Contemporary Issues in Marketing

This report discusses the marketing mix and theories like STP approach and consumer decision-making process in the context of Backup North West, a UK-based charitable organization. It covers elements like product, price, place, promotion, process, people, and physical evidence. The report also highlights the importance of targeting the right audience to satisfy their needs and demands effectively.

Contemporary Issues
in Marketing

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................3
Marketing mix........................................................................................................................3
Marketing theories and concept..............................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERNCES:..................................................................................................................................8
Books and Journals:................................................................................................................8
Online:....................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is an important function to any organization as it helps brand to promote its
goods and services for the buying and selling purposes. It includes advertising, distributing,
selling of goods and services to customers or any other business firms. The term marketing can
be understood as any actions undertakes by an organization to attract its target customers to the
brand and its offers with the help of high-quality messaging (Rust, 2020). Marketing intents to
give outstanding value for customers and prospects through its content or message, with the long
term aspirations of showing the values of product, boosts brand strength and loyalty and finally
increase the business sales. This report is based on a case study of Backup North West. It is UK
based organization originally found in the year 1992. It is a charitable organization which aims to
germinate and transform the lives of young people by facilitating them accommodation, support,
guidance and advice to meet their various needs and requirements (Mintz and et.al., 2021). They
run their organization as they want no young person should experience homelessness. This report
aims to discuss the marketing mix of Backup North West and other main marketing theory that
can influence the marketing activities.
TASK
Marketing mix
A marketing mix contains various areas of concentration as part of an encompassing
marketing plan. It denotes as a marketing tool or strategy used by brand to promote its product
and services in the marketplace and sell it into the same. It is all about positioning a product and
making a choice to sell it in the right place, at the right time and right place. Hence, the product
or service will be sold, according to the generated marketing plan and promotional tactics. It also
refers to a general classification that began as the 4Ps such as product, place, price and
promotion (Kotler, Kartajaya and Setiawan, 2021). Later, it adds three more elements in the
marketing mix such as physical evidence, process and people. In context of Backup North West,
all seven elements are discussed below:
 Product: It is an element used as a commodity, created and developed with an intent to
satisfy the demands and needs of a person or group of person. It can be tangible and
intangible in nature. In order to make a product or service, there is a requirement of deep
research before creating a good or service as it has a fluctuating life cycle, from the phase

of growth to maturity to the sales decrease point. The Backup North West is required to
make a service or good through their customers i.e. young people can be benefited and
satisfied. The services that it offers to young people are accommodation to live, help to
homeless people, offer suggestions and guidance on how young people can make their
career, how they can grab job opportunities, how they can enhance their livelihood or
how they can reduce drugs and alcohol exploitation.
 Price: It is a very essential element of the marketing mix. This factor denotes the amount
that a customer pays for their goods and services in order to consume them. It is the most
critical element in the marketing plan as shows the survival and profit margin of the
company. Change in pricing strategy has a huge influence on the entire marketing plan
and significantly affects the product sales and need of it in the target market. Things need
to be considered while ascertaining the price of product are competitors' price, customer
location, terms of sales and many more (Chernev, 2020). In case of Backup North West,
as it is charitable firm is serves voluntarily to the young and homeless people so that they
can improve their living standards. It raises funds through various sources such as
donations, charities and many more from people or business organizations. They cost
very reasonable so that anyone can donate their funds as per their willingness. Also, they
use both online and offline modes of payments.
 Place: Place or distribution is another component that influences the marketing plan and
strategy. It is quite fundamental for the company to plan the place or distribution centre
for their goods or services, so that potential customers can easily access the services or
goods. In addition to Backup North West, the young people can avail and access the
services of company through emails, calls, helping centres, official websites and many
more.
 Promotion: It is an element that supports organization to publicize the good or service
and its traits to the consumers. It tends as the most expensive element of the marketing
mix as it supports to catch the customer attention and influence them to grab the offers.
The charitable organization uses public relations, advertising, digital marketing, personal
selling and few more so that their services can be known to its customers.
 People: This elements refers to the employees, supporters or workers of organization as
they are the ones who deliver services to the potential buyers. It is quite vital to train and

develop the relevant skills of the right people so that they can offer the superior services
to the customers (Yanaze, 2021). For the Backup North West, it may be event
programmers, customer service representative, a support desk and many more. This
organization involves volunteers and many charitable support firms to spread the services
in the market.
 Process: It is important for an organization that it should pay attention on its process of
delivering its services or goods to the customers. It should be designed for maximum
reliability and efficiency, but may also cover the features that are in line with the
company such as being sustainably and environmentally focused (Hanlon, 2021). The
respective charitable organisation uses customer oriented approach in order to deliver the
services of accommodations and assistance. They have a major concern on the
satisfaction of young customers. Also, this approach helps the company to improve its
customer base and builds loyalty as well.
 Physical evidence: It is essential to have a physical evidence that the service or good is
distributed. An approach of this known as branding. In case of Backup North West, it
may include the official website, online receipts, follow up email newsletters and many
more.
Marketing theories and concept
STP approach or model (segmentation, targeting and positioning) is very useful when
making an effective marketing communication plans since it supports marketers to prioritise
purposes and then create and deliver personalised and relevant content to make customers
engaged towards brand. With the help of STP process, the organisation can segment its market,
target the audience and position the services and goods to each segment. In addition to Backup
North West, they company use this approach to segment its market and target the audience in the
most effective way.
 Segmentation: It is the phase in which company segment its customers on the basis of
their beliefs, tastes, habits, cultures, wants, buying behaviour, age, places and many more.
This element is very fundamental to the company to know and identify their clear goals
so that it can make plans and strategies accordingly. The charitable firm segments its
market on the basis of demographic factors such as age, occupation, religion or
educational level.

 Targeting: This is the phase in which the organisation pays attention on the left out
places by generating effective and suitable plans and strategies so that cover all the places
to target (Beirman, 2020). Targeting the place of market is essential for any business as
the consumers always demands best services which worth their spendings. The chosen
charitable firm targets the market on the basis of age group and make every possible
effort to reach them. The charitable organisation mainly focuses on the young customers,
vulnerable people as well as homeless people (16-25 age group people). Positioning: This step involves the positioning of brand in the target market. The chosen
charitable firm utilised best promotional equipments to reach out their target buyers.
Through different communication tools and modes such as online marketing, email and
many more, the company can advertise and market its services in the market.
Consumer Decision-making Process:
The consumer decision-making process can be denoted as a process through which
customers become aware and find their requirements, then gathers information in order to get the
best solutions to fulfil such needs, also they evaluate each and every alternative which are
available to them, then make a purchase decision, lately, they evaluate their purchase decisions
(6 important marketing theories—and how to apply them in social media campaigns, 2021). In
case of Backup North West, the marketers of this organisation utilise this concept or theory to
know the aims behind a customer's purchasing decision. The discussion on each stage in
company's context is mentioned underneath:
 Need recognition (awareness): It is the foremost stage which begins with the customer
awareness towards their desired goods or services. The young people finds the need of
accommodation whether it is temporary, emergency or short-medium housing. They also
identifies the needs of improving mental health or want some employment support.
 Search for information: In this stage, the customer want to find out the available
choices in order to evaluate them in terms of benefits, prices and many other factors
(Naraine, Pegoraro and Wear, 2021). The homeless people will find the options which are
very low in prices and have full benefits which fits in budget.
 Evaluation of alternatives (consideration): It is step in which customer evaluates and
compares the options so that better option can be grabbed. The young and homeless

people will evaluate the options from Backup North West services with similar
organisation which offers same services.
 Purchasing decision (conversion): This is step in which purchasing decision turns into
action. As the Back Up North West offers best services with lots of support and benefits,
the customer will take their services.
 Post-purchase evaluation (re-purchase): At the end, the purchase decision is evaluated
by the customers in order know whether they get satisfaction or not, or it is worth to
recommend the services and goods to others. Young, homeless and jobless people will
provide the feedback on their official sites or web pages to let know others about the
services of company (Pandey, Nayal and Rathore, 2020). It can be negative and positive
both so the charitable organisation must try to satisfy their needs and demands.
Therefore, all the mentioned theories and concepts helps business organisation to create
awareness among customers and helps them to satisfy buyers' needs and requirements in a better
way. Targeting the right audience is very necessary so that potential customers can grab the
offered goods and services.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report is that marketing aims to promote the brand and its
offerings to potential buyers. This function intents to target and attract the potential customers in
the marketplace. Marketing mix involves different elements such as product, price, place,
promotion, process, people and physical evidence. All such functions plays their respective role
so that company can position itself in the best possible manner. There are various theories and
concepts are discussed which can help to attract the target customers and also helps is satisfying
their needs and demands effectively.

REFERNCES:
Books and Journals:
Rust, R.T., 2020. Outside-in marketing: Why, when and how?. Industrial Marketing
Management, 89, pp.102-104.
Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H. and Setiawan, I., 2021. Marketing 5.0: Technology for humanity. John
Wiley & Sons.
Chernev, A., 2020. The marketing plan handbook. Cerebellum Press.
Hanlon, A., 2021. Digital marketing: strategic planning & integration. Sage.
Beirman, D., 2020. Restoring tourism destinations in crisis: A strategic marketing approach.
Routledge.
Pandey, N., Nayal, P. and Rathore, A.S., 2020. Digital marketing for B2B organizations:
structured literature review and future research directions. Journal of Business &
Industrial Marketing.
Naraine, M.L., Pegoraro, A. and Wear, H., 2021. # WeTheNorth: Examining an online brand
community through a professional sport organization’s hashtag marketing
campaign. Communication & Sport, 9(4), pp.625-645.
Yanaze, M.H., 2021. Gestão de marketing e comunicação: avanços e aplicações. Saraiva
Educação SA.
Mintz, O. and et.al., 2021. The right metrics for marketing-mix decisions. International Journal
of Research in Marketing, 38(1), pp.32-49.
Online:
6 important marketing theories—and how to apply them in social media campaigns, 2021.
[Online] Available Through: <https://www.agilitypr.com/pr-news/public-relations/6-
important-marketing-theories-and-how-to-apply-them-in-social-media-campaigns/>