Introduction to Marketing: Value Creation for Customers Report

This report delves into the crucial role of marketing in generating value for customers within the business environment. It begins by defining marketing and the marketing mix, emphasizing the significance of the 7Ps (product, price, promotion, place, people, process, and physical evidence) in crafting customer value. The report then examines how businesses leverage marketing to maintain a competitive edge, utilizing SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Furthermore, it interprets Ansoff's Growth Matrix, recommending market development and product development strategies for Unilever Plc. The report also explores the impact of digital marketing on improving business performance and growth, covering various digital marketing methods. The report aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of marketing strategies and their application in a real-world business context.

Assignment: Value Creation for Customers in
Business Environment
Student ID:
Module: Introduction to Marketing
Tutor Name:
Date of Submission: Monday, 22nd March 2021 by 2pm

Contents
1.0 Introduction.......................................................................................................... 2
2.0 Marketing and 7P’s of marketing mix to create marketing value...........................................3
2.1 Marketing and marketing mix............................................................................... 3
2.2 Significance of 7P’s of marketing to create customer value..........................................3
3.0 Explanation of how business use marketing to remain competitive using SWOT analysis............4
4.0 Interpretation of Ansoff’s Growth matrix and how businesses use Ansoff’s matrix to become
successful................................................................................................................... 5
4.1 Description of Ansoff’s growth matrix.....................................................................5
4.2 Exploring Ansoff’s matrix and recommending any two of the four entries......................6
5.0 Explain how business use digital marketing to improve performance and growth......................7
5.1 Digital marketing................................................................................................ 7
5.2 Role of digital marketing...................................................................................... 7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 7
References..................................................................................................................... 8
1.0 Introduction
The report seeks to provide an understanding of what roles marketing and marketing mix plays
in delivering value for money for the consumers and how companies remain competitive using

different types of marketing methods. The author will briefly discuss digital marketing and how
it has impacted the marketing area and changed many aspects of marketing and how it can be
used for organizational growth and performance amelioration. And the aim of the report is to
find suitable marketing methods using Ansoff’s matrix and marketing mix for Unilever Plc.
which is a multinational consumer goods company.
2.0 Marketing and 7P’s of marketing mix to create marketing value
2.1 Marketing and marketing mix
Marketing is a series of activities that involves creating, pricing, promoting and distributing a
certain product, commodity or service and eventually ascertain organizational growth or
profitability (Blythe, 2019). An organization undertakes certain steps which can be both virtual
and active participation which is also called advertising and it attracts more potential consumers
or clients.
Marketing mix has basically revolved around the concept provided by E. Jerome McCarthy who
invented 4P’s of marketing which was later expanded to 7P’s of marketing by Booms and Bitner
in 1981 (Cravens, 2019). The 7P’s represent product, price, promotion, place, people, process
and physical.
2.2 Significance of 7P’s of marketing to create customer value
A consumer becomes interested in a product or service when it provides them value for money
and marketing mix can assist in creating that value of a product by creating the best pricing
consequent to specific places or people (Drummond, 2012). 7P’s of marketing can help in this
process.

 Product and promotion: The first intellectual thing to do for Unilever is create the
suitable product successive to the audience or consumers and promote it in a way that it
would reach all those potential customers that the product is made for and it should be
straight to the point.
 Price: Pricing is the most significant part because the buyer need to believe that there is
no better alternative for the product at that price point and Unilever Plc can follow value
pricing strategy.
 Place: The product need to to be distributed in a place where it is more accessible and
easily achievable by the consumers and they do not need to pay extra for that.
 Physical evidence: A company need to create a brand name and provide customers with
evidence of purchasing or acquiring a service or product and it can be either an
electronic document or a hard copy.
 Process and people: Distribution or delivery system should be fluent and less time
consuming which would assure more customer satisfaction and build a reputation for
Unilever and people represent the employees who need to be skilled to create better and
flawless products for the consumers.
3.0 Explanation of how business use marketing to remain competitive using SWOT analysis
Competitive environment is a situation or a marketplace where an organization operates and
functions which is dependable on how many organizations are competing with each other to sell

the same product or service. The more organizations there are, the more competitive market it is.
Now let’s talk about SWOT which is basically the abbreviation of Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunity and Threats that a company have or face in the future (Jain, 2018). The first two are
the internal factors of an organization and the last two are external factors.
Unilever is one of most competitive organizations in UK and they can use marketing as a good
strategy to remain competitive and the analysis of strengths to take advantage of opportunities
can help in the process. Unilever has built personal kinship with their customers through
marketing and also have built a trust that they deliver the best product in the market thus
acquiring a competitive place in the market and constantly assuring the consumers that the
company is on their side (Kotler, 2019). They have also shown high integrity in their
advertisement and product which attracted more of their consumers. Their employees also
possess strong attitudes which would show the dedication of the company and make people
believe in them which can increment their market share and become more competitive.
Scrappy analysis of the competition is a major weakness of Unilever as it possess a huge market
share and is a dominating brand but it can cause them serious harm in future if suddenly a
company become more popular than them but it can be countered by developing a team to
comprehend their competitive situation (Kotabe, 2017). Another weakness of the company is
deficiency of detail in embodiment as it has expanded in 190 countries its quite hard to maintain
each market which can arose company loss but recruiting skilled employees can help in the
process to sustain company growth.
4.0 Interpretation of Ansoff’s Growth matrix and how businesses use Ansoff’s matrix to become
successful
4.1 Description of Ansoff’s growth matrix
Ansoff’s matrix or also known as product or market propagation grid is a strategic matrix that is
conducted for planning, management and marketing subsequent to organizational requirements,
expectations and growth. It is a two by two matrix containing four entries which are market
penetration, market development, product development and diversification. The matrix is
adjuvant both for entering new or existing market with a new or existing product and service as
shown in the figure below.

4.2 Exploring Ansoff’s matrix and recommending any two of the four entries.
As shown in figure the Ansoff’s matrix has four quadrants. The first one is market penetration
which is basically expanding business in new markets with subsisting products gain a
competitive position there (McDaniel, 2013). The second one is market penetration that is
gaining more market share in the existing market with existing product by maybe offering
discounts or more value. The third quadrant is product development which is developing new
products in existing market and it requires extra cost of R & D but can bring profit. And the last
one is diversification which is entering a new market with a new product which is quite risky for
smaller companies but not for companies with renown brand name.
Now for the chosen company Unilever, they can be successful if they follow market
development and product development. Unilever is operating in many countries but they can
expand their business in more regions and in all parts of the countries that it is functioning on.
They can obtain sustainability in no time if they follow the 7P’s of marketing discussed above
and build more potential consumers (Miller, 2010). As Unilever is a huge company they possess
the scope of investing more resources in R & D and come up with new products to sell in the

existing market and as they have a good reputation, they can easily market those commodities if
they can deliver what they promise.
5.0 Explain how business use digital marketing to improve performance and growth
5.1 Digital marketing
Digital marketing is simply put online marketing or using social mediums and other online
portals to promote or advertise a certain product or services (Ramachandra, 2010). There are
different types of digital marketing which can be categorized as social media platforms, e-mail,
content, search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC) and affiliate marketing.
5.2 Role of digital marketing
Social platforms and online portals are used by almost half of the people of earth and these
platforms have become so much popular for advertisements and promotions. Big companies like
Google or Facebook are basically ad companies and a certain algorithm is followed to
understand consumer behavior and recommend them what they want (Rodney Overton. 2017).
Companies are advertising on these mediums to find their suitable audiences and they are very
much successful at it. So the basic rule of social media here is to find the appropriate audience
for the companies.
The next thing that digital marketing helps a company is make the consumers rewatch their ads
so that they are influenced to buy the product and nowadays people buy commodities after
watching a review of the product and there are many paid reviews of a product which also
influences the consumer (Staudt, 2016). SEO is also a way of promoting a product and when
people would search for a product they would find that product at first and these can help a
company gain popularity and brand name which eventually results into increment in performance
and growth.
Conclusion
A company need to choose an appropriate audience to demonstrate the product and advertising
which will attract potential customers for them and it is a basic factor of marketing (Wilson,
2016). Effective marketing can change the profitability of a company which is why companies
pay handsomely for a good marketing executive. So digital or analog, marketing is in the core of
success of a company and every entrepreneur or big industries follow the same methodology.

References
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Cravens, D., & Piercy, N. (2019). Strategic marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Drummond, G., & Ensor, J. (2012). Introduction to marketing concepts. Hoboken: Taylor &
Francis.
Jain, C., & Migliaro, A. (2018). An introduction to direct marketing. New York: AMACOM.
Kotabe, M., & Helsen, K (2017). Global marketing management.
Kotler, P., Keller, K., Dubois, B., Manceau, D., Kotler, P., & Kotler, P. (2019). Marketing
management. Paris: Pearson Education France.
McDaniel, C., Lamb, C., & Hair, J. (2013). Introduction to marketing. South-Western Cengage
Learning.
Miller, K., Layton, R., & Stanton, W. (2010). Fundamentals of marketing. Sydney: McGraw-
Hill.
Ramachandra, K., Chandrashekara, B., & Shivakumar, S. (2010). Marketing management.
Mumbai [India]: Himalaya Pub. House.
Rodney Overton. (2017). Marketing simplified. [Place of publication not identified]: Martin
Books.
Staudt, T., Taylor, D., & Bowersox, D. (2016). A managerial introduction to marketing.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Wilson, A., Zeithaml, V., Bitner, M., & Gremler, D (2016). Services Marketing.