Past Year Question free essay sample

Question 1 a) Define marketing management. Marketing management can be define as the analysis, planning, implementation, and control of programmes design to create, build and maintain beneficial exchanges with target buyers for the purpose of archiving organizational objectives. b) Describe the five(5) marketing management philosophies 1. Production The philosophy that consumers will favour products that are available and highly affordable, that management should therefore focus on improving production and distribution efficiency. 2. Products The idea that consumers favor products that offer the most quality, performance and features, and that the organisation should therefore devote its energy into making continuous product improvements; a detailed version of the new product idea. 3. Selling The idea that consumers won’t buy enough of the organisations products unless the organisation undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort. 4. Marketing Achieving organisational goals depends on determining the needs and wants of its target market and delivering the desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than competitors. We will write a custom essay sample on Past Year Question or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page 5. Societal Marketing The idea that the organisation should determine the needs, wants and interests of target markets and deliver the desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than competitors in a way that maintains or improves the consumers and societys well being. c) Determine which of the  philosophies would be suitable to manage a hypermarket store. State your reasons. The most suitable philosophies to manage hypermarket store is marketing concept. The Marketing concept holds that the key to archiving organizational goal is for the organizational to determine the needs and want of the target markets and efficiently than its competitors. The reason of marketing concept most suitable because it focus on customer needs well-define market, coordinates all the marketing activities affecting the customers and make profits by creating long-term customer relationship based on customer values and satisfaction. Question 2 a) Identify and list five (5) requirements for an effective segmentation. 1. Measurability The variables used to segment the market must be easily measured. 2. Accessibility The market segment should also be easily reached and served. 3. Substantiality When dividing the market, the segments should be large enough or profitable enough to serve. 4. Actionability. The marketing programs should also be designed to attract and serve the market segments. 5. Differentiable. Cater to need and want to different customer. For example shampoo Rejoice . b) Briefly explain four (4) bases for segmentation The four bases for segmentation are Geographic segmentation, Demographic segmentation, Psychographic segmentation and behavioural segmentation. 1. Geographic segmentation The process of dividing the market into geographical units. 2. Demographic segmentation The process of dividing the market into group based on demography such as age, gender, income occupation etc. 3. Psycographic segmentation The process of dividing the market into different groups based on psychographic Characteristics such as social class, lifestyle and personality characteristic. 4. Behavioral Segmentation. The process of dividing the market based on either the customer knowledge, activities, uses or responses to a product. c) Determine the best three (3) segmentation bases combination for a shampoo. State two (2) reasons to illustrate your answer. The best three segmentation are actionability, differentiable and substantiality. The reasons of these are because the product offered different types of shampoo which bases on hair types of consumers. Beside that advertising also the most important to attract the consumers to buy the product and these were include in actionability for effective segmentation. Question 3 a) List and describe the three (3) product level. The three product levels are actual product, core product and augmented product. 1. Actual product It can be related to quality level, features, styling consists of design and aesthetic aspects, brand name and packaging. 2. Core product Refer to what benefits the customer is looking for. 3. Augmented product Consists of the additional benefits that the customers expect from the products which must be built around core and actual such as service, installation, warranty etc. b) Explain the individual product decision by user and mobile phone as your example. The individual product decision by user can be related to quality level, features, styling consists of design and aesthetic aspects, brand name and packaging 1. Quality level Refer to product performances for example mobile phone user will look into which product that can provide them high quality in all aspects. 2. Features The features of mobile phones are the set of capabilities, services and applications that they offer to their users. Low-end mobile phones are often referred to as feature phones, and offer basic telephony. Handsets with more advanced computing ability through the use of native software applications became known as smartphones. 3. Styling Styling of mobile phones also contributes to user decision. Question 4. a) List and briefly describe five (5) factors in price setting. The 5 factors need to consider in setting the price are everyday low pricing, high-low pricing, value added pricing, pricing power and cost-based pricing. 1. Everyday low pricing (EDLP) Involves charging a constant everyday low price with few or no temporary price discounts. 2. High-low pricing Involves charging higher prices on an everyday basis but running frequent promotions to lower prices temporarily on selected items. 3. Value-added pricing Attaches value-added features and services to differentiate offers, support higher prices, and build pricing power. 4. Pricing power Is the ability to escape price competition and to justify higher prices and margins without losing market share. 5. Cost-based pricing Involves setting prices based on the costs for producing, distributing, and selling the product plus a fair rate of return for its effort and risk. b) A pricing method in which a fixed sum or a percentage of the total cost is added (as income or profit) to the cost of the product to arrive at its selling price. Value-based pricing can be define as the setting of a product or services price, based on the benefits it provides to consumers. By contrast, cost-plus pricing is based on the amount of money it takes to produce the product. Companies that offer unique or highly valuable features or services are better positioned to take advantage of value-based pricing, than companies whose products are services are relatively indistinguishable from those of their competitors. Question 5 A) Marketing logistic B) Marketing logistics involve planning, delivering, and controlling the flow of physical goods, marketing materials and information from the producer to a market as necessary to meet customer demands while still making a satisfactory profit. Maintaining an organization’s competitive edge means  understanding and implementing an effective marketing logistics strategy regarding product, price, place and promotion. These four functions of marketing logistics help the organization to reach the target customers and deliver the products or services sold by the organization to these customers. C) D) Product Delivery E) One function of logistics marketing is finding out who your customer is and how to get the product or service to the customer. Each customer can have individualized needs so the logistical services provided may vary from customer to customer. Regardless of these differences, the customers expects 100 percent conformance and assured reliability at all times with every transaction. The goals of this aspect of marketing logistics include filling the order, on-time delivery, precise invoicing and zero damage. F) Price G) An organization bases pricing decisions on both internal and external factors. Marketing logistics must recognize price drivers. The profile of the customer, the product and the type of order are factors that drive the price. These changes are not typically controlled by marketing logistics. However, marketing logistics must react to these factors and understand how the factors affect customers’ decisions. Discounts for quantities and the related logistical cost structure can impact the price the customer will ultimately pay for the product or service. Additional factors driving price include the shipping costs based on the size, weight and distance the organization will ship the item. Further, the size of the manufacturing run, labor costs and the types, quantities and quality of the materials used in the manufacturing process can affect price. H) Promotion I) Promotion is another important aspect of an organization’s marketing logistics process. When bringing a product to market, the organization must coordinate the logistics of the various marketing materials. For example, the art department might design the artwork for the products box and an outside supplier might manufacture the boxes with the artwork. Marketing logistics can help to ensure that all of these entities work together and produce the marketing materials needed to sell the product. J) Place K) The function of place in marketing logistics allows the organization to simplify the transactions between a logistics provider and the customer. The organization must execute logistics in such a way that the customer is not aware of the complexities involved in the logistics process. For the customer, the output is always more important than the process. The organization should, therefore, never expose the backroom processes involved with logistics delivery to the customer. Also the location of the factory, warehouse and customer can greatly impact the marketing logistics process by increasing or reducing costs. For example, locating a factory in Mexico might reduce the labor costs associated with a product. However, at the same time locating the factory in Mexico might increase the shipping costs and negate any cost savings. c) CHANNEL-MANAGEMENT DECISIONS: After choosing a channel alternative, individual intermediaries must be selected, motivated and evaluated. Channel arrangements must also be modified over time Selecting channel members