Marketing Management
Marketing identifies customer needs and satisfies them profitably. This domain tests the marketing mix, product decisions, channels of distribution and the promotion mix.
Marketing mix
- Product: quality, design, features, brand name, packaging, labelling, after-sales service.
- Price: cost, competition, demand, pricing objectives.
- Place: channels of distribution.
- Promotion: advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, publicity.
Branding, packaging and labelling
Branding identifies and differentiates a product. Packaging protects, transports and promotes. Labelling describes contents, warns of hazards and provides statutory information.
Channels of distribution
Zero level - direct from producer to consumer. One level - retailer. Two level - wholesaler and retailer. Three level - agent, wholesaler and retailer. The level is counted by the number of intermediaries, not by the number of transactions.
Promotion mix
Advertising is paid, impersonal and sponsored. Personal selling involves direct contact and is costlier per contact but more persuasive. Sales promotion uses short-term tools such as discounts and contests. Publicity is unpaid and not controlled by the sponsor.
Worked example
A dairy sells milk only through its own booths - a zero-level, direct channel. A firm selling through a wholesaler and then a retailer uses a two-level channel. Reasoning: count intermediaries - wholesaler (1) and retailer (2).
Traps that cost marks
Counting channel levels wrongly by counting transactions; calling publicity paid; treating marketing as a synonym for selling; forgetting that personal selling is part of the promotion mix, not the place mix.