Business Reading chapter 2- 1/11/15Marketing Concept- focuses on importance of providing costumers value, all company polocies and activities should satisfy costumer needs- Makret Research- to determine the needs of its costumers- Merket Mix- to determine how to satisfy those needs through addressing product, price, place, promtotion, and service- Market strategy- to analyze its competitive advantages, plans, and actions- Target Marketing- to select specific markets to serve Managing the Market Mix-1. Products and Services- effective product strategies for a small business may include concentrating on a narrow product line, developing a highly specialized product or service or providing a product-service package containing an unusual amount of service2. Price- price and polocies are a major factor affecting total revenue. This includes determining the credit policy: Will you allow your costumer to pay for the product after they receive it, or do they need to pay for it when they receive it? In the most general sense, higher prices mean lower volume and lower prices mean higher volume. However, small businesses can often command higher prices because of the personalized service they offer. In addition, there have been situations where higher prices are associated with higher quality, and increasing the price to a certain point, results in increased volume. Hair care products are one category where this has occurred3. Promotion- Includes leveraging Internet, various forms of advertising, salesmanship, and other promotional activities. Offering special financing or extended terms in another form of promotion, effective promotional strategies are a must for business because of the cost of extensive advertising campaigns and the limitations such cost imposes4. Place or Distribution Channel- manufacturer and wholesaler decide how to distribute their products, working through established distributors or manufacturers agents for small manufactures. Small retailers should consider cost and traffic flow as two major factors in location site selection, especially since advertising and rent can be reciprocal. Low cost, low traffic location means you must spend more on advertising to build traffic. Investing efforts to increase accessibility are key factors in product distribution5. Service- Product, price, place, and promotion, costumer service is another way that an organization can provide value and differentiate itself from others that offer similar or identical productsMarket Research-systematic gathering, recording, and analyzing of data about problems relating to marketing goods and servicesReasons for market research-- Reduce business risk- Identify problems and potential problems in your current market that you can solve in a unique matter- Discover and profit from sales opportunities- Acquire facts about your market to develop a marketing strategy and implement action plans- Assist you in making better decisions and make corrections as neededConducting market research- follows eight steps:1. Defining the problem or opportunity2. Assessing available information3. Gathering additional information4. Reviewing internal records and files, interviewing employees5. Collecting outside data6. Organizing and interpreting data7. Making a decision and taking action8. Assessing the results of the actionAssessing the Results of the Action- analyze your progress measures, if you are disappointed in the results, determine why the plan went awryMarketing strategy- encompasses identifying costumer groups, or target markets, that a small business can serve better than its competitors, and tailoring its product offerings, prices, distribution, promotional efforts, and services toward that particular market segment, should address unmet consumer needs that represent adequate potential size and profitability, marketing strategy is most successful whenits marketing orientation 9and approach that requires an organization to gather information about their costumers needs through research, share that information throughout the firm, and use that information to help build long-term relationships between the organization and their costumers)Target Marketing- concentrating their market efforts on one or a few key market segments - Geographic segmentation- focusing on understanding the needs of costumers in a particular geographical area- Demographic segmentation- Focusing on the attributes of the market based on gender, age, income, education, or other measurable factors- Psychographic segmentation- Identifying and promoting to groups of people based on lifestyle and behaviors that are most likely to buy the product, my be based on interests, fears, behaviors, or actionsThe sales forecast- create sales forecast process often begins by assessing how the total market will performMarket Performance- after market program decisions are made, owners and managers need to evaluate the result of their decisions, spending more is not always better. The law of diminishing return states that investing additional resources may initially increase productivity, but after a certain point, spending more will result in a lower return per dollar invested.Diminishing state (rate of dimisninshing return)- states that additional Investment beyond a certain threshold will not add proportional