Marketing and customer orientation
What the exam tests
You must distinguish marketing orientation from production and selling orientation, carry out basic market research, segment a market and apply the marketing mix to a scenario.
Core rules
- Marketing orientation starts from customer needs and works back to the product. Production orientation focuses on making efficiently; selling orientation pushes existing products.
- Market research can be primary (surveys, interviews, observation, trials) or secondary (reports, statistics, competitor data). Primary is specific but costly; secondary is cheaper but may be outdated.
- Segmentation divides a market by demographic, geographic, psychographic or behavioural variables. Targeting chooses segments; positioning creates a clear image relative to competitors.
- Marketing mix (4Ps): product (features, quality, branding, life cycle), price (cost-plus, penetration, skimming, competitive, value-based), place (channels, coverage, location), promotion (advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling, digital). Services add people, process and physical evidence (7Ps).
- Product life cycle: development, introduction, growth, maturity, decline; strategy should change at each stage.
- Customer relationship management uses data to retain customers; retention is often cheaper than acquisition.
Worked example
A small Cypriot producer makes organic olive-oil soap and sells locally. Recommend a segmentation and mix. Reasoning: target environmentally conscious tourists and local gift buyers; position as premium, natural and locally made. Product: distinctive packaging and provenance story. Price: premium rather than penetration, because low price would contradict the quality claim. Place: selected hotels, delis and an online shop. Promotion: social media, hotel concierge samples and a certificate-backed sustainability message. Avoid claiming “organic” without certification - that is a legal and ethical trap.
Traps that cost marks
- Equating marketing with advertising only.
- Confusing skimming (high launch price) with penetration (low launch price).
- Treating primary research as always better; it depends on budget and question.
- Writing a mix that contradicts the positioning, such as premium image with deep discounting.
- Ignoring that “place” means distribution, not just a shop location.