Hello!
My name is
Adam Geffken, a senior at Saint Michael’s College, and an International
Relations major with a concentration in Marketing. As the semester continues, I will post on a weekly
basis for my business class, BU-215-B, Marketing, as I log my progress through
this course. These segments will provide my readers with accounts that both
enlighten and entertain, regarding the material which has been touched upon in
class. My primary aim in writing this blog is to educate the reader on the significance
of marketing, how one can add value to their product, whether in the business
world or through one’s own social experience. Every week, I hope you find
yourselves walking away with a greater understanding of this business field,
and perhaps even a few morsels of practical information to apply to your lives
and your careers.
Now, allow
me to disclose some of the terminology that I personally find most applicable
to everyday life and the professional world. Let us begin with the marketing mix, also known as the Four
Ps, each “P” representing one of the four controllable marketing
factors—Product, Price, Promotion, and Place—which the company, represented by
the marketing manager, will use to solve their marketing problems. To define
each of the Ps, Product is a good, service, or idea to satisfy consumer needs,
Price is the value of that product, Promotion represents how the seller entices
the consumer to buy his product, and Place exists as the distribution method
that delivers the product to the consumer. If properly executed by a marketing
team, a company could achieve massive growth rates.
First, the
company has to assign a marketing team. It then begins development of a
marketing strategy, thus establishing the Four Ps. In order to effectively
market toward the consumer, a company must identify its target market—one or more specific groups of potential consumers. If
an existing company hopes to produce business growth, it will use a technique
to generate such growth in current and new markets via the development of
current and new products, known as diversification
analysis. Such companies as Ben & Jerry’s have utilized this strategy;
the international ice cream organization has recently branched out into the apparel
market, branding clothing with their insignia and selling it to potential
customers worldwide as they intend expand their target market.
The final
term that I would like to discuss is the most relevant term within this course:
marketing, the activity for
creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that benefit its
customers. It is not simply advertising a product to the consumer; rather, marketers
aim to develop a strong relationship with customers through the delivering of goods
with genuine benefits, thus allowing all parties (the organization marketing
the product, the stakeholders, and society) to benefit. The essence of
successful marketing is to gain loyal customers by providing them with unique
value. Loyal customers build the foundations of successful businesses,
establishing for such firms a basis future growth. Eventually, such loyalty will
actually prove as another outlet of marketing in that this customer loyalty
will influence potential customers to become actual customers as they invest in
the firm. Companies that have developed such strong, loyalty-based
relationships with their customers include Walmart, Costco, or Southwest
Airlines, due to providing their customers with the best price.
I hope that
within this first blog post you have learned a little something about
marketing, and enjoyed yourself in the process. This field of business proves
highly significant within the business world, but also provides teachings that
can be applied to our personal lives. In other words, one does not simply need
to learn to add value to their company’s product, but instead, one can learn to
build strong personal relationships and add value to themselves in addition to
their cohorts. Such is the essence of networking, a term which may be touched
on again later in this course. For now, thank you for taking the time to enjoy
this blog, and begin to educate yourself on the discipline of marketing. See
you next week!
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