Effects of Self Reference Criterion in International Marketing

If you take a look around yourself you will find how many goods and services are solely produced in your own country around you? Your clothes might be produced in India, your cell phone from China, your computer in Taiwan; your Coffee might be from Latin America. Whatever we talk about music, clothes, movies or our soft drinks for everything there are good chances that most of these products are produced in somewhere else in the globe. This is the global market place where good price and quality is welcomed by consumers irrespective of the region of its origination. In this scenario the need is to adopt the marketing practices that are effective beyond the borders so the importance of international marketing cannot be denied. International marketing is not an easy task. The international marketer has to face many obstacles in the way to achieve his goals. One of the Continue reading

Product Concept and Selling Concept in Marketing

The term marketing can be described as the management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer. As a philosophy, marketing is based on thinking about the business in terms of customer needs and their satisfaction. In other definition, Marketing is the process of teaching consumers in terms of choosing the products which brings benefits to them and can be described as an organizational function and a set of process for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in various ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. As for organizations or sales person, marketing is everything that the consumer encounters when it comes to your business. For examples such as advertising, to what they hear, to the customer service that they receive, to the follow-up care that you provide. It’s all known as the part of marketing subjects or criteria Continue reading

Market Research – Definition, Classification and Process

World is changing very rapidly with every passing day. The things which people only dreamed about a few years back are appealing reality today. Companies, their functions and their operations have improved tens of times and this advancement is increasing with every passing day. Same happened with people. Their level of awareness towards products and behavior is now quite thoughtful and demanding. Today’s buyers have forced all the business to make necessary changes. They are very cautious and take a lot of time to make decisions and want everything to be quick and easy. Understanding customer satisfaction, product launches, effectiveness of pricing, product, distribution and promotion activities, countering competitors techniques, assessing market potential, and predicting consumer behavior etc. have become extremely challenging and is often a cause of the decline of an organization. To deal with such problems, organizations conduct Market Research. Market research is an evaluation system which helps Continue reading

Product Life Cycle – Meaning, Stages and Significance

Many products generally have a characteristic known as perishable distinctiveness.   This means that a product which is distinct when new degenerates over the years into a common commodity. The process by which the distinctiveness gradually disappears as the product merges with other competitive products, has been rightly termed by Joel Dean as “the cycle of competitive degeneration”. The cycle begins with the invention of a new product and is often followed by patent protection, and further development to make it saleable. This is usually followed by a rapid expansion in its sales as the product gains market acceptance. Then competitors enter the field with imitation and rival products and the distinctiveness of the new product starts diminishing. The speed of degeneration differs from product to product. While some products fail immediately on birth or a little later, others may live long enough. BPL’s picture in picture TV was eliminated Continue reading

Marketing Mix – 4 P’s of Marketing Mix

Concept of Marketing Mix Marketing mix is one of the major concepts in modern marketing. It is the combination of various elements which constitutes the company’s marketing system. It is the set of controllable marketing variables that the firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target market. Though there are many basic marketing variables, four factors are most important, called the four P’s of Marketing Mix: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.  However, in recent times, the ‘four P’s’ have been expanded to the ‘seven P’s’ with the addition of process, physical evidence and people. The “Four P’s”, which are still regarded by many theorists as the main ingredients in the Marketing Mix, were introduced by McCarthy. Dividing the multitude of marketing variables or mix into four distinct categories makes it much easier to formulate a marketing strategy. The four categories are (1) product, (2) place, (3) price, Continue reading

Publicity Strategies in Marketing – Positive and Negative

In today’s world, image and reputation of a business is critically significant than past due to increased market competition and also, with developed technologies, the consumers can be more easily evaluate to particular brand of product or organization. Therefore, it is essential that businesses and organizations have understanding of the effective public relation strategy  for healthy and positive brand development. Successful public relation can be give to organization as a good image, and thus publicity is significant role in terms of successful public relation. Because, publicity can be helps gain public awareness and build relationship between products and consumers. The publicity can be defined in many interpretations. Publicity involves supplying information that is factual, interesting, and newsworthy to media not controlled by you, such as radio, television, magazines, newspapers, and trade journals. It can be both positive and negative to one’s business or organization and thus, it is significant to Continue reading