Marketing and Sales
What the domain tests
Marketing and sales items test segmentation, targeting, positioning, the marketing mix, product life cycle, pricing, distribution, promotion, market research, and the sales process. Expect scenario questions about choosing a strategy, not just defining terms.
Core rules
- The marketing concept starts with customer needs and works backward to products; a selling orientation pushes existing products.
- Segmentation divides a market by demographic, geographic, psychographic, or behavioral variables. Targeting selects attractive segments; positioning creates a distinct place in the customer’s mind.
- The marketing mix is product, price, place, and promotion. Product decisions include features, branding, and packaging; price decisions include cost-plus, penetration, skimming, and value pricing; place decisions include channel length and intensity; promotion includes advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling, and digital marketing.
- The product life cycle has introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Strategies change by stage: skimming often fits introduction; competitive pricing and promotion fit maturity.
- Market research steps: define the problem, design the research, collect data, analyze, and report. Primary data are collected for the project; secondary data already exist.
- The sales process moves from prospecting and qualifying to approach, presentation, handling objections, closing, and follow-up. CRM systems support retention.
Worked example
A startup sells a new plant-based snack. It segments by health-conscious adults who buy organic foods, targets urban grocery shoppers, and positions the snack as convenient protein. It chooses penetration pricing-a low introductory price-to win trial, places the product in natural-food stores, and promotes through in-store samples and social media. The reasoning: low price reduces trial risk in introduction, while selective distribution fits a premium natural-food image.
Traps
Marketing is broader than advertising. Penetration pricing is low initial price; skimming is high initial price. A product in maturity usually needs differentiation and efficiency, not rapid expansion. Primary research is not automatically better; it costs more. Distribution intensity should match the product’s convenience and image.