Marketing—Discussion Guide

Slide #3 Opening Discussion (Entry) THINK ABOUT IT

• Have you ever searched for a special brand of sunglasses or a custom T-shirt company?

• If so, you have been impacted by marketing.
• Marketing is all around you.
• You experience it everywhere you go.
  • Advertisements
  • Items for sale
  • People promoting ideas

Slide #4 Marketing Activities

• Marketing refers to all activities that link producers with customers who want to buy their products.

• It includes advertising, selling, and much more.
• Marketers conduct research to identify customers, discover their needs, and develop products that they want.
• Marketers analyze the financial potential of new products before introducing them to the marketplace.
• After marketers identify a viable product, they determine how to price it, promote it, and place it.
  • These responsibilities are referred to as the marketing mix, because the marketing elements of product, price, promotion, and place come together to form a strong marketing strategy.

Slide #5:

• Discussion #1: Have you ever sold something? Explain how you handled the marketing mix?

Slide #6 Elements of Marketing Concept

• Successful businesses adopt the marketing concept.

• It is a philosophy of conducting business that is based on the belief that all business activities should aim to satisfy customer wants and needs while achieving company goals.
• Businesses that embrace the marketing concept consider the customer’s point of view first—before making any marketing decisions.
• Three elements make up the marketing concept: customer orientation, company commitment, and company goals.
  • Marketers consider customer orientation by producing and promoting the products that customers want.
  • A company commitment is evident when an organization serves the interests of customers by improving products, offering competitive prices, and providing outstanding service.
  • Marketers also strive to achieve company goals.

Slide #7:

• Discussion #2: Give an example of a company that has adopted the marketing concept.

Slide #8 Benefits of Marketing

• Marketing plays a large role in the economy.

• It helps businesses profit and helps us obtain the goods and services that we need
  and want.
• Marketing is one of the most important aspects of business because it directly impacts revenue and profitability.
• It is the primary way companies interact with customers.
• It creates vital relationships that lead to the development of better products and satisfied customers.

• Marketing also helps the development and growth of international trade.

• Countries import products they need and export products for sale.
• Countries are able to obtain needed resources and goods.
• Jobs are created.
• Citizens’ quality of life is improved.

  • Market competition is another economic benefit.

• When businesses compete to provide new and improved products at lower prices, it creates jobs and a higher standard of living.
• Competition in the marketplace also produces a large variety of goods and services that allow you to choose the products that will benefit you the most.
• Without market competition, you would have few products to choose from.

  • Marketing is very important.

• • • Without marketing, there wouldn’t be any products to buy, sell, or trade.

• You would have to make your own clothes and grow your own food.
• You wouldn’t have books, videos, or music to entertain yourself.

• • • Marketing has a significant impact on the world, the economy, and you.

Slide #9:

• Discussion #3: Give an example of how market competition has benefited you personally.

Slide #13 Opening Discussion (Entry) THINK ABOUT IT

• Consider the different members of a school’s marching band.

  • Each musician has an instrument that s/he uses to play music.

  • Each instrument can play the main melody.

  • However, the band sounds better when each musician only plays her/his part.

  • The same is true in marketing—separate marketing functions must all work together as a team.

KEY CONCEPTS

Slide #14 Marketing Functions

• There are seven marketing functions that help get goods and services from producers to customers.

• By coordinating these functions, a business can make sure that all marketing activities work together to achieve its marketing goals.

Slide #15 Market Planning

• Market planning aims to create strategies to attract the target customer to a business.

• Market planning includes determining activities, goals, objectives, and procedures necessary to carry out those strategies.
• Without market planning, none of the other functions of marketing could exist.
  • It would be difficult for companies to be profitable.

Slide #16 Product / Service Management

• The product/service management marketing function involves obtaining, developing, maintaining, and improving a product or service mix in response to market opportunities.

• This market function plans, directs, and controls all phases of a product’s life cycle.
  • A product’s life cycle includes generating ideas for new products, improving existing products, and removing products from the market.

Slide #17 Marketing-Information Management

• Rather than making guesses, businesses make decisions based on the data gathered, processed, reported, and maintained by the marketing-information management marketing function.

• After collecting data, this function:
  • Transforms the data into more understandable marketing information
  • Distributes this information to company decision makers
  • Stores the data for later use
• For this information to be of value, these activities should take place on an ongoing, regular basis.

Slide #18

• Discussion #1: What types of information would you need as marketers to make sound decisions about a new product you have just put on the market?

Slide #19 Pricing

• The pricing function involves determining and adjusting prices to maximize return and meet customers’ perceptions of value.

• This often involves deciding how much to charge for products so that customers will want to buy and businesses can make a profit.
• Businesses try to maximize sales by setting the price so that they and their customers get the most value.
• In order to successfully set prices, marketers analyze internal data as well as the prices of their competitors.

Slide #20

• Discussion #2: Explain whether you would set prices with a goal of maximizing profit or ensuring the customer feels they are getting a good value.

Slide #21 Channel Management

• Channel management is responsible for identifying, selecting, monitoring, and evaluating sales channels, also known as channels of distribution.

• Each channel of distribution is a path or route that takes goods and services from the producer to the ultimate customer or industrial user.
• Effective channel management is often a key to businesses’ success because it puts products in the customers’ hands.
• Efficient channel management allows businesses to have their products in the right place at the right time.

Slide #22 Promotion

• The purpose of the promotion function is to communicate information about goods, services, images, and/or ideas to achieve a desired outcome.

• Promotion informs, persuades, or reminds customers about a business and/or its products.
• Businesses use a variety of methods to communicate with customers including:
  • Advertising
  • Publicity
  • Sales promotion

Slide #23 Selling

• The selling function involves determining client needs and wants and responding through planned, personalized communication that influences purchase decisions and enhances future business opportunities.

• While the other marketing functions pave the way for successful selling, it is this last function that allows all that hard work to pay off.
• Making a sale is the ultimate goal of all marketing functions.

Slide #24

• Discussion #3: Share some examples of how these marketing functions might work together, and to explain which functions they think are the most important to making a business successful.

Slide #27 Opening Discussion (Entry) THINK ABOUT IT

• Careers in marketing take many different forms. You can work in traditional marketing or advertising agencies, but those are far from the only companies that offer marketing careers. Every type of business needs to market itself in one way or another.

KEY CONCEPTS

Slide #28 Marketing Career Pathways

• Marketing careers often overlap and run together, but they can typically be divided into the general pathways of:

• Marketing communications
• Marketing research
• Marketing management
• Merchandising
• Professional selling

Slide #29 Marketing Communications Pathway

• The marketing communications pathway focuses on informing, reminding, and/or persuading a target market. Examples of marketing communications activities include advertising, direct marketing, public relations, and digital marketing.

• Advertising, which involves paid, nonpersonal communication of ideas, goods, or services, requires strong teamwork and communication skills since many advertisers work collaboratively.

• • • Copywriter
    • Art director
    • Creative director
    • Account manager
    • Account executive
    • Advertising director
    • Direct marketing involves getting specific, measurable actions from a target market, often by developing and sending catalogs, postcards, folders, and emails directly to a consumer’s home or to a business. Direct marketers have to be persistent and goal-oriented.
    • Public relations professionals often serve as the face of their company or organization. People who work in this pathway are responsible for establishing good relations between their organization and the public. These jobs involve speaking and writing, and require organization and flexibility.
  • Some public relations jobs are:
    • Publicist
    • Press secretary
    • Communications specialist
    • Marketing/Product communications
    • Digital marketing professionals find ways to promote their products and attract customers digitally. As a result, they must be flexible to adjust to new digital trends.
  • Some of these job titles include:
    • Content strategist
    • Web marketer
    • Digital marketing specialist
    • Online marketing manager

Slide #30

• Discussion #1: What skills are needed for advertising and public relations? If they were hiring for one or the other, what are the skills they would find most important for each?

Slide #31 Marketing Research Pathway

• Careers in the marketing research pathway utilize qualitative and quantitative research methods to determine information needs, design data-collection processes, collect data, analyze data, and present data to be used to make business decisions.

• Organization and critical thinking are key to these careers.
  • Job titles in marketing research include:
    • Market analyst
    • Product analyst
    • Market research analyst
    • Marketing operations manager

Slide #32 Marketing Management Pathway

• Careers in the marketing management pathway require broad knowledge of marketing and management, including channel management, marketing-information management, market planning, pricing, product/brand management, promotion, and selling.

• It is important for people in marketing management to have strong teamwork and leadership skills. These jobs often require an ability to handle multiple tasks and responsibilities.

• • Some job titles in this pathway include:
    • Marketing specialist
    • Marketing manager
    • Marketing director

    • People who work in product/brand management are in charge of monitoring and developing existing products or brands.

  • Jobs in this field include:
    • Marketing analyst
    • Brand/Product manager

Slide #33 Merchandising Pathway

• The merchandising pathway focuses on efficient and effective product planning, product selection, buying, licensing, and inventory control.

• To help their businesses make a profit, merchandisers and buyers must keep up with trends, analyze sales, negotiate with vendors, and predict what will sell in the future.
  • Positions in merchandising include:
    • Buyer
    • Purchaser
    • Director of merchandising

Slide #34 Professional Selling Pathway

• Careers in the professional selling pathway focus on offering products or services to other businesses to use for business operations, for the manufacture of other products, or for resale/promotion to others.

• These occupations require an in-depth knowledge of the target market such as the customers’ needs, business, competitors, and products; presales activities; sales processes and techniques; and servicing after the sale.
• Those working in sales need problem-solving, goal-setting, and people skills; they must be able to communicate, listen, and develop relationships.
  • Job titles in sales include:
    • Account executive
    • Sales associate
    • Sales representative

Slide 35 Discussion:

• • • Why professional selling is consider a career pathway in marketing

    • How is a sales minor similar to marketing? In what ways it is different?

Slide 36 Discussion:

• • • Which pathway do you feel you are best suited for?

    • What strengths or skills do you have that you think would make this the best fit?