MARKETING : the business activity that involves finding out what customers want, using that information to design products and services, and selling them effectively. The aim of marketing is to create and maintain consumers’ interest, with the final object to increase sales. In order to rise sales, a company can use different strategies: advertising, introducing a new product,/service, increasing the range of products, reducing the price, selling by different methods in different places. MARKET RESEARCH: is the collection and examination of information about things that people buy or might buy, and their feelings about things they bought. A market research can be primary/field research (collecting data directly from original sources) or secondary/desk research (collecting data from existing sources such as statistics, trade publications, web). The primary research gives updated data but is expensive and requires much time and samples. A primary research might include questionnaires (to get customers’ feedback and suggestions; it can be done by post, online or on the phone); surveys (a series of questions to understand habits and preferences); interviews; field trials (selling the product for a short period of time in a limited market and collect reactions); focus groups (analysing a small group of consumers). MARKETING SEGMENTATION: the dividing of all possible customers into groups based on their needs, age, education, income etc. the main variables to consider when dividing people into different market segments are: age, gender, income, location and lifestyle. Market segmentation is a practice that brands use to divide their target market into smaller, more manageable groups of people with common needs and who respond similarly to a marketing action. SWOT ANALYSIS: studying the internal and external environments of a company, through the identification and analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation, and the opportunities and threats to which it is exposed. Strengths and weaknesses are generally internal factors, while opportunities and threats normally come from the external environment. THE MARKETING MIX: - - Product: businesses must make sure that they’re making products/services that customers actually want to buy. Quality, design, packaging, style can distinguish products from one another and attract customers. Branding a product might be a useful method for differentiating/diversifying a company’s product. Price: the value that is given to a product. In order to attract consumers a business might reduce prices. Place: it includes factors like distribution, distribution channels, the location of the points of sales, stock, supplies and the way of displaying the product. Promotion: meaning the way a business reaches its clients: telling/informing of a new product and making customers feel like they need to buy it. Advertising, especially on the net, is probably the most used way of promoting sales. ADVERTISING: is one of the most important aspects of promotion. Its main aim is promoting sales, by maintaining buyers’ interests or by making new items known on the market. In general advertising could be informative (companies inform customers of their products) or persuasive (companies persuade customers to choose their products rather than those of competitors by showing the high qualities of their goods). And advertising campaign is a series of advertisements over a period of time using different medias. When launching an advertising campaign a business should consider the cost of it, the target market for the product, whether the advertisement is part of a campaign or single advert. ADVERTISING MEDIA: - TV: the most expensive media, generally used by large businesses. It ensures to reach a large audience RADIO: cheaper than tv, it might reach a wide range of customers even though it often sticks to regions or cities PRINTED MEDIA: like magazines, newspapers, brochures. They can have national or regional audiences WEBSITE: considered nowadays the best advertising instrument. Every business should have one. It might also be linked to other sites such as YouTube or search engines SOCIAL MEDIA: very cheap. They can be used to reach an increasing slice of the market. It grew in importance in the last few years.
