Marketing Essentials: Objectives, Mix, and Consumer Behavior

Posted on Mar 4, 2025 in Marketing

Marketing Essentials

1: Objectives of Marketing

Key Objectives: Customer Value, Brand Building, Need Fulfillment, Advertising Effectiveness, Market Research, Pricing Strategies, and Promotion Tactics.

2: Roles of Marketing

The most important role of marketing is to create demand.

Levels of Demand

  • Increasing Demand: Acquire new consumers.
  • Timing of Demand: Maintain demand throughout the year.
  • Composition of Demand: Influence consumer perception.

3: The Marketing Mix (The 4 P’s)

Product: What you are selling (e.g., Red Bull provides energy).

Price: The cost to the consumer (e.g., Red Bull: $3 at a café, $2 at a supermarket, $1 at a discount store).

Place: Where the product is sold (e.g., Cafeteria, Supermarket).

Promotion: How the product is advertised (e.g., 2×1 offers, sport events, 20% off).

4: Strategic vs. Operational Marketing

Strategic Marketing: The overarching idea (mid-term/long-term planning).

Operational Marketing: The implementation of the idea.

Characteristics: Operational Marketing

  • Directly generates sales.
  • Minimizes plan costs.
  • Operates in the short-to-medium term.
  • Based on product, pricing, distribution, and communication policies.
  • Maintains constant contact with strategic marketing.

Characteristics: Strategic Marketing

  • Operates long-term.
  • Involves deep analysis of the company’s environment (customers, competitors, opportunities, and threats).
  • Maintains constant contact with operational marketing.

Basic Functions: Operational Marketing

  • Monitoring and coordination of actions.
  • Product characteristics.
  • Study of commercial policies.
  • Setting prices and distribution conditions.
  • Defining communication strategies.
  • Preparing the budget.

Basic Functions: Strategic Marketing

  • Market study.
  • Evaluating current demand.
  • Detecting new customer needs.
  • Defining basic company objectives and a global business strategy.

5: Consumer Behavior Influences

Customer Influences:

Cultural Factors

Culture, subculture, social class.

Social Factors

Reference groups, family, social roles, statuses.

Personal Factors

Age, stage in life cycle, occupation, economic situation, lifestyle, personality, self-concept.

6: The Five C’s Framework

Company, Collaborators, Competitors, Context, Climate.

Analysis of the Marketing Environment

Internal Factors: Employees, customers, shareholders, distributors, and retailers.

External Factors: Social, legal, political, economic, and technological factors.

Porter’s Five Forces

Threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of customers, bargaining power of suppliers, competitive rivalry.

Types of Communication

Own media, paid media, earned media.

Marketing Research

Define the problem, decision alternatives, research objectives, develop the research plan, collect information, analyze information, present results to management, making decisions.

Types of Research by Source

Primary Data: First-hand information from the researcher.

Secondary Data: Information from another source.

7: Consumer Buying Decision Process

Problem recognition, information research, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, post-purchase decision.

8: Uses of Research

Market information, consumer insight research, media research, message development, evaluation research.