Contemporary Issues in Marketing: Marketing Process and Marketing Mix

This report discusses the marketing process and marketing mix in the contemporary business context. It covers the 7 major steps of the marketing process, including understanding the market and competition, understanding customer needs, and identifying marketing mediums. It also explains the 4 P's of marketing mix, including product, price, place, and promotion. The report uses Tesco as an example throughout.

Contemporary
Issues in Marketing

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Marketing process in the contemporary business context (Knowledge and
understanding).....................................................................................................................1
Concept of Marketing Mix and its deployment while developing a new product/service
................................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Marketing refers to the process of promoting and selling products and services with
the help of effective market research, marketing strategies and promotion. It is a very
important activity within a business, which is undertaken to promote and enhance the
awareness of products or services among people for creating higher sales. In a broad
sense it can be explained as the process of identifying, developing and supplying value
to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services. Marketing activities
are very important for a retail organization such as Tesco in order to sell its products
and services effectively and efficiently in the market. Tesco is a British retail supergiant
which is headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, London and established in the
year1919. This report will be demonstrating the marketing process in the contemporary
business context and how marketing mix is useful in order to sell a new product or
service in the market.
MAIN BODY
Marketing process in the contemporary business context (Knowledge and
understanding)
Marketing process refers to a series of sequential steps that could be helpful to
market the products or services effectively and efficiently (Balaji, Jiang and Jha, 2021).
The marketing process of Tesco mainly consists of 7 major steps that make their
marketing successful:
 Understanding the market and competition: It is very important for an
organization to understand the market and the structure of demand and supply
within the industry (Gursoy, 2018). The company needs to understand the market
in order to identify its wants and demands so that a product or service can be
effectively developed and sold there. Tesco identifies the profitable market where
the people have unmet demands and tries to fulfill the wants and demands of the
customers by developing products and services to be sold effectively.
 Understand the needs of customers: The customers are the major
stakeholders of a business and contribute a lot in enhancing the overall sales and
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profit of the organization. Tesco identifies their customers, analyses their wants
and persuades or motivates them to purchase its products or services with the
help of an effective marketing plan. The organizations should try to understand
the difference between the 'wants' and 'needs' because this could be a game
changer in their strategy of marketing and sales. It is very common that people
may not necessarily buy or purchase things that they 'need', but they always buy
or purchase things that they 'want'. Therefore understanding the customer needs
and wants is very necessary for the organization in order to market their products
effectively and efficiently.
 Market niche definition: This definition identifies and evaluates the group of
individuals, organizations and major issues of demand and supply that can be
solved by the organization (Riviezzo, Garofano and Napolitano, 2018). The
company such as Tesco clearly defines its niche market that can be effectively
communicated along with incurring low cost on promotion. By defining a specific
niche market the company focuses to maximize its efforts to fulfill their demands
while also investing low cost on its operations and advantages of less
competition.
 Creating a marketing message: The Company develops its own message for
their products and services to attract maximum prospects and retain its
customers. Tesco communicates its products and services with highly effective
performance that differentiates them from other sellers. The company develops
its marketing message that would be bi-directional; one should be short and to
the point and another should include all the marketing materials and promotions
of the organization. This helps to develop or create a direct message for the
customers and also demonstrate the complete effect of the product or service on
the customer.
 Identifying the marketing mediums: Marketing medium can be defined as the
way of communication that could be used by the company in order to deliver its
marketing message (Papagiannis, 2020). It is very important to choose a correct
marketing medium that is able to provide the highest returns on investments.
Therefore, Tesco chooses the best suitable marketing mediums such as
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newspaper, television advertisement and online promotion to give its marketing
message to most of its prospects with lowest of costs.
 Clearly stating the marketing and sales goals: The organization clearly
identifies what it needs to achieve with its sales and marketing activities
(Seebacher, 2021). Tesco creates its goals using the SMART objective tool that
helps to develop a specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound goal
for the marketing and sales of the organization with the help of available
resources.
 Developing the marketing budget: The marketing budget can be defined as the
overall cost that would incur on achieving the overall sales and marketing
objective of the organization. Tesco primarily develops a marketing plan with a
rough calculation, which is further precisely carved to generate accuracy of total
costs. The company needs to track its marketing expenses and then understand
the cost that is incurred in selling one product in order to identify the total sales of
the product.
In order to develop an effective marketing process the company uses various tools,
frameworks and models to support the development of the marketing process. One
such tool that is useful to develop the marketing process of an organization such as
Tesco is STP analysis.
STP analysis
STP analysis refers to segmenting, targeting and positioning of the products or
services in such a way that it reaches the maximum number of customers and covers
the marketing objective of the organization. The STP analysis of Tesco is as follows:
 Segmenting: The segmenting criteria of Tesco include geographic segmentation
in the market from rural to suburban areas with highest population density. It
follows SMART segmentation criteria which are specific, measurable, accessible,
realistic, and time bound. Specifically the market segment of Tesco is huge and
profitable to serve highly dense areas in the market. This size and purchasing
power of the market segment consists of approximately 50 lakh citizens who are
present across 11 countries. Effective marketing programs are designed by the
organization in order to attract the maximum number of customers and attain the
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marketing objectives of Tesco. The market segment can be effectively reached
and served with the help of TV commercials, catalogue, direct mail and other
promotional tools that make it a realistic approach of the organization. Tesco
aims to achieve its marketing objectives within a specific time until which its
products and services are present in the market.
 Targeting: It refers to the strategy of an organization to target the most beneficial
customers for the organization and the area of target market that can be served
(O’Sullivan and Ngugi, 2022). Tesco uses mass marketing target strategy which
ignores the differences of market segment and covers the whole market with a
single offer and mainly focuses on serving the most common needs of the
customers. Tesco doesn't target the customers specifically and serves its
marketing for all the kind of customers who have common needs of low priced
products in the discounted stores of Tesco.
 Positioning: it refers to the activity of positioning or identifying a suitable location
or place in order to create maximum effect on customers regarding a particular
product or services that is marketed by the company. The company positioned
itself as a low price retailer by using low cost advertisement for its selected
products in the store which is purchased by the customers. The company Tesco
focuses on marketing low-cost products on an everyday basis which directly
affects the mindset of the customers to purchase and specific products.
Concept of Marketing Mix and its deployment while developing a new product/service
Marketing mix can be defined as a set of marketing tools that is used by an
organization to pursue its marketing objectives in a specific market location. Marketing
Mix includes certain key elements that are involved in the marketing process in order to
reach a maximum number of customers. Marketing mix is used by Tesco to improve its
marketing performance or ability to reach and attract the maximum number of
customers. The marketing mix for a new product or service is given below:
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Figure 1; Marketing Mix 4 Ps
 Product: It defines the item that is produced by the organization and explains
overall characteristics of its product, service or brand (Stoyanov, 2021). The product
variable of marketing mix mainly defines the product in the market, where the needs
of customers are also assessed and feedback is collected from the modifier and
developed the existing or new product. This is mainly done by understanding the
audience and their needs to encourage them to purchase the product or service in
the market. The product is highly affected by the brand identity of the organization
because it reflects the personality of the product and brand. The product part of the
marketing mix is generally considered as the physical attributes of the product and
how it is different from the competitor's product. Tesco differentiates its products by
unique packaging, high quality etc. in order to market its products or services easily.
 Pricing: It refers to fixing or calculating specific monetary value for the product or
service that is to be marketed by the organization (Strott, 2021). The pricing of a
product defines the quality of product and the category of customers it would serve.
Therefore, Tesco decides the price of the product very precisely to generate profits
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by evaluating its production costs and marketing costs. The price of the products is
mainly defined in order to attract a specific category of customers and also tells
about the value of the product a service that is being marketed.
 Place: It refers to the specific location where the product or service will be launched
in the market (Strott, 2021). The company should decide its place of marketing
where maximum number of customers can be reached in a single attempt and
minimum cost of promotion, transportation and storage occurs on the business. The
place must be identified by keeping certain aspects in mind such as ease of
navigation, customer reach, competition and availability of substitute predictions or
services in the market. Tesco identifies the best possible location to market its
product where maximum number of customers can be reached with minimum
efforts and higher sales can be achieved in the market.
 Promotion: It refers to the ways in which the awareness about a certain product or
service can be created among the customers so that they can be persuaded to
purchase a certain product or service. The promotion consists of diversified ways in
which the information about product or service in the market can be told to the
customers. There are mainly two categories of promotion, above the line promotion
methods and below the line promotion methods. Above the line promotion methods
include huge campaigns in order to raise brand awareness and reach the maximum
number of customers in the market. Below the line marketing can be elaborated as
the use of smaller or direct targeting of the customers to influence their behavior.
Where above the line promotion helps the organization to create a better image in
the front of the public, below the line promotion helps to directly contact the
customers and raise demand for a certain product or commodity among them.
The marketing mix is very important for a business like Tesco in order to create new
products or services because it is helpful to understand what a product or service can
offer to the customers. The marketing mix also helps to develop a successful product
offering with the help of effective planning and execution of marketing strategies.
Moreover, the marketing mix is important to develop the strengths of a product and
avoid unnecessary costs and threats in the market. Due to this, the marketing mix is
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very important for creating effective marketing strategies for a product or service in the
market and its success in the long term.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been identified that the marketing process is very
important for an organisation in order to market its products and services effectively and
efficiently. Moreover, it has been obtained that there is a series of processes which
includes understanding the market, customer needs, marketing message etc. that can
be used by an organisation to market its products and services effectively and
efficiently. Further, the report had been discussing the concept of marketing mix which
consists of 4 P's of marketing product, price, place and promotion that could be helpful
to market a product or service of an organisation.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Balaji, M. S., Jiang, Y. and Jha, S., 2021. Nanoinfluencer marketing: how message
features affect credibility and behavioral intentions. Journal of Business
Research, 136. pp.293-304.
Gursoy, D., 2018. Future of hospitality marketing and management research. Tourism
Management Perspectives, 25. pp.185-188.
O’Sullivan, H. and Ngugi, I., 2022. Marketing Mix. In Encyclopedia of Tourism
Management and Marketing. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Papagiannis, N., 2020. Effective SEO and content marketing: the ultimate guide for
maximizing free web traffic. John Wiley & Sons.
Riviezzo, A., Garofano, A. and Napolitano, M. R., 2018, July. A stakeholder approach to
heritage marketing strategy. In 2018 Global Marketing Conference at Tokyo (pp.
1348-1348).
Seebacher, U.G., 2021. B2B Marketing. Springer International Publishing.
Stoyanov, D., 2021. Marketing of vending channels: a case of French university
campuses. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.
Strott, R., 2021. 4 Ps go green? Die Positionierung des Green Marketing im Marketing-
Mix. Der Betriebswirt, 62(1). pp.69-79.
Strott, R., 2021. 4 Ps go green? Die Positionierung des Green Marketing im Marketing-
Mix. Der Betriebswirt, 62(1), pp.69-79.
Online:-
Marketing Mix 4 Ps, 2021. [Online] Available through,
https://creately.com/blog/diagrams/elements-of-marketing-mix/
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