Report: Marketing Mix, Environmental Factors, and Segmentation

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of marketing principles, focusing on the marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion) and its application to electric cars. It explores the benefits and costs of a marketing orientation for electric vehicles, examining how social media can be leveraged for promotion. The report also delves into macro and micro environmental factors influencing marketing decisions, using the PEST and Porter's Five Forces models to analyze the smart phone industry. Segmentation criteria, targeting strategies (specifically for a new smart phone 'PINK'), and the impact of buyer behavior on marketing activities are also discussed. Furthermore, it covers new product positioning, sustainable competitive advantage, distribution strategies, pricing objectives, and promotional activities. The report concludes with an analysis of the extended marketing mix elements, providing a holistic view of marketing strategies.

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Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................2
TASK 1.......................................................................................................................................................3
ELEMENTS OF MARKETING...................................................................................................................3
1) PRODUCT..........................................................................................................................................3
2) PRICE.................................................................................................................................................4
3) PLACE................................................................................................................................................4
4) PROMOTION ....................................................................................................................................5
BENEFITS AND COSTS OF A MARKETING ORIENTATION FOR ELECTRIC CARS.......................................5
TASK 2.......................................................................................................................................................7
MACRO ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MARKETING DECISIONS...............................8
SEGMENTATION CRITERIA FOR PRODUCTS.........................................................................................10
TARGETING STRATEGY FOR A NEW SMART PHONE ‘PINK’..................................................................12
MARKETING ACTIVITIES ARE AFFECTED BY BUYER BEHAVIOR............................................................13
NEW POSITIONING FOR A PRODUCT...................................................................................................14
TASK-3.....................................................................................................................................................14
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SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE..........................................................................................14
DISTRIBUTION ACCORDING TO CUSTOMERS’ CONVENIENCE............................................................16
PRICES SET TO REFLECT ORGANIZATION'S OBJECTIVES.......................................................................17
PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES TO ACHIEVE MARKET'S OBJECTIVES........................................................18
ANALYSIS OF ELEMENTS IN EXTENDING MARKETING MIX.................................................................19
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................21
INTRODUCTION
An organization, perforce, needs to determine the competency of the product or service along
with its suitability for the consumers in its target market. This brings in light, the concept of
marketing mix, an imminent tool for any organization to implement various actions, strategies
and marketing tactics for promoting its own brand, product or service. This introduces other
concepts such as product life cycle, new product development, pricing strategies, distribution
options, promotion mix and other extended elements of marketing mix.
TASK 1

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ELEMENTS OF MARKETING
Marketing, the term can be explained as the act of promoting or selling the product or service
after performing the market research and analysis to have an idea about the future growth of
that product or service. While designing a product and preparing its marketing strategy the
most important thing is to analyze that whether the customer will be satisfied by the product
supplied. Various analysis models are present that can be use to anticipate the requirements
of the customers that can be helpful while designing the features of the product. and The
keystones in the concept of a successful marketing plan are product, price, place and
promotion which are also referred as the four Ps of marketing. (smallbusiness.chron.com,
2016). There are different elements of marketing process which are explained as below:
 Analysis of market opportunities- The company is required to identify about current
and future market trends and current resources and capabilities along with internal and
external environment. Research for environment context is a concept which defines
strengths and weaknesses of the company and competitive forces at work and the macro
factors which affects the business and what has been demanded by the market.
 Selecting the target market- The next step of marketing process is to choose the target
consumers by the company which will help the organization in strategic planning about
its products. The company segments the whole market in different parts based on
different aspects of customers and will select the best one for delivering its products
and services.

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 Market strategy- The next step involves developing marketing strategy by an
organization after selecting particular market segment of the customers. Marketing
strategy consists of proposal of value, targeting, segmenting and positioning of services
and goods. It gives organization a general vision of achieving goals and objectives
which the company desires for.
 Marketing mix decisions- The next step of marketing process involves determining
marketing mix decision regarding Products and services of organization . It also
includes pricing decision, promotional marketing campaign growth etc.
 Implementation and control- It is the last step in the process of marketing which
allows organization to assess whether they had planned and performed with ethical due
diligence and accordingly to their strategies so as to achieve customer satisfaction and
also brought to market the right marketing approach and mix.
BENEFITS AND COSTS OF A MARKETING ORIENTATION FOR ELECTRIC CARS
Example of an electric car has been taken here in reference. Electric car is an automobile that
is motivated by the use of electric motors, where the electrical energy is stored in the
rechargeable batteries or any other device. The invention of electric car has made life much
convincing as it has a number of advantages over the conventional fuel based cars. Though an

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electric car has many merits but they are still uncommon among the people. A proper
marketing strategy is required for increasing the sales of electric car. The product (car) needs
to be promoted on a very large scale platform like social networking sites such as Facebook,
Twitter etc. (Dennis, Halborg, Ross, 2001)
BENEFITS OF PROMOTING THE ELCTRIC CAR THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
 Promotion through social media builds credibility as with the increase in number of
followers and the amount of customer engagement, more potential buyers are
influenced.
 Electric car’s image and popularity will be enhanced when more and more people will
connect with the advertisement of the product through their friends on the social
media. It will increase the recognition in the market.
 Online information is more accessible to people rather than any physical piece of
information.
 Making use of social media is very cost efficient because the only requirement is
internet access.
 Social media provides a long term audience which results in assured success of the
product in the market.
COST OF PROMOTING AN ELECTRIC CAR THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

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 Cost of promoting the product (car) varies on the basis of which networking site is
used. For instance if Facebook or Twitter is used then the only requirement is internet
that will be of negligible cost. But in case of Google advertisements the cost will be
very high.
 The budget for promotion must be decided very carefully because if the profit made by
the electric car in the market and the promotion budget is almost near then this will be
of no utility. Thus the amount that is to be spent on promoting the car must be less
than an estimated profit that will be made by the car in the market. (ukessays.com,
2016)
TASK 2
MACRO ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MARKETING
DECISIONS

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MACRO ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
The smart phone industry has successfully expanded its market worldwide. According to the
PEST model that is P-Political, E-Economic, S-Social and T-Technological the working analysis
of smart phone industry is explained below:
POLITICAL
Foreign countries are not satisfied with the high
roaming charges, bullying has also increased etc.
Example- there is a bunch of legal issues between
Apple and Samsung.
ECONOMIC
Recession and a poor economy can lead to a
market failure; prices must be free for the
products etc. Example- 19% lesser products were
traded during recession period in Japan.
SOCIAL
Launching of new models are attracting people
especially teens, having latest model has become
the status symbol etc.
TECHNOLOGICAL
They are the fastest means of communication, the
best possible technology being used. Example-
Major competition is Android versus Apple.
MICRO ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
The micro environmental factors are analyzed on the basis of the Porter’s Five Forces analysis
and SWOT analysis model. The Porter’s five forces analysis is a framework comprising of five
forces that analyzes the business strategy for the development and the level of competition
within an industry.

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1. Threat of new entrants- This is very low as the smart phone industry requires higher
investment which is not an easy job for the new comers.
2. Bargaining power of buyers- This is relatively high because the buyers can switch to
another brand or model if they are not contented with bargained value.
3. Bargaining power of suppliers- Unlike the buyers, this is low because the customer
always has a larger number of suppliers and if the bargaining power of the supplier
tends to become higher, the customer is more likely to move to the other supplier with
low bargaining power.
4. Threat of substitute products or services- The rate is low here because providing a
substitute product or service is not a child’s play for any supplier.
5. Rivalry among the existing competitors- The rivalry rate is relatively low because of the
limited number of suppliers and each supplier provides its own specifications. (Grundy,
2006)
SWOT analysis is a market analysis strategy that determines the future growth aspects
in reference to the existing measures taken by the company. The acronym stands for:
1. Strengths- Uniqueness of products in the market, usage of the latest technology and
moderate cost of smart phones are some of the attractive features that increase its
demand in the market. Example- iphone has a great demand in the market.

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2. Weaknesses- High staff turnover is a setback in this field. Moreover, customers would
like to try new models of smart phones launched with the latest technology so any
smart phone does not have much long life.
3. Opportunity- This is an innovation based field that means the market is never going to
lose its value. Other opportunities are like new products can be launched at any point
of time and markets also keep evolving thus providing more profit.
4. Threats- Some major threats are like bad economy, change in preferences of the
customers and government rules and regulations.
SEGMENTATION CRITERIA FOR PRODUCTS
Segmentation is another strategy of marketing a product where the broader market is divided
into subsets of the consumers that share a common feature or trait. The subset that is
expected to yield the highest profit becomes the target market. Demographic segmentation is
the division of people and combining them into different set of groups on the basis of their
age, gender, race, religion, income etc. This helps any organization to target the consumers
more specifically and accurately. There are two types of market: consumer market and
organization market. Consumer market means buying and selling products to the customers for
their own use. On the other hand, organizational market refers to buying and selling products
from one business to another business. Therefore, company can segment market for its new
smart phone PINK, in number of ways as:

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 Behavioral segmentation – It divides the market into group based on the knowledge,
attitudes, uses and responses for the smart phone launched by leading smart phone
company.
 Psycho graphic segmentation – it is a concept which segments the customer on the
basis of lifestyle of the customers. It is the part of marketing strategy. It involves
various aspects of customers and their lifestyle which affects their purchase decisions
for newly launched smart phone, PINK.
 Profile segmentation- it generates accurate and precise customer information about
smartphone, 'Pink' that can increase organization's effectiveness. Information may be
useful in large variety of circumstances like customer issues, lifestyle characteristics
etc.
 Geographic location segmentation - It is equally feasible for the company for its
product namely PINK, in this type of behavior the segmentation is done on the
locality of the customers.
 Benefit segmentation – it is another criteria for the company to segment customers.
It involves the economic value of smart phone “Pink” to the customers. The company
has recognized that customer buy the smart phone for different reasons and place
along with different values on smart phone features.
TARGETING STRATEGY FOR A NEW SMART PHONE ‘PINK’
Targeting-Strategy means the way in which business selects its potential customers to
to sell their products and services. The targeting strategy includes

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segmentation of market , choosing appropriate segments of market and also determining the
products that will be offered in each segments to their customers.
In general, company produces different products and services for certain group of
people
or customers. Leading smart phone company has launched new smart phone “Pink”
can use different marketing strategies for its product.
For example- A new smart phone ‘PINK’ is launched in the market by a leading smart phone
company. The segmentation is the first step in the targeting strategy of any product in the
market where the customers are divided in a group on the basis of any common trait or
feature. These groups are also referred as the segments. The segment for PINK is the group
comprising of females. Thus the specifications of the model will be as per the requirements of
the segment. For instance PINK may have features like:
 Availability of beauty specific applications.
 Stylish and sleek model.
 Good quality camera.
 Security specific features for a woman’s safety etc. (businessdictionary.com, 2016)
The company follows different marketing strategies like:
▪ Differentiated or selected marketing- In this, the firm manufactures the product
which is different from another products to achieve competitive advantage by
company over its competitors..

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▪ Concentration marketing and mass- this type of marketing focuses or
concentrates on a particular group.
▪ Undifferentiated marketing- In this, attention is not given to apparent segment
differences that exist within the market. It aim at delivering the products and
services to different segments of society.
▪ Focused marketing- it is a form of marketing which requires the marketing
manager to carefully study their organization and analyze its position in the
market so that a plan for focused marketing can be formed.
The leading smart phone company uses mass marketing strategy for developing its smartphone
as the said company is concerned about producing different products for all segments of
customers. It sells its smartphones using its own marketing mix to match the requirements of
their customers and fulfill their needs. It aims to build customer satisfaction and good will.
MARKETING ACTIVITIES ARE AFFECTED BY BUYER BEHAVIOR
The buyer is very specific about what type of the product is to be purchased but the mindset
of the buyer can be altered by adopting excellent marketing strategies. The marketing of any
product must be strategized in order to attract buyer’s attention towards the product.
According to the regular behavior of the buyer, the attractive presentation of the product
results into more curiosity from buyer’s side. There are four types of buying behavior which
affects marketing strategies -