, and income of the targeted population of customers.
- Behavioural segmentation - This type of segmentation is based on factors such as price sensitivity, usage rate, brand loyalty, benefits sought and usage patterns.
Sales and selling skills part 1
Direct sales: This involves person-to-person contact during the selling process.
Agency-based sales: This is done through outsourcing the products or services through a third party.
Consultative selling: Here, a sales person becomes the consultant for those buying goods or services.
Telemarketing: In telemarketing, selling is done manually over the phone or through automated voice response system.
Retail: This is one of the most common methods of traditional selling through stores, outlets or other marketplaces.
Travelling salesperson: The salesperson travels door to door to sell products or services assigned to them. This is an effective method of selling but is usually quite slow. It is especially effective when used to market a new product or service.
Request for proposal: When the number of buyers is high and the product cannot be marketed through any other distribution channels, buyers are asked
to bring proposals for purchase of the product or service. The seller then decides who the approved buyers for the product or service will be.
Business-to-business sales: In this process of selling, one business becomes the supplier to another business.
Electronic or Internet sales: This is sales which are done over the Internet.
Sales and selling skills part 2
- Question skills
- Planning for sales calls
- Presentation skills
- Managing the buyer/seller relationship
- Gaining commitment
Customer service
High-touch customer service: This is popular in high-end stores where customers are warmly welcomed and approached in a friendly manner when they show interest in buying something.
Low-touch customer service: In this case, customers are not offered any assistance unless they want to return a faulty item.
Bad-touch customer service: Employees are present in the store but are not helpful or have no authority to help customers.
Inflexible customer service: In this instance, the customer service person listens to customers, understands their problems and acknowledges their
issues, but does nothing to remedy the situation.
Transparent customer service: Customers are shown each and every thing that is going on. For example, the takeaway food outlet, Subway, shows its
customers how its food is prepared. Customers can also tailor their orders to their own tastes by, forinstances, saying how spicy they want theirfood to be.
Clueless customer service: No training whatsoever is given to customer service agents and they generally read from a set script to help the customers.
Evil customer service: This takes place when companies send spam to customers continuously to buy products or service without taking no for an
answer. Companies using this method will continuously urge the customers to buy some product or service, using either email spam or telephone calls.
Perfect customer service: This type of customer service aims at ensuring that every need or want of each customer is met every time. In reality, it is
extremely rare to find such a service. An example would be a bank where the same person helps you out every time, picks up paperwork from your home or
office, calls you regularly to keep you up to date on your account, and handles every aspect of your banking.
Traditional marketing
The main goal of traditional marketing is to increase the visibility of
the product and its company. The message delivered to the customer by
traditional marketing is very much company controlled and driven by the
company. The company is the main focus and it becomes a very active participant,
while the consumer is comparatively inactive and passive.
Key focus of traditional marketing
The key focus of traditional marketing is the unique selling proposition (USP).
The USP of the product is its exclusive feature, which gives a uniqueness to each
particular product
