General Theoretical Marketing Techniques
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For a marketing plan to be successful, the mix of Product,
Price, Promotion, and Placement must reflect the wants and
desires of the consumers in the target market. Trying to
convince a market segment to buy something they don't want is
extremely expensive and seldom successful. Marketers depend on
marketing research, both formal and informal, to determine what
consumers want and what they are willing to pay for. Marketers
hope that this process will give them a sustainable competitive
advantage. Marketing management is the practical application of
this process.
Most companies today have a customer orientation (also called
customer focus). This implies that the company focuses its
activities and products on customer needs. Generally there are
two ways of doing this: the customer-driven approach and the
product innovation approach.
In the consumer-driven approach, consumer wants are the drivers
of all strategic marketing decisions. No strategy is pursued
until it passes the test of consumer research. Every aspect of a
market offering, including the nature of the product itself, is
driven by the needs of potential consumers. The starting point
is always the consumer. The rationale for this approach is that
there is no point spending R&D funds developing products that
people will not buy. History attests to many products that were
commercial failures in spite of being technological
breakthroughs.
The next big thing is a concept in marketing that refers to a
product or idea that will allow for a high amount of sales for
that product and related products. Marketers believe that by
finding or creating the next big thing they will spark a
cultural revolution that results in this sales increase.
In a product innovation approach, the company pursues product
innovation, then tries to develop a market for the product.
Product innovation drives the process and marketing research is
conducted primarily to ensure that a profitable market
segment(s) exists for the innovation. The rationale is that
customers may not know what options will be available to them in
the future so we should not expect them to tell us what they
will buy in the future. It is claimed that if Thomas Edison
depended on marketing research he would have produced larger
candles rather than inventing light bulbs. Many firms, such as
research and development focused companies, successfully focus
on product innovation. Many purists doubt whether this is really
a form of marketing orientation at all, because of the ex post
status of consumer research. Some even question whether it is
marketing.
Diffusion of innovations research explores how and why people
adopt new products, services and ideas.
A relatively new form of marketing uses the Internet and is
called internet marketing or more generally e-marketing,
affiliate marketing or online marketing. It typically tries to
perfect the segmentation strategy used in traditional marketing.
It targets its audience more precisely, and is sometimes called
personalized marketing or one-to-one marketing.
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About the author:
David is the leader of a software development team, who
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Written By: David Tang