Principles of Marketing: Customer Value, Mix, and Environment Analysis

This assignment delves into the core concepts of marketing, beginning with an exploration of customer value and engagement. It examines the five-step marketing process, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs, designing customer-driven strategies, and building profitable relationships. The assignment then transitions to the marketing mix, detailing product strategies, pricing considerations, and the importance of customer-driven marketing. It covers market segmentation, targeting, and differentiation. Finally, the assignment addresses the marketing environment, differentiating between the microenvironment (company, suppliers, intermediaries, competitors) and the macroenvironment (demographic, economic, natural, technological, political, and cultural forces) and how they influence marketing strategies. The content emphasizes building customer relationships through superior value and satisfaction, the role of customer relationship management, customer engagement, and the changing marketing landscape including digital, social media, and mobile marketing.

Topic 1: Marketing Customer Value Engagement
What Is Marketing?
 Marketing, more than any other business function, deals with customers.
 Marketing is engaging customers and managing profitable customer relationships.
 The twofold goal of marketing is to attract new customers by promising superior value and to keep and
grow current customers by delivering satisfaction.
The Marketing Process
Five Steps marketing process
1. Understand the marketplace and customer needs and wants
2. Design a customer value driven marketing strategy
3. Construct an integrated marketing program that delivers value
4. Build profitable relationship and create customer delight
5. Capture value from customers to create profits and customer equity
 Customer Needs, Wants, and Demands
 The most basic concept underlying marketing
is that of human needs. Human needs are states of
felt deprivation.
 Wants are the form human needs take as they
are shaped by culture and individual personality.
Wants are shaped by one’s society and are
described in terms of objects that will satisfy those
needs.
 When backed by buying power, wants become
demands. Given their wants and resources, people
demand products and services with benefits that
add up to the most value and satisfaction.
 Market Offerings—Products, Services, and
Experiences- Consumers’ needs and wants
are fulfilled through market offerings—some
combination of products, services, information,
or experiences offered to a market to satisfy a
need or a want.
 Marketing Management Orientations - There
are five alternative concepts under which
organizations design and carry out their
marketing strategies: the production, product,
selling, marketing, and societal marketing
concepts.
 The Production Concept - The production
concept holds that consumers will favor
products that are available and highly
affordable. Therefore, management should
focus on improving production and distribution
efficiency. This concept is one of the oldest
orientations that guides sellers.
 The Product Concept - The product concept
holds that consumers will favor products that
offer the most in quality, performance, and
innovative features. Under this concept,
marketing strategy focuses on making
continuous product improvements.
 The Selling Concept - Many companies follow
the selling concept, which holds that
consumers will not buy enough of the firm’s
products unless it undertakes a large-scale
selling and promotion effort.
 The Marketing Concept - The marketing
concept holds that achieving organizational
goals depends on knowing the needs and
wants of target markets and delivering the
desired satisfactions better than competitors
do. Under the marketing concept, customer
focus and value are the paths to sales and
profits.
 The Societal Marketing Concept - The
societal marketing concept questions whether
the pure marketing concept overlooks possible
conflicts between consumer short-run wants
and consumer long-run welfare.The societal
marketing concept holds that marketing
strategy should deliver value to customers in a
way that maintains or improves both the
consumer’s and society’s well-being
 Preparing an Integrated Marketing Plan -
Program The company’s marketing strategy
outlines which customers it will serve and how
it will create value for these customers.
 Building Customer Relationships - The first
three steps in the marketing process—
understanding the marketplace and customer
needs, designing a customer value-driven
marketing strategy, and constructing a
marketing program—all lead up to the fourth
and most important step: building and
managing profitable customer relationships.
 Customer Relationship Management - the
most important concept of modern
marketing.In the broadest sense, customer
relationship management is the overall process
of building and maintaining profitable customer
relationships by delivering superior customer
value and satisfaction. It deals with all aspects
of acquiring, engaging, and growing
customers.
 Relationship Building Blocks: Customer
Value and Satisfaction - The key to building
lasting customer relationships is to create
superior customer value and satisfaction.
Satisfied customers are more likely to be loyal
customers and give the company a larger
share of their business.
 Customer Satisfaction - Customer
satisfaction depends on the product’s

perceived performance relative to a buyer’s
expectations.
 Customer Relationship Levels and Tools -
Companies can build customer relationships at
many levels, depending on the nature of the
target market.
 Customer Engagement and Today’s Digital
and Social Media - The digital age has
spawned a dazzling set of new customer
relationship-building tools, from Web sites,
online ads and videos, mobile ads and apps,
and blogs to online communities and the major
social media
 Customer-engagement marketing - Making
the brand a meaningful part of consumers’
conversations and lives by fostering direct and
continuous customer involvement in shaping
brand conversations, experiences, and
community
 Consumer-generated marketing - Brand
exchanges created by consumers themselves
—both invited and uninvited— by which
consumers are playing an increasing role in
shaping their own brand experiences and
those of other consumers.
 Creating Customer Loyalty and Retention -
Good customer relationship management
creates customer satisfaction. In turn, satisfied
customers remain loyal and talk favorably to
others about the company and its products.
 Growing Share of Customer - Beyond simply
retaining good customers to capture customer
lifetime value, good customer relationship
management can help marketers increase their
share of customer— the share they get of the
customer’s purchasing in their product
categories.
 Building Customer Equity - We can now see
the importance of not only acquiring customers
but also keeping and growing them.
 The Changing Marketing Landscape- As the
marketplace changes, so must those who
serve it. In this section, we examine the major
trends and forces that are changing the
marketing landscape and challenging
marketing strategy.
 The Digital Age: Online, Mobile, and Social
Media Marketing - The explosive growth in
digital technology has fundamentally changed
the way we live— how we communicate, share
information, access entertainment, and shop.
 Social Media Marketing- Social media
provide exciting opportunities to extend
customer engagement and get people talking
about a brand.
 Mobile Marketing- Mobile marketing is
perhaps the fastest-growing digital marketing
platform, This makes them ideal for engaging
customers anytime, anywhere as they move
through the buying process.
What Is Marketing? Pulling It All Together
 The first four steps of the marketing process focus on creating value for customers.
 The company first gains a full understanding of the marketplace by researching customer needs and
managing marketing information.
 It then designs a customer-driven marketing strategy based on the answers to two simple questions.
 The first question is “What consumers will we serve?” (market segmentation and targeting).
 The second marketing strategy question is “How can we best serve targeted customers?”
(differentiation and positioning).
 With its marketing strategy chosen, the company now constructs an integrated marketing program—
consisting of a blend of the four marketing mix elements, the four Ps—
 The company develops product offers and creates strong brand identities for them. It prices these
offers to create real customer value and distributes the offers to make them available to target
consumers.
 Finally, the company designs promotion programs that engage target customers, communicate the
value proposition, and persuade customers to act on the market offering.
 Perhaps the most important step in the marketing process involves building value, profitable
relationships with target customers. Throughout the process, marketers practice customer relationship
management to create customer satisfaction and delight.
 The first four steps in the marketing process create value for customers. In the final step, the company
reaps the rewards of its strong customer relationships by capturing value from customers. Delivering
superior customer value creates highly satisfied customers who will buy more and buy again. This
helps the company capture customer lifetime value and greater share of customer. The result is
increased long-term customer equity for the firm.
Topic 2: Marketing Mix

The Marketing Mix
 The term marketing mix refers to a unique blend of product, place of distribution, promotion and
pricing strategies (often refers to as the four Ps) designed to produce mutually satisfying exchanges
with a target market.
 The marketing manager can control each component of the marketing mix
 Any marketing mix is only as good as its weakest component.
Product Strategies - the marketing mix starts with the product “P”. The heart of the marketing mix, the
starting point., is the product offering and product strategy.
1. Tangible product: the physical product or service that is offered to the buyer
2. Extended product: the tangible product along with the whole cluster of service that accompany the
product. For example, a manufacturer of a computer software may offer a 24-hour hotline to answer
questions users may have or to offer free or reduced cost software updates
3. Generic product: the essential benefits the buyer expects to receive from the product. For example.
Many personal care products bring to the purchaser feelings of self- enhancement and security in addition
to the tangible benefits they offer.
Price Strategies -The price is what the buy must give up to obtain a product. It is often the most flexible of
the four marketing mix elements-the quickest element to change.
The Demand influences on pricing decision should be concern primarily the nature of the target
marketing and expected reactions of consumers to a given price or change in price. There are
three primary considerations which are demographic factors, psychological factors and price Elasticity
Demographic factors
In the initial selection of the target market that a firm intends to serve, a number of demographic
factors are usually considered. Demographic factors that are particularly important for pricing
decision include the follow:
1. Number of potential buyers, and their age, education and gender
2. Location of potential buyers
3. Position of potential buyers (organizational buyers or final consumers)
4. Expected consumption rates of potential buyers
5. Economic strength of potential buyers
Customer Value-Driven Marketing Strategy - To succeed in today’s competitive marketplace, companies
must be customer centered. They
must win customers from competitors and then engage and grow them by delivering greater
value. But before it can satisfy customers, a company must first understand customer needs and
wants.
Market Segmentation - The market consists of many types of customers, products, and needs. The
marketer must determine which segments offer the best opportunities. Consumers can be grouped and
served in various ways based on geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral factors. The
process of dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers who have different needs,
characteristics, or behaviors, and who might require separate products or marketing programs, is
called market segmentation.
Market Targeting - After a company has defined its market segments, it can enter one or many of these
segments.Market targeting involves evaluating each market segment’s attractiveness and selecting one or
more segments to enter.
Market Differentiation and Positioning - After a company has decided which market segments to enter, it
must determine how to differentiate its market offering for each targeted segment and what positions it
wants to occupy in those segments. A product’s position is the place it occupies relative to competitors’
products in consumers’ minds.

Topic 3: Marketing Environment
 A company’s marketing environment consists of the actors and forces outside marketing that affect
marketing management’s ability to build and maintain successful relationships with target customers.
 The marketing environment consists of a microenvironment and a macroenvironment. The
microenvironment consists of the actors close to the company that affect its ability to engage and serve
its customers—the company, suppliers, marketing intermediaries, customer markets, competitors, and
publics.
 The macroenvironment consists of the larger societal forces that affect the microenvironment—
demographic, economic, natural, technological, political, and cultural forces. We look first at the
company’s microenvironment.
The Microenvironment
Marketing management’s job is to build relationships with customers by creating customer value and
satisfaction. Marketing success requires building relationships with other company departments, suppliers,
marketing intermediaries, competitors, various publics, and customers, which combine to make up the
company’s value delivery network.
 The Company - In designing marketing plans, marketing management takes other company groups
into account—groups such as top management, finance, research and development (R&D),
purchasing, operations, human resources, and accounting.
 Suppliers - Suppliers form an important link in the company’s overall customer value delivery network.
They provide the resources needed by the company to produce its goods and services. Supplier
problems can seriously affect marketing. Marketing managers must watch supply availability and costs.
Supply shortages or delays, natural disasters, and other events can cost sales in the short run and
damage customer satisfaction in the long run. Rising supply costs may force price increases that can
harm the company’s sales volume. Most marketers today treat their suppliers as partners in creating
and delivering customer value.
 Marketing Intermediaries - help the company promote, sell, and distribute its products to final buyers.
They include resellers, physical distribution firms, marketing services agencies, and financial
intermediaries.
 Resellers are distribution channel firms that help the company find customers or make sales to
them.
 Physical distribution firms help the company stock and move goods from their points of origin to
their destinations.
 Marketing services agencies are the marketing research firms, advertising agencies, media firms,
and marketing consulting firms that help the company target and promote its products to the right
markets.
 Financial intermediaries include banks, credit companies, insurance companies, and other
businesses that help finance transactions or insure against the risks associated with the buying
and selling of goods.
 Competitors - The marketing concept states that, to be successful, a company must provide greater
customer value and satisfaction than its competitors do. Thus, marketers must do more than simply
adapt to the needs of target consumers. They also must gain strategic advantage by positioning their
offerings strongly against competitors’ offerings in the minds of consumers. No single competitive
marketing strategy is best for all companies.
 Publics - The company’s marketing environment also includes various publics. A public is any group
that has an actual or potential interest in or impact on an organization’s ability to achieve its objectives.
We can identify seven types of publics:
• Financial publics. This group influences the company’s ability to obtain funds. Banks, investment
analysts, and stockholders are the major financial publics.
• Media publics. This group carries news, features, editorial opinions, and other content. It includes
television stations, newspapers, magazines, and blogs and other social media.
• Government publics. Management must take government developments into account. Marketers
must often consult the company’s lawyers on issues of product safety, truth in advertising, and other
matters.
• Citizen-action publics. A company’s marketing decisions may be questioned by consumer
organizations, environmental groups, minority groups, and others. Its public relations department can
help it stay in touch with consumer and citizen groups.
• Local publics. This group includes neighborhood residents and community organizations. Large
companies usually work to become responsible members of the local.

 Customers - Customers are the most important actors in the company’s microenvironment. The aim of
the entire value delivery network is to engage target customers and create strong relationships with
them. The company might target any or all of five types of customer markets.
The Macroenvironment
The company and all of the other actors operate in a larger macroenvironment of forces that shape
opportunities and pose threats to the company.
 The Demographic Environment - Demography is the study of human populations in terms of size,
density, location, age, gender, race, occupation, and other statistics. The demographic environment is
of major interest to marketers because it involves people, and people make up markets.
 The Economic Environment - Markets require buying power as well as people. The economic
environment consists of economic factors that affect consumer purchasing power and spending
patterns.
 Changes in Consumer Spending - Economic factors can have a dramatic effect on consumer
spending and buying behavior.
 Income Distribution - Marketers should pay attention to income distribution as well as income levels.
 The Natural Environment - involves the physical environment and the natural resources that are
needed as inputs by marketers or that are affected by marketing activities.
 The Technological Environment - The technological environment is perhaps the most dramatic force
now shaping our destiny. Technology has released such wonders.
 The Political and Social Environment - Marketing decisions are strongly affected by developments in
the political environment. The political environment consists of laws, government agencies, and
pressure groups that influence or limit various organizations and individuals in a given society.
 The Cultural Environment - The cultural environment consists of institutions and other forces that
affect a society’s basic values, perceptions, preferences, and behaviors. People grow up in a particular
society that shapes their basic beliefs and values.
Topic 4: Managing Marketing Information
 Marketing Information and Customer Insights - To create value for customers and build meaningful
relationships with them, marketers must first gain fresh, deep insights into what customers need and
want.
 Marketing Information and Today’s “Big Data” - With the recent explosion of information
technologies, companies can now generate and find marketing information in great quantities. The
marketing world is filled to the brim with information from innumerable sources. Consumers themselves
are now generating tons of marketing information.
 Customer insights - Fresh marketing information-based understandings of customers and the
marketplace that become the basis for creating customer value, engagement, and relationships.
 Marketing information system (MIS) - People and procedures dedicated to assessing information
needs, developing the needed information, and helping decision makers to use the information to
generate and validate actionable customer and market insights.
 Developing Marketing Information - Marketers can obtain the needed information from internal data,
marketing intelligence, and marketing research.
 Internal Data - Many companies build extensive internal databases, collections of consumer and
market information obtained from data sources within the company’s network. Information in an
internal database can come from many sources. The marketing department furnishes information
on customer characteristics, in-store and online sales transactions, and Web and social media site
visits. Harnessing such information can provide powerful customer insights and competitive
advantage.
 Competitive Marketing Intelligence - is the systematic monitoring, collection, and analysis of
publicly available information about consumers, competitors, and developments in the
marketplace. The goal of competitive marketing intelligence is to improve strategic decision making
by understanding the consumer environment, assessing and tracking competitors’ actions, and
providing early warnings of opportunities and threats. Marketing intelligence techniques range from
observing consumers firsthand to quizzing the company’s own employees, bench marking
competitors’ products, researching on the Internet, and monitoring social media buzz.

 Marketing Research - In addition to marketing intelligence information about general consumer,
competitor, and marketplace happenings, marketers often need formal studies that provide
customer and market insights for specific marketing situations and decisions. Secondary data Information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for another
purpose. Primary data Information collected for the specific purpose at hand.
 Research Approaches - Research approaches for gathering primary data include observation,
surveys, and experiments.
Observational research Gathering primary data by observing relevant people, actions, and situations.
Ethnographic research A form of observational research that involves sending trained observers to
watch and interact with consumers in their “natural environments.”
Survey research Gathering primary data by asking people questions about their knowledge, attitudes,
preferences, and buying behavior.
Experimental research Gathering primary data by selecting matched groups of subjects, giving them
different treatments, controlling related factors, and checking for differences in group responses.
 Customer Relationship Management and Mining Big Data - The question of how best to analyze
and use individual customer data presents special problems. In the current big data era, most
companies are awash in information about their customers and the marketplace. These touch points
include customer purchases, sales force contacts, service and support calls, Web and social media site
visits, satisfaction surveys, credit and payment interactions, market research studies—every contact
between a customer and a company.
 Customer relationship management (CRM) Managing detailed information about individual
customers and carefully managing customer touch points to maximize customer loyalty.