Understanding Marketing Principles and Strategies

This assignment provides an overview of marketing principles and strategies, including the concept and process of marketing, segmentation, targeting, and positioning. It also discusses the benefits and costs of a marketing orientation for organizations. The document covers the elements of the extended marketing mix and how products are developed to sustain competitive advantage. Additionally, it explains how distribution is arranged to provide customer convenience.

University
Marketing Principles
By
Date
Name
Lecturer’s name

Contents
Introduce..........................................................................................................................................2
Task 1:.............................................................................................................................................2
LO1: Understanding the concept and process of marketing............................................................2
1.1 The various elements of the marketing process.....................................................................2
1.2 The benefits and costs of a marketing orientation for the organization.................................3
Task 2:.............................................................................................................................................4
LO2: Be able to use the concepts of segmentation, targeting and positioning................................4
2.1 Show macro and micro environmental factors which influence marketing decisions...........4
2.2 Propose segmentation criteria to be used for products in different markets..........................4
2.3 Choose a targeting strategy for a selected product/service....................................................5
2.4 Demonstrate how buyer behavior affects marketing activities in different buying situations
......................................................................................................................................................5
2.5 Propose new positioning for as elected product/service........................................................5
Task 3:.............................................................................................................................................6
LO3: Understanding the individual elements of the extended marketing mix................................6
3.1 Explain how products are developed to sustain competitive advantage................................6
3.2 Explain how distribution is arranged to provide customer convenience...............................6
3.3 Explain how prices are set to reflect the organization’s objectives and market conditions...6
3.4 Illustrate how promotional activity is integrated to achieve marketing objectives................6

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3.5 The additional elements of the extended marketing mix.......................................................6
Task 4:.............................................................................................................................................6
LO4: Be able to use the marketing mix in different contexts..........................................................6
4.1 Two different segments in consumer markets for Vodafone UK..........................................6
4.2 Differences in marketing products and services to business..................................................7
4.3 How and why international marketing differs from domestic marketing..............................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

Introduce
Business organizations consist of different departments and marketing is one of them. Marketing
is the concept that introduces the organizational products and services for the customers and to
the customers. The sales and the profits are introduced largely in the marketing activities for the
customers within the dynamic strategic constitution and demanding situations of the market. Big
organizations usually spend a lot of money on the marketing and promotion of the products and
services to reach the customer sand meet their demand and needs. This assignment represents the
process of marketing and the concepts along with the marketing business reports and
organizational structures that act according to the needs of the products and services in the
market. Not only this, the report also highlights the benefits of marketing orientation and the
costs in the industry by the process of segmentation, positioning and targeting. Segmentation of
the products is an important factor that helps the organization of business to target their
customers depending upon their needs and of course locations. The reaction of the customers
regarding the marketing strategies and activities are also highlighted to enhance the motivational
business powers and profit earning resolutions for the concerned companies in the market.
Task 1:
LO1: Understanding the concept and process of marketing
1.1 The various elements of the marketing process
Marketing concepts are defined as the getting along with someone to introduce them with either
new concepts, products or services. It also focuses on the matter the person that are we get along
should be able to trust 6the matter that are being explained to them and enjoys the right of getting
knowledge. Marketing is generally a process where individuals and groups are given the access

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to know, learn and obtain maximum concepts and thoughts regarding creating and exchanging
values and products with other people.
The marketing process consist of several steps and that are analyzed as follows:
Analyzing market opportunities: The business organizations step forward in the market with
this very first strategic alignment of analyzing their possibilities in the current market and get to
k own the running trends, resources, capabilities, external and internal environment of the
organization.
Selecting the target market: The second element of the marketing essentials are selecting the
target areas of marketing according to the needs and demands of the customers in a specified
location and categorization. Segmentation of the market is important that helps the organization
to analyze them based on the different aspects of the products and services.
Marketing strategy: The organization need to build up their marketing functions in planned
way and execute them according to the research they have done in the market at initial stages.
These strategies consist of value proposal, positioning, targeting and segmenting the services and
products.
Marketing mix decisions: Determining the marketing mixes is the most crucial task of the
organizations that states allocation of their marketing essentials in the market depending upon
the bunch of targeted people. These marketing mix must cover decisions on pricing the products
and services, campaigns for promotional marketing and their growth, agreements on the
distribution policies along with growth of products.
Implementation and control: The final stage of the marketing processes are the implementation
and control of strategies that are monitored and evaluated. According to the changes that occur in

the market formation and other related issues, the marketing departments seeks to amend and
change their marketing programs and policies to meet up then changes and act according to the
need of the customers to develop and meet up their incapacities in that particular situation.
1.2 The benefits and costs of a marketing orientation for the organization
Business organizations either develop their marketing planning and strategies based on the
customer orientation factor or the market situations. The market oriented approach focuses on the
needs of the customers and their demand to modulates or modify them and thus, the
organizations sets their product planning and designs according to the customers’ needs rather
than what the company thinks is good for the customers. Generally, every organization seeks to
follow the market oriented approach because it brings more benefits and advantages to the
organization where they can come up with different ideologies to meet up the customer need as
well as maintain their business goals. The benefits of this approach are stated as follows:
Customer centric:This process is completely customer centric that focuses on the varied needs
of the customers and decides how their strategic planning would be to satisfy their customers as
well as maintain their business propaganda intact to promote brand name.
Addressing demand: The demand of the customers is the main lookout for the company that
helps them to modify, regulate and generate innovative ideas and thoughts in order to develop
existing products and services along with creating new products and services to boost up the
marketing strategies and activities.
Making customer benefit: Cooping up with the customers’ demand and needs help the business
organization build up super value for the buyers and increases the customer loyalty and frequent

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shopping stability. The more company is able to make customer trust them, the more is their
productivity along with profitability.
Reasonability of competitive advantage:The business organizations need to keep in mind that
the changes that they are making according to the customer needs should be utilized by them to
the fullest for creating a tough competition for the top competitors in the market.
The disadvantages of customer or marketing approaches are stated as below:
Research that are comprehensive and costly: Proper marketing plan execution and promotion
requires a high costing for the company that is not always possible for the small organizations to
conduct and there arises the tough competitiveness of the existing organizations.
Increased price tags:As the customers are getting the product and services according to their
requirements, they have to pay a higher amounts in exchange of that which sometimes lead to
fall of companies brand image.
Deficiency of predictability:Diversification in the choices of the customers makes it impossible
or rather tough situations for the company to develop their products.
Task 2:
LO2: Be able to use the concepts of segmentation, targeting and positioning
2.1 Show macro and micro environmental factors which influence marketing decisions
The macro and the micro environmental factors has an effect on the company’s business decision
and the operations. There are many factors in the macro environment those are the technological
forces, legal, social, cultural, economic and the political factors. The company is impacted by the
economic factors and the socio factors which are non-controllable. During the time of new of

Christmas and New Year the company gives concession on prices for the customer because that
is the peak time for sales of the company so they wants to take the complete advantage of the
time and these helps the company to generate high revenue at this peak time. This is the time for
the company to understand that the year is profitable or not for that they use to launch new offers
and attractive price for the company and also this is the time for the company to make new
strategies to attract the customer in the market.
The company is affected by the micro environment factors which are the suppliers, consumers,
substitute product and the employees. The company has .many suppliers which has an effect on
the production of the cars. If the company wants to sustain themselves on the competitive market
the company should maintain good relation with the suppliers for which they can bargain for the
exact price.
2.2 Propose segmentation criteria to be used for products in different markets
The company’s market growth depends upon the customers need and demand. The term
segmentation means the customers will be categorized by the company according to their
demands and needs. Segmentation helps the company to treat all the customers equally according
to their needs. For example the company has a launched a car with all benefits in a reasonable
price or in a low price that will attract all types of customer for the purchase. The segmentation
of the company should be done by dividing the customer as per there income so it will be easier
for the company to manufacture and then sell to the targeted customer. This is the process of
segmentation which the company use to follow for their betterment and to spread their business.

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2.3 Choose a targeting strategy for a selected product/service
Targeting strategy is the part of the segmentation because after segmenting the company targets
the selects the target segment. The company should collect the relevant information before
targeting the segmentation. The company follows three types of targeting strategies as per as
their production to select the strategy which has been targeted. Undifferentiated marketing, niche
marketing and the differentiated marketing strategy are the three targeting strategy followed by
the company. As per as there production the company should follow the differentiated strategy of
the marketing for reaching to the needs of the customer. This will be done within the segment of
the targeted customer and will help to select the segment. This will be done after designing the
marketing mix of the company.
2.4 Demonstrate how buyer behavior affects marketing activities in different buying situations
Every time it is not possible to understand the customer decision of purchase, behavior and
thinking in this competitive market. The company should study the market thoroughly and the
customers pattern of buying to understand the market and can sustain themselves in the market
for the long time. The buoying behavior of the customer is influenced by the social; and the
personal factors. The personal factors are the main factors for the customer to buy the product
because it all depends upon the financial earnings of the customer which will permit them for
purchasing. So before launching or manufacturing the product the company should think about
the customer.
Social factors are depend upon the society, culture, trends and many other things related to the
society. Sometime the family recommendation and the friend’s recommendation change the
decision of the customer. Trend is also the important part which affects the customer from
buying because maximum time customers get influenced by the trends. So the company have to

keep those things in their mind when they are making the decision for the car. Because all of
these points will help the company to create product according the customer needs.
2.5 Propose new positioning for as elected product/service
Positioning the product and the servicing the product in the market is one kind of strategy. It will
helps to understand that the how the brand and the product will be viewed by the public the
market. The company waits for the response from the consumer as what they are saying about
the product that does the customers are liking the product or feeling that these not the right
product that they will use. The company has to position the product in the market so that it will
become acceptable to all types customer as the company is looking for to sell the product. The
company should think about the customer taste of selection and also determine the place or the
location where they are placing the product because location determines the products fate. Also
the company has to select the category of the product which they are positioning because that is
also a vital part.
Task 3:
LO3: Understanding the individual elements of the extended marketing mix
3.1 Explain how products are developed to sustain competitive advantage
All of the company wants to balance the competitive sustainable advantage. The company gets
helps from sustain competitive advantage to Improve and maintain the competitive position of
the company inside the market. The company should start researching for getting better result in
the market and manufacturing new modernized system in the market. By researching on the
market the company will get the knowledge of the customers demand and will also come to
know the competitors position in the market. The company will get a scope to compare

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themselves with the competitors for their betterment. The company should understand the
governmental regulation, technological innovation and customers need so they can sustain
themselves in the competitive market
3.2 Explain how distribution is arranged to provide customer convenience
HSBC Bank is considered to be the largest banking sector of UK and it is very easy to
understand they enjoy a great market share in the country. They prepare and offer their schemes
to the account holders and tries to satisfy them keeping in terms the norms and regulations of the
government. Distribution channel if we discuss in this sector is of two kinds. One is the direct
procedure and second is forming alliance to secure better plans and programming for the service
users. HSBC provides strategic marketing penetration and development of their schemes for the
customers. These strategies capture the current account of market shares much more than the
other financial institutions offering effective and valuable service schemes to the account
holders. Better implementation of these plans save the sector from economic crisis and thus,
helps them to meet up the demands and support the customers. Apart from all these, distribution
of these banking and their schemes exists in every corner of the world, be it ATM services or net
banking facilities, operating banking functions have become this easy that saves time, energy and
is cost effective. Introduction of card facilities has been a new step towards the development of
products and have been helpful too for countering the non-traditional financial institutes. The
distribution of the facilities have been spreaded throughout different geographical markets and
around 79 countries are involved in this global networking system.
The pricing strategy are of different kinds as penetration pricing, skimming of price, product life
cycle pricing, focus based pricing, and pricing of discounts.
Penetration pricing: The bank keeps their service schemes lower than their competitors and rate
of interests more than them to attract much more customers and account holders along with
insurance registers. This promotional strategy helps the organization to make the customers
aware of their schemes and offers.
Skimming of price: Depending upon the demand and supply system of the market, the bank
modulates their pricing system according to the required situations.
Premium pricing: The schemes and offers for the customers provided by the bank are qualified
enough for maintaining a better standardized policies and prefer higher normatic issues. Extra
charges are considered while being in operation with such policies. It has to be beneficial for the
companies that are newly getting into the market and need public strength to grow their
business.
Economy pricing: Adjusting with the needs of the customers and market, along with government
rules and regulations, economic pricing suggests and offers pricing stabilities in the market.

3.3 Explain how prices are set to reflect the organization’s objectives and market conditions
The pricing strategy are of different kinds as penetration pricing, skimming of price, product life
cycle pricing, focus based pricing, and pricing of discounts.
Penetration pricing: The bank keeps their service schemes lower than their competitors and rate
of interests more than them to attract much more customers and account holders along with
insurance registers. This promotional strategy helps the organization to make the customers
aware of their schemes and offers.
Skimming of price: Depending upon the demand and supply system of the market, the bank
modulates their pricing system according to the required situations.
Premium pricing: The schemes and offers for the customers provided by the bank are qualified
enough for maintaining a better standardized policies and prefer higher normatic issues. Extra
charges are considered while being in operation with such policies. It has to be beneficial for the
companies that are newly getting into the market and need public strength to grow their
business.
Economy pricing: Adjusting with the needs of the customers and market, along with government
rules and regulations, economic pricing suggests and offers pricing stabilities in the market.
3.4 Illustrate how promotional activity is integrated to achieve marketing objectives
When the customer spends the money on the product or the service is called price. price is the
most important part of the marketing mix. Without the price the product does not have any value
in the market for giving the value of the product the companies use to give price for the product
there are four kind of pricing strategy those are anti competitive pricing, cost based pricing,
value pricing and competitive pricing. The competitive pricing strategy should be adopted by the
company for sustaining themselves in this tough competitive market. This helps the company to
hold a strong and leading position in the market also can give a healthy competition to the other
companies in the market. The company use to set their prices according to different location
because in different location the income of the consumer also differs so this the company an
extra edge in these market than other companies and also this make the company much popular
among the customer. On those different areas price also differs as per the location. The company
is to produce low price product for all types of customers because they have some targeted
customers who they will sale the products.
3.5 The additional elements of the extended marketing mix
Humans are the most important part of the marketing mix because they use to fix the prices of
the product. Here human refers to the staffs of the company who directly communicate with the
customer. The sales of the company depends upon the staffs of the company because the
customer will communicate with the staffs or the selling department and their work is to
convince the customer with their communication skills and make them ensure about the product.
After that the processing of the product and its servicing is the main part of the marketing mix.

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The company should provide better service of te product after the selling so the customer can get
the assurance of the company and automatically from then onwards they will rely on that
company.
Task 4:
LO4: Be able to use the marketing mix in different contexts
4.1 Two different segments in consumer markets for Vodafone UK
Indian telecommunication market is expanding very fast and the competition is getting tougher.
In the beginning, Vodafone increased the tariffs and rates of air time per minute. Vodafone also
started selling handsets in lower cost to attract more customers. Then the organization cut down
its rate, slashed STD and Roaming call rates. Sometimes it provided customers free talk time at
night times. This caused a major price war in the telecom industry as a whole. But then
Vodafone managed to retain their customers by some effective strategies. While changing the
brand name from Hutch to Vodafone, the organization spent a lot of money in the promotion
process both nationally and internationally. The promotional campaign was covered by almost
all the national and international media. Then the color Red was first introduced as the brand
color. Employee uniform was also faced some changes during that period. Vodafone
advertisement character Pug and Zoo was introduced for the promotions of value added services.
It became very popular in the global market. Till now it has a craze. This part of promotion
known as emotional advert of Vodafone.
But then Vodafone users started facing call drop issue. They were regularly complaining the
authority for bad network. Vodafone decided to fix this issues by setting up some new strategies.
They started creating new tariffs and promoted those services in a new way. Call drop issues got
resolved after some days and Vodafone became popular again. They set new internet packs,

which became popular among the users. Vodafone now selling their products and services
globally. Vodafone also uses latest internet technology to make their products popular. As an
example, their website is very user-friendly. Especially for the busy customers who cannot visit
the store regularly. Payment system of Vodafone is also very organized. They always try to keep
this system hassle-free, so that the consumers can use it easily. Vodafone has set service kiosks,
payment at drop box, collection agencies, various payment centers to make the payment system
hassle-free (Baines, 2011).
4.2 Differences in marketing products and services to business
Every organization has its own marketing strategies and activities. They use those strategies to
attract more customer. Business-to-business marketing differs from business-to-consumer
marketing (Baines, 2011). A person buying a product for himself verses buying a product for
their organization is different. These differences should be kept in mind while developing
marketing strategies. Business market and Consumer market can be different in many ways.
Markets are different in terms of number and size of customers, buying expertise and process,
derived demand, decision making, geographical concentration and relationships. As an example,
a person wants to buy a new laptop to replace the old desktop. At first, he will search for some
good configured laptops in the internet or he will discuss the same with his friends. From the
stage of searching, the person evaluate different laptop’s brand in terms of quality, prices, after
sale services etc. After evaluation the person will decide to buy a laptop of a particular brand.
During the usage, the good or bad perception towards the new buying will determine his
satisfaction for the brand. So consumer decision process is that simple. But in case of business
market, problem recognition, product specification, needed description, supplier searching,

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order-routine specification and performance review will be followed before buying a product
(THE MARKETING MIX: A REVIEW, 2014).
As discussed above, business market is more complicated than the customer market. A business
buyer has to follow some guidelines and procedures or to get an approval and to make a decision
before buying a product or service. Business buyer is always purchases products or services with
huge resources. Hence they have to spend more effort and time. A business buyer cannot skip the
formal procedure or approval before buying any product or service. The decision made by
business market is different from customer market. Economic perspective of business market is
also very different from the customer market (Sakas and Konstantopoulos, 2010). Business and
customer market is different in several ways, such as: type of customers, geographical
concentration, number and size of customers, demand, buying decision making and relationship,
buying expertise and process (Risko and Wiwczaroski, 2014). Business to business marketing is
known as the process of sale or purchase of services where consumer marketing known as the
process of sale or purchase of goods and services between sellers and individual buyer.
Marketing approaches is also very different in customer and business marketing (Risko and
Wiwczaroski, 2014). Experts should keep these differences in mind while making any strategy
for business and customer market.
4.3 How and why international marketing differs from domestic marketing
A domestic market is a financial market where traders are focused towards single market. It is
also known as domestic trading (Van der Westhuyzen and Van der Merwe, 2012). Organizations
faces only one set of competitive, economic and market issues if it is a domestic trading. It deals
with single set of customers. Though the organization may have a few segments. Domestic
marketing means when commercialization of products and services are limited to the

geographical boundaries of a country. International marketing is which stretched across several
countries globally. An organization always tries to spread its products or services across the
world when it comes to International marketing (Rakita, 2016). But domestic marketing is where
a product or service will be promoted within the domestic financial boundary of the country.
Domestic marketing is not that wide as international marketing. There are several companies
which has started as a domestic marketed product, but then they spread their business
internationally. If a company decides to limit its market within its geographical boundary, then it
can affect the modern economy (Johnson and Sohi, 2016).
In conclusion, the world itself is a market. The area of implications and market conditions are the
basic reasons of the differences between domestic and international market (Johnson and Sohi,
2016). International marketing needs great research on the global market. But a small survey will
be enough in case of domestic marketing.

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References
Baines, P. (2011). Political marketing. 1st ed. London: SAGE.
Johnson, J. and Sohi, R. (2016). Getting business-to-business salespeople to implement strategies
associated with introducing new products and services. Industrial Marketing Management.
Rakita, A. (2016). Marketing channels of banking products and services in contemporary
business environment. Marketing, 47(1), pp.66-77.
Risko, T. and Wiwczaroski, T. (2014). From Domestic Marketing through International
Marketing to Intercultural Marketing. Economic Affairs, 59(3), p.439.
Sakas, D. and Konstantopoulos, N. (2010). Marketing and management sciences. 1st ed.
London: Imperial College Press.
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Retail Management.
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