So this is what marketing is all about?

Through these weeks we have looked at Dilbert and how engineers view marketing.  Certainly things have changed in my mind at how I view marketing.  Marketing is more than just the art of selling and advertising more than Don Draper and his whiskey and womanizing.  Marketing is a key component to a company's success today.  Marketing must be integrated into the strategic plan of the company so that all employees can be working to the sames goals.  The marketing plans is then integrated into the companies performance dashboard and metrics to provide feed back on the success of the company.  A company cannot function without looking towards its customers to define the market. 

Data.  What do you mean that marketing needs data?  Data is keys to all that marketing does. Data must be collected internally and externally to help make marketing decisions.  A company must evaluate its own strength and weakness and the markets opportunities and threats (SWOT). By evaluating the four Ps ( a classic marketing terms of price, product, place, promotion) a company can develop their SWOT analysis. This data is important in creating the marketing strategies for a company to follow.  Beyond the four Ps, the five C's is another important analysis.  Company, consumer, competitor, collaborator and context are another way to look at the data collected.  By evaluating the five C's more insight can be gained into the way consumers view the market and the product.  And so far there hasn't been any talk about those pretty posters or cut out coupons as you might have expected. 

 

This video skims through all the basics of marketing that highlights public relations, advertising, cannibalization and others in a humors manner.  These are all important items to remember when creating your marketing strategy.  Marketers can also be funny and create a humorous way to see their product and their topics which are important to remember but the video highlights public relations and advertising that must developed in order to see that marketing is more than sales and pretty pictures. 

How is brand loyalty created? How is it maintained? Public Relations. 

Public relations is paramount in today's marketing society with the access to social media and how quickly bad reviews could effect a brand.  The public relations team focuses on the companies message to the customer and is the intermediaries between the consumers and the corporation.  They help to assuage the issues faced by the consumers or blunder the company created.  The public relations team two communication because customer feedback can be address with a company response. By having a top notch public relations team brand equity can be saved and increased. 

Now we cannot forget about advertising. How a business advertises its product through positioning, product benefits, competitor comparison  and others.  A strong positioning statement is needed to help the consumer define the value of the product.  This statement is important because it allows the company and consumer to have goals for the product. Also advertising can be through many mediums: print, radio, TV, outdoor, internet media, advertainment and stealth marketing.  The method for advertising is important to be based on the market segment that have been defined for your product. 

So what does Drucker say on all of this.  "The business enterprise has two - only two- basic functions: marketing and innovation.  Marketing and innovation produce results, all the rest are costs" (19, Cohen). Druckeer is one of most well known business marketing philosophers.  He has developed many of the new standards that company's use when creating their marketing plan today.  "According to Drucker, there is only one valid purpose for a business and that is to create customers" (17, Cohen).

Drucker would agree that marketing is more than just pretty pictures, buzz words and sales.  He was say that marketing is all about the customer.  A company and product do not exist if there is no consumer for the product.  The consumer also defines the value and quality of a product and ultimately the end use of a product.

One last thought is to avoid the five deadly sins of business and marketing.  These sins can derail a company for their mission and consumer focused mind set and ultimately cause failure in the business.

Sin #1: Seeking High Profit Margins and Premium Pricing

Sin #2: Charging What the Market Will Bear

Sin #3: Using Cost-Driven Pricing

Sin #4: Focusing on Past Winners

Sin #5: Giving Problems Priority over Opportunities

Overall, the job a marketer is to define market segments, create a marketing plan,  develop key metrics and sift though data to make it all usable for the executives and employees alike.  They must also be able to look ahead and see how the market could be changing and not get caught up in the current success the company may be having currently.  So as we can see marketing is more than just Madmen and sales or pretty pictures and pretty women.

Cohen, William A. Drucker on Marketing: Lessons from the World's Most Influential Business Thinker. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print.

Why did you post that on our Facebook?

So far a lot has been happening in the seven periods of Pharmasim that we have been playing as a team.  The team has been working together around the busy schedules that we have and the tight timeline for advancing the simulations.  Our plan of attack was thrown off the first day when we had our special decisions. The special decisions did not have a large impact on our marketing plan but did take special consideration.  The reaction to the bad marketing feedback was important as we knew that if we did not respond timely and correctly it could effect our brands name and image.  Another special decision was certain retailers wanting additional channel discounts.  This decision was tough as we knew that our sales could be affected because the product would not be sold. 

Also through the first seven periods, the most important thing learned so far was the need to review the necessary data to make the decisions. I know this sounds cliche coming from the engineer but knowing what surveys to purchase with our limited budget was really important.  To see the pricing of our competitors or reviewing the brands purchased survey were key to making sure our marketing plan was functioning. 

The most important decision that we made so far was the introduction of the children's cold medicine.  It was important because we had to decide if we could recoup more sales than what would be cannibalized by the new product.  Also we had to segment our market from Allround the cold remedy for everybody to the young and mature families for just cold medicine.  

Going through the SWOT analysis and the market attractiveness activity helped developed the marketing plan.  The market attractiveness showed that the creation of the children's cold medicine was the highest was a total of 625 and the second was cough with 500.   This helped to show there was an attractive market for both of the children cold and everyone cough.  This also should have employed with the decision to add allergy to the Allstar brand products.