UNIT-01 MARKETING

MARKETING The term marketing refers to the process which helps the organizations what type of services or products are wanted by the consumers and what kind of sales strategy should be used to expand the sales. So, marketing basically is all about understanding the customer need and formulating a product on the basis of this. The phrase marketing mix was originated by Neil Borden in 1953. It refers to the four basic principles of marketing that comprises of Four Ps of marketing. These are: 1. Product: It may be any tangible goods(like biscuits, clothes, laptop etc.) or any intangible goods (like holiday packages, cell phone recharge etc.) with are produced on a large scale and in predecided volume. 2. Price: It refers to the amount which buyer spends on buying the manufactured goods or services. 3. Place: It includes various places where product is available for sale. 4. Promotion: it refers to all interactions done by seller to sell the product. All the businesses, these days, conducts a market survey before introducing the services or products in a market. This market survey is sometimes done with the help of primary research i.e. with the help of customer market surveys and sometimes with the help of secondary research i.e. from internet sources, books, journals etc. All the above mentioned Ps are very important for life cycle of product.

Benefits of Segmentation of Business

Market segmentation means the partition done of a market in terms of people with similar taste and preferences. It can be done on the basis of sex, age, location, price, interest etc.For example: marks & Spencers manufacture light and colorful skirts for girls and dark and heavy skirts for adult ladies. Benefits of market segmentation are: 1. Lets the company to visibly categorize their target customers. 2. Designing products and services according to needs of targeted customers. 3. Allows a business to formulate effective marketing strategy to attract the customers of that particular segment. 4. It helps not only to create a class product but also maintaining a relationship with the consumer.

Advantages of branding
Branding refers to a name, design, symbol, term or any feature that differentiates a product from other products. The main advantages of branding are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Because of branding, customers are greatly likely to keep in mind the product and services. A well established brand attracts investors. It signifies the mission and objectives of the company. It is an image of quality in the business. It creates an image of experience and reliability in mind of consumer.

6. The effectiveness of marketing strategies can be calculated in terms of identifying power of consumer. 7. A strong brand name allows a company to get underway various products in the marketplace and the clients are expected to purchase new products as well.

SWOT Analysis of PEPSI Co.

SWOT analysis is a term used to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a business or a project. Identifying the SWOT is necessary to derive the following steps for achieving the objectives of the company. SWOT analysis of PEPSI Co. is done below: Strengths:1. Its main strength is that it is one of the most acknowledged brands in the world. It ranked 43rd in fortune 500 companies in 2011 2. Another strength is that its presence in more than 200 nations. In US, the company has share of 39% in beverages, and 25% in snack food, which accounts for over $17 million in annual sales of the company. 3. It has a diverse product range ranging from soft drinks, juice, and bottled water to cereals and cake mixes. 4. The company has an effective distribution strategy which lets the company to deliver timely services to customers and clients. Weaknesses:1. The company is over dependent on wal-mart, as it accounts for 12% of total revenue in net sales. 2. Besides being present internationally, co. generates 52% of total revenue in US. So at times of depression or any calamity in US, the sales of the company are bound to affect. 3. Last year Co. Had approx 200,000 employees and they accounted for $235,460 per employee, which is low as compared to its competitors. 4. The incidences of pulling waffle mix from the market in 2008 and of explosion of Diet Pepsi cans in 2007 have damaged the company image and confidence. Opportunities:1. To reduce its dependence on US, the company has acquired Russian juice giant, Lebedyansky and V Water in UK. 2. It can still broaden its customer base by pleasing initiatives to penetrate into changing lifestyles of the consumers. 3. PepsiCo is on verge of making investment worth $1,000 million in republic of china and $500 million in India, apart from Mexico and Brazil in order to decrease its dependence on US. 4. Bottled water market is expected to be of $24 million by 2012. In this sphere, PepsiCo has positioned itself well. 5. Also by introducing new savory snacks, it has set itself up for growing market, which is expected to be worth $28 million by 2013.

Threats:1. The soft drink market in US is expected to decline by 2.7% in 2012 that accounts for $64,475 million, which would affect PepsiCo as well. 2. The federal governments concerns related to health, environment and safety may lead to adverse affect on PepsiCos image. 3. PepsiCos main threat is the coca-cola company, along with Kraft foods, Nestle and Groupe Danone. Coca-cola also joined it in the juice market recently. 4. Being a labor dependent company , it is vulnerable to labor lockouts and strikes. As we saw in 2008, in India when the production was shut down for a whole month, creating problems for manufacturing and distribution as well.

External Influences In Promoting A Product

Businesses perform in such an environment in which the competitors as well as other external forces exist. Following major factors influence in promoting a product:1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Social factors such as consumer buying behavior and lifestyles. Legal factors such as changes relating to laws and regulations. Economic factors means economic growth and opportunities Political factors such as changes in administration and govt. policies that affect business. Technological factors mean the new inventions and innovations by competitors. This analysis is also known as SLEPT, which is used by organizations for long term planning.

Marketing Objectives While Planning A Promotional Campaign

At times of planning a promotional campaign the following should be kept in mind: 1. Examining the target market i.e. the group of people whom we are going to give our message to, they can be the current users or a new segment of market. 2. Various methods which we are going to choose in promotion. These communication channels can be various like face-to-face meeting, telephone conversation, personal sales presentation or magazines, newspapers, e-mails etc. 3. The planning must be done keeping in brain the objectives of the promotional campaign. They should be calculable, clearly stated and suitable. 4. Decide the kind of product mix to be used for promotion of product. Allocation of resources among sales promotion, advertising, publicity and personal selling. 5. Determining the budget of promotional campaign must be done in order to calculate the total cost of the product. 6. One should also design the plan for assessing the effectiveness of the campaign once it is implemented.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of The Secondary And Primary Research

Primary research

Advantages: 1. The company can have a control on the information to be collected. So, the marketer can decide on size of sample, location of collecting sample etc. 2. The information collected is 100% authentic and original, so it can be concealed from other people especially rivals. 3. Spending of money is done on information needed only. Disadvantages: 1. It can be very costly as compared to secondary research, as it would involve paper work and man force. 2. The time incurred in collecting the data is also huge along with the time period spent on getting the end product from starting point. 3. Some researchs are too large to be handled by the companies themselves, so they are not always feasible. Secondary data Advantages: 1. The data can be acquired easily without much effort. It can be done by the use of internet, newspapers, books, magazines etc. 2. Also the cost involved in getting the data is too low as compared to primary data. 3. Secondary data is used along with primary research at times when a comparison needs to be done in the research paper.

Disadvantages: 1. The data has no surety of being timely data. Every day a lot of data is collected, making the previous one outdated. 2. Authenticity of data is also a debatable topic in the regard of secondary data. 3. Also, same information can be used by another company. So the persons who did research rarely have information advantage over others.

Internal and external sources while planning an expansion

certain internal and external sources are to be taken care at the times of planning for expansion by a business house. External: 1. Consumer behavior is one of the external factor on whose analysis the future product is dependant. 2. The political environment should also be taken care of, which helps the firms to calculate their taxes and profits.

3. Technological advancement of competitors can also be taken care of while planning an expansion. 4. The income level of people can also be studied for the purpose of expansion. Internal: 1. The brand name of the company plays an important role. Because if the company has good brand name then they can opt for IPOs. 2. A prospective business idea upon which the company can think of expanding. 3. The effectiveness of management to work in any sort of business environment. 4. The dedication of the workforce that weather they can cope up with changing work places.