The first takeaway is the concept of Segmentation-Targeting-positioning. Once the production is set up, the characteristics of the product are well clear, the company needs to find the customer. We might be the best in the production or design of the coolest music player on the market, but if nobody is going to buy our product, we are going bankrupt. Market segmentation is that process through which the company decides where to sell the product.
In which country are we able to reap the largest market share? What do customer need that we satisfy? Where is this need stronger? Market targeting is the actual choice of tailored market selected as outlet for our product. How do we address the customer in that market? Which is our pricing strategy? Which features do we want to underline? To which extent do we apply this specification of marketing is subject to our willingness to fit our image to each single market. Market positioning instead focuses on price. Look at competitors, where do we locate us?
We have the eight product but then will the right consumer for us value our good more then competitors’? What has struck me during the course and what I will carry in my bag to the office is the comprehensive approach to this issues. Having the right product is rather easy, every industry has thousands different perfectly working products, yet only four to five are able to conquer the market. It all boils down to these steps. In many companies this approach to the market is Just messy and in the end consumers are not even able to give the product a good evaluation.
An example of a correct strategy is Struck, who upon entering the Chinese market chose which segment of the market to target and how to position its brand among competitors. The lesson to learn here is one of the important ones. Integrated Marketing Communication The second takeaway is the concept of an Integrated Marketing communication. You may have successfully located you brand among market segment and players, but then you need to know how to get people to actually buy it. To promote your product effectiveness of communication is essential.
Here is what has captured me of what we studied during this course, the strong interconnection between topics. The first step is a bridge: define your target audience and select the objectives to be accomplished by the marketing campaign. If I do not have in mind what kind of information and which specific information about my revolutionize technology is to be delivered to each individual potential customer, it is as if I have nothing to sell at all. Design of communication follows the principle of absolute clarity, whichever kind of instrument and media used through whichever channel selected has to be clear, effective, and transparent.
The customer is not to look for the desired information, it is to be struck by whatever notion he has to find. Is he a component manufacturing? We’ll have to come up with a marketing strategy delivering him as first thing that it will take him less time to produce each single unit and quail significantly improved compared to every other piece of machinery available on the market. Budgeting serves to quantify how many resources are to be deployed for the racketing campaign in order to define the media mixing to deliver our product to the market.
It is a big chain in the end, and it all taught me that the one piece of information has to flow all the way through for designing of the piece of product down to the choice of telemarketing or online advertising. The engineer who took part in the development will be determinant in giving the specifications of the new product to the marketing team so as to ensure that every possible feature of the innovation is delivered to however may appraise that and be convinced to buy our good.