Building a Powerful Bootstrap Marketing Plan

Assignment 12:  Chapter 8 Questions

Respond to the following Questions.  Students should complete this assignment after reading and reviewing the material for each chapter, attending class and taking lecture notes.  This assignment is designed to help students review material and prepare for exams.  Save a copy of your chapter questions for your review sheet to study for exams.  Students are expected to provide at least one paragraph (3-5 sentences) for each question.  Each question assignment submission is worth 20 points. 

1.     List and describe the 4 P’s

Price = Price covers the actual amount the end user is expected to pay for a product. How a product is priced will directly affect how it sells. This

Product = good or service to meet specific customer needs or demands. and it is vital for marketers to understand and plan for the various stages and their unique challenges. It is key to understand those problems that the product is attempting to solve. The benefits offered by the product and all its features need to be understood and the unique selling proposition of the product need to be studied. In addition, the potential buyers of the product need to be identified and understood.

Promotion = The marketing communication strategies and techniques all fall under the promotion heading. These may include advertising, sales promotions, special offers and public relations. Promotion is just the communication aspect of the entire marketing function.

Placement = It has to do with how the product will be provided to the customer. Distribution is a key element of placement. The placement strategy will help assess what channel is the most suited to a product. How a product is accessed by the end user also needs to compliment the rest of the product strategy.

2.     How does marketing research help entrepreneurs when starting up?

-        Having a thorough understanding of your target market including what customer want and expect from your company and its product and service

-        Identifying the obstacles that stand in your way of satisfying customers and eliminating them

3.     List some possible sources entrepreneurs use to find industry and market information?

-    Primary research includes customer surveys and questionnaires, focus group, social media conversations and monitoring, test market, daily transactions and other idea

-    Secondary research includes business directories, direct mail list, demographic data, census data, forecast, market research, articles, local data and internet

4. Define competitive advantage.  How can an entrepreneur make a competitive advantage sustainable? A competitive advantage is what makes you better than the competition in your customers' minds. The term was first applied to businesses, but it works for anyone, from employees to countries.  Porter outlined the three primary ways companies by researching companies to achieve a sustainable advantage. They are cost leadership, differentiation and focus.

Cost leadership means you provide reasonable value at a lower price. Companies do this by continuously improving operational efficiency. That usually means paying their workers less. Some compensate by offering intangible benefits such as stock options, benefits or promotional opportunities. Others take advantage of unskilled labor surpluses. As these businesses grow, they can use economies of scale and buy in bulk.

Differentiation means you deliver better benefits than anyone else with innovation, quality or customer service. A company can achieve differentiation by providing a unique or high-quality product. Another method is to deliver it faster. A third is to market in a way that reaches customers better. A company with a differentiation strategy can charge a premium price. That means it usually has a higher profit margin.

Focus means you understand and service your target market better than anyone else. You can use either cost leadership or differentiation to do that. The key to focusing is to choose one specific target market. Often, it's a tiny niche that larger companies don't serve.

5.     What is segmentation and why do entrepreneurs identify target markets? The process of defining and subdividing a large homogenous market into clearly identifiable segments having similar needs, wants, or demand characteristics. Its objective is to design a marketing mix that precisely matches the expectations of customers in the targeted segment. Few companies are big enough to supply the needs of an entire market; most must breakdown the total demand into segments and choose those that the company is best equipped to handle.

Because the more a business know about its local markets and its customers and their buying habits and preferences, the more precisely it can focus its marketing efforts on the group of costume who are most likely to buy its product or service.