Marketing and Retail Book Industry free essay sample

Your company has developed a new educational electronic game. Your target market is 4-6 year old children. What research methods would you use to test this product concept? Choose at least three methods that you believe will provide valuable information, and describe your research strategy. (Points : Three research methods that will give more valuable information about the product concept areas below. Focus groups: Discussion of selected members (a mix of parents, teachers, academicians and psychologist) in a focus group will help the company gain insight about what the customers are think and how they perceive the product (Kotler, 2000). This will also help in identifying any gaps between the product presently available in the market and what the customers want. Unstructured interviews: Unstructured one on one interview with parents, teachers, and psychologists can help the company gain more information by using probing questions. Questionnaires: Questionnaires with a combination of open ended and closed ended questions can be sent to the respondents over the email and they can send their replies over the email. TCO C) Choose a specific brand (i. e. , Coke, Nike, McDonalds, etc. Using this brand as an example, describe what makes this a unique brand that is easily recognizable by consumers. What do you, as a consumer, think of when you see this brand logo? How would you describe a Brand? What roles do Brands play in the market and what signals success? The brand selected for this question id McDonalds. The vibrant logo of the company makes the brand easily recognizable. The golden arches of McDonalds was born of architecture. The arches were a design that formed the shape of the letter M in a unique way. The color combination of yellow and red in this logo plays the trick (The Independent, 2008). The brand gives an impression of a vibrant and happy environment or place. In a cluttered business environment branding plays an important role in adding distinguishing factor to the company’s product or service and increases brand recognition and brand recall among the target customers. This would in turn lead to increased sales and increased profits for the company. 3. (TCO H) Let us look at the retail book industry as an example. There are a lot of people who buy a wide variety of books. Using this industry as an example, divide this market into smaller market segments. Describe at least three of these markets segments. By making some assumptions, describe some characteristics of the target market (end customers) for each of these market segments. Also what are the key criteria for segmentation to be effective? Smaller market segments of the retail book industry are as below: -Children: Childrens’ books, graphic books and fictions are targeted towards the children. The gatekeepers for this segment are the parents and guardians. So for this segment communications are to be targeted to the kids in a was so as to involve the elders and encourage them to buy the products for the children -Fitness enthusiasts: Yoga books, fitness book, diet advising books interest the fitness enthusiasts. So this market is targeted based on their behavioral aspects. -Students: The stuents buy text books, reference books. Again So this market is targeted based on their behavioral aspects. Segmenting the retail book industry can be done based on the key criteria of demographic, and behavioral aspects. An increasing number of companies are basing their prices on the customers perceived value of the product or service. Explain the concept of perceived value pricing. What is the key to pricing in this manner? How might the marketer determine the price that the consumer might pay in exchange for that value that they receive? Perceived value pricing is the method of pricing a product or service based on what the customer is willing to pay for the product, rather than on arriving at the final price based on the costs and expenses (Kotler, 2000). The price is determined based on the competitor’s product. An analysis is done on how the customer perceives the company’s products in comparison to the competitors’ products. Based on this understanding and the competitors’ prices the pricing is done. 5. (TCO F) You are the Sales Manager for your company. Your sales team is one that, once they gain the initial sale, enjoys considerable repeat business. Sales reps are paid a base of $35K and their commission package can add as much as $49K a year (average). Top producers make as much as $65K a year in commissionalong with their base pay, they make $100K. Sales reps have not been aggressive in pursuing new business. They have become comfortable in making repeated sales calls on their existing customers to be visible and to handle any issues. Your VP of Sales wants to see a 12% increase in NEW business next year. How might you structure the compensation plan to drive selling behaviors that would result in more effort being made to gain new business? Being a sales team the primary motivator for the team will be financial incentives. In the given scenario, it is important for the VP of sales to restructure the incentive structure. The restructuring can be done in the following way. Giving 100 percent weightage for the any fresh business that the sales reps get from a new customer. the focus for this is customer acquisition. Giving 40 percent weightage for the new business that comes from the existing clients. Assuming that there is a threshold after crossing which the sales reps become eligible for commission. More conditions can be added to the threshold. For instance, even if the sales reps meet their threshold of sales, they have to meet at least 70 percent of their new customer acquisition target in order to be eligible for the commission/ incentive. 6. (TCO E) Why do intermediaries bother to sponsor their own brand? What is the role of private label brands in the market place? From the consumers viewpoint, why would you or wouldnt you buy these generic brands versus more well-known brand names? Does it depend upon the product being sold? The intermediaries bother to sponsor their own brand in order to be competitive, profitable and cost effective. It is easier to own brands in own store than in other stores as they do not have to pay for shelf space. The intermediaries explore the excess capacity of the manufacturers and introduce them as private label at a low cost. The costs involved are lower and so the intermediary can sell those products at low price and gain higher profit margins. The private labels also provide a differentiating factor among the competitors. Many a times customers prefer generic brands and private labels over branded products because both are of similar quality and price of generic brands are lower (Kotler, 2000). But whether a customer chooses a generic brand or more well-known brand names it often depends on the product the customer is buying. For convenience products customers often prefer generic brand over more well-known brand names. Describe the supply chain strategy using demand chain planning. By looking at the company as the center of a value network, how will this approach enable the company to be more financially efficient? Demand chain planning refers to forecasting the market demands for a product or service and then adjusting the production, supplies and distribution based on that. Using demand chain planning supply chain strategy will be decided based on the historical data and statistical and customer forecast of the expected sales. Once these figures are generated, the supply volume and time is decided to match the demand. In this way excess supply and excess stock/ inventory can be checked and controlled, making the whole supply chain functions more cost effective for the company. 8. (TCO J) With the memory of the many companies showing poor judgment and poor ethics, such as BP, Toyota, Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, and others fresh in your mind, you have been asked to advise your companys CEO on to how to minimize the risk of a similar event occurring at your company. Specifically, what recommendations would you make to your CEO that would minimize unethical business and marketing practices by your employees, such as those alleged to have occurred at these and other companies? The recommendations are as below. -All organizations claim them to be fair and legitimate. Due to absence of clarity of the exclusivity, the companies fight over years to win. It often comes out to be marketing stances to gain over competitors. Lawyers of the organization prepare a case to defend their parties and not to defend what is right. In the process the company spends time, energy and money to win over patents. Ethically such resources can be diverted for the betterment of the employees, their working condition and even society as a whole. This would increase the value of a firm and reinforce its culture (Jones, 2013). -These ethical dilemmas are to be addressed in line with the ethical commitments of the organization. For this purpose a code of ethics stating corporate policies and practices should be referred to. -For successful implementation of the code of ethics, employees need to understand the practical implications of the code and know its significance. Trainings in ethics raise awareness of the employees about the code. Now that you have completed the Final Draft of your Marketing Plan, were you to begin anew, what would you have done differently insofar as your efforts to segment your TARGET MARKET and your efforts to reach that TARGET MARKET via your promotional mix? What would you have done differently? Please be sure to provide a graduate level response based on the marketing principals learned in class. Be sure to refresh your instructors mind by providing one sentence that communicates what your Marketing Plan brought to market. The marketing plan was for a jewelry shop in Abu Dhabi. The company name is ABC Company. To define the target market I would do two things differently. Firstly, I will define my target customer based on a primary research. Secondly, I would consider the psychological aspects like willingness to purchase, purchase frequency and readiness to purchase to define the target segment. I would promotional mix, I would like to consider options for an interactive customer engagement. This can be done through creating an interactive website with a forum for interaction, and making active social media pages by continuously updating and encouraging customers to interact. 10 (TCO G) Sales Promotions offer consumers an incentive to buy. Name at least four different types of sales promotion tools, tell how you would use them, and provide an example of a type of product or service you would promote using this tool. Failure to provide all of the requested information will result in a loss of points. Sales promotion refers to a host of activities taken up to boost the sales of a product (Kotler, 2000). Four different types of sales promotion tools are as below. -Price promotions: Also referred to as price discounting, these are discounts on normal price of the product or more of the product at the same price in order to increase sales volume at the cost of loss in profit. This can be used for shopping products like electronic goods, apparels, etc -Coupons: Coupons are certificates, usually distributed with magazines news papers etc. , which offers price reduction for some specified items to the holder (Pickton, Broderick, 2003). This promotion strategy can be used for services like salon, spa, gym memberships. The coupons are distributed as part of advertisement in newspapers/ magazines and can be redeemed at select outlets. -Free gifts: The customers are offered gift with purchase and thus marketers attempt to increase sales volumes in the initial stage of the product life cycle. This can be applied to shopping goods, for example, the customers are given key chain as a free gift when he buys a pair of shoes. -Free samples: The customers are offered free samples of new products in an attempt to increase awareness of the product and induce the customer to try using the product. This can be applied for convenience goods like shampoo. When a new variant of shampoo is launched, the manufacturer often gives small satchet (say, 5ml or 10 ml) of the new shampoo free of cost.