Revision Notes

Marketing

  1. Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customers' needs and wants profitably. (Institute of Marketing)
  2. Function of marketing: supports the overall objective of the firm (sales maximising? Profit maximising?); emphasis is on looking outwards collecting information about he market that is then used by production (design) and Finance (pricing/profits) and Personnel (recruitment needed?)
  3. Firm may adopt the marketing concept i.e. put the customer first. Therefore the information from marketing is used as a starting point for production, personnel etc.
  4. Marketing identifies different markets: consumer; industrial. (Think: characteristics of both?)
  5. Markets may be segmented according to: age, income, gender, location, lifestyle. (Psychographic; demographic; geographic)
  6. Key diagrams in marketing: product Life Cycle and the Boston Matrix.
  7. Product Life cycle. This charts the life of the product. Development, Introduction, growth, maturity, saturation, decline. Extension strategies to extend the maturity stage may include dropping price, finding a new market, changing the packaging.
  8. The Boston Matrix (Star: high market share/high market growth; cash Cow: low market growth/high market share; Problem children: low market share/high market growth; Dogs: low market share/low market growth). A star is the best product. Dogs should be dropped. Cash cows finance the continued growth of stars. Funds may also be used to finance problem children - the market is growing so why is this product's sales not growing with it?
  9. Analysis: this may be SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)  or PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological).
  10. Marketing is just one of the four main functions in a business. It is vital that it is not seen in isolation and students understand how the four functions - Personnel, marketing, Finance and Production - all work together to achieve the objectives of the business.
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