Topic 5: Marketing Flashcards
What is the marketing mix (4 P’s)?
Product - business must find customers needs or wants then come up with a product that fulfils them
Price - product must be good value for money
Promotion - product must be promoted so potential customers are aware it exists
Place - product must be sold in a place that’s convenient
Are all aspects of the marketing mix equal in importance?
It depends on the situation - e.g. there’s products some would travel an inconvenient way for
What is market research?
Finding out what customers want
What does market research allow a business to create?
A targeted marketing strategy
What can market research help identify?
Size of the market and the market shares of different businesses within that market
What is segmentation?
When people within a market are divided into different groups
What are examples of how a market can be segmented?
Age - e.g. teenage market
Gender - some scents and hygiene products targeted to different genders
Location - location depends on what people want e.g. a rich part of London may have a Gucci but Woking won’t
Income - the different amount people earn will affect how much they’re willing to spend on a product
Why is market research useful to businesses?
Helps a business understand its customers and competitors - helping them create a good marketing mix
Businesses are better able to identify their customers needs - more likely to produce a products that satisfies them
Helps a business to stay competitive and sell more of their product
What is a business able to do by identifying and satisfying a customers needs?
Increase sales - the demand for a product may show how to price product competitively and not make too much of it
Stay competitive - helps a business to show how they’re different and better than competitors
Create targeted marketing - business able to produce promotional material that’ll be effective
What can market research also be used to find in terms of opportunities?
Gaps in the market
What is quantitative data?
Anything you can measure or reduce to a number
E.g. seeing how much of a product people buy on average
What is qualitative data?
People’s feelings and opinions
E.g. if someone prefers one product or another
What are drawbacks of using qualitative data?
Harder to analyse
Harder to compare two people’s opinions
What are positives of using qualitative data?
Gives a greater depth of information
What does good market research use?
Both qualitative and quantitative data
What is primary research?
Doing your own research
What are examples of primary research?
Questionnaires
Phone surveys
Interviews
Focus groups
What are benefits of doing primary research?
Gets a possible customers view on products
Provides data that’s up to date, relevant and specific to the needs of the business
Can be specific to the target market
What are drawbacks of doing primary research?
Only have a sample of people - may not be an accurate representation
Can be expensive and time consuming
What is secondary research?
Using other people’s work
What are examples of secondary market research?
Government publications
Newspapers
Magazines
Articles
What are benefits of doing secondary research?
Gives access to a wide range of data - not just views of sample groups
Useful for looking at the whole market and analysing past trends to predict the future
Cheaper and faster
What are drawbacks of doing secondary research?
Not always relevant to needs
Not specific about a businesses products
Data can be out of date
What can businesses use sales data to analyse?
How well products sell and they may suggest what the issue is if it doesn’t sell well (if it’s price, the promotion, the place it’s sold or the product itself)
What are the stages of the product life cycle?
- Development
- Introduction
- Growth
- Maturity
- Decline
(maybe 6. Extension strategy)
What is the development stage of a product?
Develops an idea into a marketable product
Scientific research may be done in this stage
Aim is to find cost effective materials and methods to use
What is the introduction stage of a product?
When the product is launched and put on sale for the first time
Often backed up with a lot of advertising
Place is deeply looked at within this - released in areas the product is likely to sell in
What is the growth stage of a product?
Demand increases
The product becomes established
What is the maturity stage of a product?
When demand has reached its peak
Promotion becomes less important - product is still advertised but not as much
Towards the end of this phase, the market becomes saturated and there’s no room to expand
What is the decline stage of a product?
When demand eventually starts to fall
Rival products begin to take over
What can a product life cycle be represented on?
A graph
What happens with sales as the product cycle continues?
- First 2 stages, sales are low and it’s expected that the business will make a loss during these stages
- Next 2 stages, business will hope to make a profit as sales increase
- Decline, the business will lose sales and will make a loss, they will eventually pull the product
What can product life cycles show?
How the costs associated with products change during its life cycle
How demand changes over the cycle of a product and how that affects sales and revenue
What are extension strategies?
Things a business can do to keep their products selling after they start to decline
What does an extension strategy result in? (Positive + negative)
The product making profit for longer
More money is however spent on the product, taking money away from other parts of the business
4 examples of extension strategies?
- Adding more or different features to the product
- Using new packaging for the product
- Targeting new markets and promoting to them
- Lowering price of the product
What is a product portfolio?
The range of different products a business sells
What is the aim to have for a product portfolio?
For it to be balanced
To sell a variety of products to make the portfolio varied
What is the Boston Matrix?
A way for a firm to analyse its product portfolio
What does the Boston Matrix look like?
Stars Question marks
Cash cows Dogs
STAR = HIGH MARKET GROWTH, HIGH MARKET SHARE
QUESTION MARK = HIGH MARKET GROWTH, LOW MARKET SHARE
CASH COW = LOW MARKET GROWTH, HIGH MARKET SHARE
DOGS = LOW MARKET GROWTH, LOW MARKET SHARE
What does a question mark mean in the Boston matrix?
All new products are question marks
They have a small market share but a high growth
They aren’t profitable yet and need heavy marketing to make them successful
What does a star mean in the Boston matrix?
High market share and high market growth
They’re future cash cow
What does a cash cow mean in the Boston matrix?
Bring in plenty of money
High market share and low market growth
In their maturity phase
Costs are low as they’ve been promoted
What does a dog mean in the Boston matrix?
Low market share and low market growth
They’re a lost cause
The business will either discontinue them or sell them off
How does the Boston matrix help analyse a product portfolio?
Helps see if they have a balanced product portfolio e.g. using money from cash cows to invest into question marks so they can become stars
However, it’s not always accurate
What creates a balanced portfolio?
Products being at different stages of the product life cycle
Products being distributed in the Boston matrix
How can a product portfolio be broadened?
Adding products to an existing range by developing new products based on their current ones
Increasing their range of products by developing products that are different from their current ones
Why is having a broad product portfolio important?
To increase sales
Target a different segment
Compete with other companies
What is diversification?
Designing and producing more products