How to approach the Market??

Marketing planners need to develop a strategy for approaching the market. The marketer's first step is to access the needs of the market. Then, because consumers in a market are seldom uniform, planners must decide whether to treat the market as homogeneous (that is, as a single, undifferentiated, large unit) or as heterogeneous (a market composed of separate, smaller groups known as segments). The market segment of potential customers a product provider selects is its target market. Marketers approach their target markets with the competitive strategies of product differentiation and positioning. More elements are discussed below.

Undifferentiated and Segmentation Approaches: 

When planners treat the market as homogeneous, they purposely ignore differences in the market and use one marketing strategy that will appeal to as many people as possible. This market strategy known as an undifferentiated or market aggregation strategy. At one point in its history, many soft drink companies viewed the U.S market as homogeneous and used general appeals for all its consumers. This strategy is risky because it may appeal to no one, or the resources wasted will be greater than the total gain in sales.

Few examples of homogeneous markets exist. Often, companies take an undifferentiated approach because they lack the resources to target different market segments. For certain types of widely consumed items (such as gasoline and basic white bread), however, the undifferentiated market approach makes sense because the potential market is large enough to justify possible wasted resources. At one time, the bottled water industry used this approach, clearly, that has changed.

Market Segments:  is a much more common market approach. It assumes that the best way to sell to the market is to recognize differences and adjust to them accordingly. Marketers divide the entire heterogeneous market into segments that are homogeneous. From these segments, the marketers identifies, evaluates, and selects a target market, a group of people with similar needs and characteristics, who are most likely to be receptive to the marketer’s product. For instance, a retailer such as computer shop offers various hardware, software and support services to select target markets to sell more products to more people more often.

By using a segmentation approach, a company can more precisely match the needs and wants of the customer and generate more sales. That’s why soft drink manufacturers have moved away from the undifferentiated approach and have introduced diet, caffeine free, and diet caffeine-free versions of their basic products. This approach also allows a company to target advertising more precisely.

Product Differentiation:

 Regardless of whether a marketer employs an undifferentiated or a segmentation approach, there remains a need to distinguish a brand from that of competitors. Most markets contain a high level of competition. How does a company compete in a crowed market? It uses Product Differentiation, as a competitive marketing strategy designed to create product differences that distinguish the company’s product from all others in the eyes of customers. Those perceived differences may be tangible or intangible. Product differentiation may also exist within segments.

Tangible differences include unique product feature, color, size, quality of performance or support services, or available options.

In instances where products really are the same (examples include milk, unleaded gas, and over the counter drugs), marketers often promote intangible differences. They create an image that implies difference, although the image may have little to do with the actual product features. Some beer companies, for example, try to suggest status, enjoyment, masculinity.

Positioning:

Determining what place a product should occupy in a given market is called positioning. It mean a marketer strategically combines the product’s tangible and intangible attributes in order to create a relative picture of the product.

What is Internet?

The internet, which is a vast global network of computers connecting people and information, has opened up tremendous possibilities for advancing research and expanding the realm of business opportunities throughout the world. Because the internet connects us worldwide, any needed research data can be collected from any country through the internet. For Example, customer preferences for packaging a product can be determined and pricing strategies developed for each country. if so desired.

If we want industry information or published materials on any topic of interest, the internet comes in handy. We can easily download secondary data and print them, for leisurely examination. We can also conduct computer-interactive surveys very efficiently with huge global audiences, where the computer will sequence and personalize the questions as we would desire (skip questions and ask appropriate follow-up information). This will require that the respondent at the other end has access to a computer and is willing to respond. The representativeness of the sample will also be compromised. Companies regarding online surveys offer specialized services to conduct internet surveys for firms that need information of a confidential nature, as for example, the effectiveness of supervisors; computer-assisted telephone interviews can also be conducted to gather data.

The marketing, finance, accounting, sales, and other departments of a company can and do use the internet frequently for their research. In the business environment, desktop computers can be connected to local area network (LAN), which in turn, could be hooked to the internet by a high speed line. This would help several individual employees to gain simultaneous access to central information. The LAN enables the employees with computers in close proximity to share information resources and files, and helps schedule, monitor, and process data from remote location.

Business research can proceed using the internet and search engines, even where sources of information on a particular topic are not readily known. Search engines are software programs designed to help the search on World Wide Web. By keying in the important (key) words that describe the topic in some fashion, the user can address the search engine to suggest the best possible “links” (sites with the requested information) and access them directly to review the needed data. AltaVista and Google are two such search engines put to frequent use.

What is market?

The concept of exchange leads to the concept of a market. After understanding what market is, we can learn more about marketing & marketing aspects, principles.

**A market consists of all potential customers sharing a particular need or want who might be willing and able to engage in exchange to satisfy that need or want.**

Thus the size of the market depends upon the number of persons who exhibit the need, have resources that interest others, and are willing to offer these resources in exchange for what they want.

Originally the term market stood for the place where buyers and sellers gathered to exchange their goods, such as a village square. Economists use the term market to refer to a collection of buyers and sellers who transact over a particular product or product class; hence the housing market, the grain market, and so on.

Marketers, however see the sellers as constituting the industry and the market. The sellers and buyers are connected by four flows. The sellers send goods and services and communications to the market; in return they receive money and information. The inner loop shows an exchange of money for goods, the outer loop shows an exchange of information.

Business people use the term markets colloquially to cover various groupings of customers. They talk about need markets (such as the diet-seeking market); product markets (such as the shoe market); demographic markets (such as the youth market); and geographic markets (such as French market). Or that extend the concept to cover noncustomer groupings as well, such as voter markets, labour markets, and donor markets.

The fact is that modern economies operate on the principle of division of labour where each person specializes in the production of something, receives payment, and buys needed things with this money. Thus modern economies abound in markets. The basic kinds of markets and the flows connecting them are shown below.





Essentially, manufacturers go to resource markets (raw-material markets, labour markets, money markets, and so on.), buy resources, turn them into goods and services, sell them to middleman, who sells them to consumers. The consumers sell their labour, for which they receive money income to pay for the goods and services they buy. The government is another market which plays several roles. It buys goods from resource, manufacturer, and middleman markets; it pays them; it taxes these markets (including consumer markets); and it returns needed public services. Thus each nation’s economy and the whole world economy consist of complex interacting of markets that are linked through exchange processes.

What is marketing?

An advertiser needs an effective campaign to help its new product succeed. However, to succeed a product must offer customers value, a supportive distribution network of retailers and proper pricing. Because advertising is just one part of the total marketing effort, it’s unlikely that an advertising agency could achieve its goals without a thorough understanding of its client’s marketing programs.

This page explores how marketing influences and shapes advertising. It examines how the relationship between marketing and advertising plays a key role in an integrated marketing communication strategy. It also takes a look at the advertising agency, its variations and all its structures.

The American Marketing Association defines marketing as the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy the perceived needs, wants and objectives of the consumer and the organization. Stated simply, marketing is the process of finding, satisfying and retaining customers while the business meets its goals. Although its marketing focuses on the exchange and the customer, every business must tailor its marketing to fit into its business plan.

An exchange is the act of trading a desired product or services for something of value in return. How do marketers prompt the exchange process? They must market effectively from start to finish.