Market research-Industrial Market Research

There are a number of differences between industrial market research and consumer market research. 

• Consumer markets are more numerous
• Industrial markets are bigger in euro terms
• The demand for industrial goods is derived from the demand from consumer goods
• Within industrial markets there is a case that 80% of business comes from 20% of industrial clients
• There may be multiple buyers in industrial firms
• There are different buying motives for industrial firms
• Many of the  goods manufactured are customised
• It is much harder to get access to decision makers in industrial firms
• In industrial market research there is less focus on the marketing concept
• Industrial research is future orientation
• Limited test marketing

Differences in research applications

• For industrial research different types of secondary data is used.  For example a lot of industry reports are used
• Trade association data is very important
• Surveys are used more than depth interviews
• Probability sampling is not used
• Industrial market research doesn't tend to use sophisticated analysis tools

Business Admin-Promotional mix

The first element of the promotional mix is advertising.  According to Kotler (1999) advertising is any paid form.   Advertising can be used to:

• Create awareness
• Broaden demand
• Remind and reassurance previous customers of the product or service

 There are many strengths to using advertising to promote a product or service.
  These are:

• Allows the firm to repeat the message many times
• Low cost per target audience for mass markets
• It allows the firm to demonstrate their product
• Can use advertising to trigger quick sales

Of course there are many weaknesses to using advertising.  These are:

• The cost of producing and transmitting the advertisement on TV is very expensive
• It can be hard to measure the effectiveness of an advertisement
• It is less persuasive than personal selling.

There are a number of ethical issues within advertising that need to be considered.  These are:

• Misleading advertising
• Deceptive advertising

The second element of the promotiona mix is Publicity
Public relation is 'the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics (Dibb et al, 1995)

The following are some of the publics associated with an organisation:

1. Media
2. Finance
3. Employees
4. Government
5. Public

Difference between advertising and publicity

• You have to pay for advertising whereas publicity tends to be free (you may have to pay for the hotel room for a conference, leaflets or brochures etc)
• Publicity is deemed to be more credible than advertising
• You can repeat an advert many times while publicity tends to be one off.
• The message in an advertisement tends to be more persuasive than publicity

The third element of the promotional mix is sales promotion
Sales promotion can be used to incresase sales in three ways:

1. Increase total market category
2. Encourage customers to switch from their usual brand another brand
3. Bring forward future purchases

There are many advantages to sales promotions.  These are:

1. Sales promotions can be used to encourage customers to buy a product or season off season
2. It can aid the selling off of slow moving stock
3. Can be used at any stage of the PLC

There are also a number of weaknesses which are as following:

• It can be expensive to implement a sales promotional plan
• There may be a lot of sales promotions on at the same time
• Sales may only increase for as long as the promotion is running

Personal selling is the second last element of the promotional mix.  Personal selling can be used for expensive goods and services.  It allows the potential customer to ask multiple questions regarding the product or service.

The final element of the promotional mix is sponsorship.  Sponsorship can be used to build and generate publicity for the company especially if the firm is sponsoring local sporting clubs. 

Equine Science-Marketing Mix (price)

Price is the second element of the marketing mix.  It is the only element of the marketing mix that will generate money-all the other elements generate costs. 

Developing a pricing strategy
There are seven steps to develping a pricing strategy.  These are:

1. Assess price competitiveness-are we aware of how customers perceive our competitors.  Which competitors are seeing to offer the best value.  How do customers determine value? Through market reserach we need to determine what factors within or product or service offering customers value and what weight customers attach to each of those factors. 
2. Set pricing objectives-what are companies pricing objectives-is it survival, to gain maximum market share, to skim the market etc.
3. Strategy focus
4. Target market segment
5. Evaluate competitive strategies
6. Measure value to customer
7. Product line pricing
8. Select price

When companie are deciding to use price promtions they need to be aware of the following factors:

1. Customers buy for inventory when price promotions are present
2. There may be cases where demand outsrips supply
3. May impact on brand image
4. Hidden costs

There may also be instances where the price may need to be adapted

• Geographical pricing
• Price discounts and allowances
• Differentiated pricing
• Price discrimination

Equine Science-Marketing Mix (product)

One of the most important element of the marketing mix is product. All product go through the product life cycle (introduction, growth, maturity and decline)  Of course there are a number if disadvantages or weakness associated with the PLC.  Some of these weaknesses are:

• Unclear implications
• Product focused
• There is no standard curve
  

For a company to survive it is essential that they have a strong brand(s).  Brands can be more valuable than the company's physical assets.  Branding if successful, will try to protect a brand from failure.  What we as markters must understand is that for some brand consumers have emotional ties to the brand. 


What are the main benefits of branding?

• If a brand is strong is may be able to command a premium price
• Strong brand may be able to obtain higher market share
• It is possibel to grow with stronger brands

How can a company build a strong brand?

• Focus on brand identity
• Build brand awareness
• Build associations with the brand
• Ensure that there are value and quality perceptions associated with the brand
• Build and grow brand loyalty
• Create a position for your brand

Equine Students-Market segmentation, targeting and positioning

Every company must decide which segment(s) they wish to participate in.  But how do companies decide which segments to target?    Marketing managers have to take into consideration the following factors:

• The size of the segment
• The accessibility of the segment
• The sustainability of the segment
• Actionability

Why should a company spend time on identifying which segment(s) to target? The following are some of the reasons that marketing managers use to justify the time spent segmenting a market.

• Better match customers needs
• Enhanced profitability
• More effective promotional communications
• Opportunity for growth
• Opportunity to dominate the segment

There are four element that marketing managers must consider when devising their segmentation strategy.  These are:

• Performance objectives
• Strategic focus
• Positioning
• Implementation programmes

Once the segment(s) have been identified then next step is to identify which targeting strategy the firm will use.  There are four main targeting strategies.

• Undifferentiated targeting
• Diferentiated targeting
• Focused targeting
• Customised targeting

When the targeting strategy has been chosen time should be spent on the positioning strategy for product or service. How do you want customers to view your product or service?  In order to help the customer position the product or service in their mind it is imperative that a USP or a sustainable differntial advantage is created.
A position strategy has to have four elements:

• Clarity
• Consistency
• Credibility
• Competitiveness

Some companies have to make the decision to reposition their product or service in order to survive.  If this is to be successful, a considerable amount of money will need to be spent on educating the target audience. 

Market Research-international market research

The process for conducting international market research is similar to conducting research in home ground.  International market research is conducted for a variety of reasons mainly:

1. To estimate demand
2. To identify market segments
3. Idenitfy the merits and problems of entry barriers
4. Can be used to to identify what advertising and pricing strategies

There are a number of issues that are of concern to companies that are going to conduct marketing research on an international scale.

• Complexity of the research design
• Lack of secondary data
• High costs of collecting the data
• Is it possible to compare data collected over a number of years using a number of methods

E-Businesss-Ethics and e-commerce

A model for e-commerce
When deciding on a model for e-commerce one must take into account three important factors.  These are:

• Ethical
• Social
• political

When it comes to ethics. there are three basic principles that all ethical school share:

• Responsibility
• Accountability
• Liability

If a company is facing an ethical dilemma (recall a product or leave it on the shelf because of the costs invovled in recalling the product) they have to consider the following:

• Identify and clearly describe the facts
• Define the conflict or dilemma
• Who are the stakeholders-how much power do they have?
• What are the options facing the company?
• What are the consequences of the companies actions?

Social
How is information collected on websites especially on social networking sites? What about privacy?  Does your company undertake profiling and behavioural targeting.

Political
Who owns intellectual property rights? What about copyright and trademarks?   Can the internet be governed and controlled?