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 Concepts
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
Types of Consumer Buying Behavior
Consumers are becoming smarter day by day; it is not to fool them with any gimmick. Nowadays, consumer does his/her homework very well before making any purchase in the market. Even before buying a face wash a consumer go through a rigorous process of choosing the best among the many present in the market. Buying a face wash and buying a luxurious car is very different, therefore the perception involved and the information gathered by the consumer in purchasing a car is much more than buying a face wash. Henry Assael distinguished four types of consumer buying behavior based on the degree of buyer involvement and the degree of differences among brands. Routinized Response Behavior (RRB)/ Habitual Buying Behavior: This is the simplest type of consumer behavior. This occurs when the consumer already has some experience of buying and using the product. Usually, this kind of behavior is adopted for Continue reading
Word-Of-Mouth Marketing – Meaning and Importance
In the present age, when skipping of television commercials is merely a matter of pushing a button of television remote and traditional advertisements reach fewer number of people, marketing professionals are increasingly moving away from mass media to word-of-mouth marketing. In addition to the traditional word-of-mouth communications, emerging marketing channels like blogs, buzz, viral and e-mails are gaining popularity as the new electronic word-of-mouth. While a positive word-of-mouth accelerates the acceptance of brands in new markets and reduces brand promotional expenses in existing markets, a negative word-of-mouth may hamper a brand’s acceptance and tarnish its reputation. Since word-of-mouth marketing has been playing a major role in marketing of organizations and some of its aspects are still evolving and have strong potential in future marketing campaigns of organizations, the focus of this article would be to explore issues related to word-of-mouth marketing in developing a strategic marketing plan for an organization. Continue reading
Different Tools of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)
Integrated Marketing Communication is defined as the coordination and integration of all marketing communication tool, avenues and sources within a company into seamless program that maximize the impact on customer and other end users at a minimal cost. This integration affects all firm business-to-business, marketing channel, customer-focused, and internally directed communications. Integrated Marketing Communications is a management concept that is designed to make all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling and direct marketing work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation. Besides, it acts as an aggressive marketing plan because it sets and tracks marketing strategy that captures and uses extensive amount of customer information. It also ensures that all forms of communications and messages are carefully linked together to achieve specific objective. The important tools of Integrated Marketing Communications are: 1. Advertising Advertising has four characteristics: Continue reading