Pro Marketing

A business's marketing strategies must change as the product evolves over its's lifecycle, as each stage of the cycle presents new challenges and opportunities to the business.  The product lifecycle is typically divided into for stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline . 1.  Introduction: A period of slow sales growth as the product is introduced to the market. To generate interest and awareness, a business needs to invest heavily in marketing and promotion. 2 . Growth: A period of rapid market acceptance and substantial profit improvement. Businesses will continue to invest in marketing, but at a lesser rate than during the introduction stage. 3.  Maturity: A slowdown in sales growth because the product has achieved acceptance by vast potential buyers. To stay afloat, businesses typically focus on cost-cutting measures and marketing campaigns that differentiate their product from competitors. 4.  Decline: Sales slow a downward drift and profits erode. B...

When it comes to satisfying customers' needs, there are three ways in which companies do so through marketing, and those are reactive marketing , anticipative marketing , and creative marketing . Responsive Marketing is when a company satisfies the stated needs of the customer.  Anticipative Marketin g is when a company anticipates the upcoming needs of the customer through observation and then satisfies them.  Creative Marketing is when a company satisfies unmet, unstated, or even unknown needs for the customer, but when the company presents them, the customer reacts enthusiastically to the offer. Market-driving companies are proactive marketers through creative marketing, where instead of following the rules of the game, they change the game. A company needs two proactive skills: (1) responsive anticipation to see the writing on the wall and (2) creative anticipation to devise innovative solutions. Note that responsive anticipation is different from responsive marke...

Companies that are able to deliver high value at low prices are capturing the hearts and wallets of customers all over the world. To effectively compete with these kinds of value brands, companies need to carefully infuse timeless strategies like differentiation and cost control with greater intensity and focus, and then execute them flawlessly. Differentiation: Marketers need to protect areas where their business models give other companies room to maneuver. Differentiation now becomes less about the abstract goal of rising above competitive clutter and more about identifying openings left by the value players' business model. Execution: To compete effectively, firms may instead need to downplay or even abandon some market segments.

Harvard's Michael Porter has identified the five forces that can be used to perform industry analysis to determine the industry's current and long-term profitability: industry competitors, potential entrants, substitutes, buyers, and suppliers .  The threats posed by these forces are as follows: Threat of intense segment rivalry: A segment is unattractive if it already contains numerous, strong, or aggressive competitors.  Threat of new entrants: The most attractive segment is that in which entry barriers are high and exit barriers are low.  Threat of substitute products: A segment is unattractive when there is high ease of substitution or when substitute products already exist in abundance. This leads to intense price battles.  Threat of buyers' growing bargaining power: A segment is unattractive if buyers possess strong or growing bargaining power.  Threat of suppliers' growing bargaining power: A segment is unattractive if the company's suppliers are a...

Achieving brand equity should be the top aim of any organization, and the following branding principles serve as guidelines: 1. Relying on brand awareness has become marketing fool's gold.  Smart brands are more concerned about brand relevance and brand resonance. 2. You have to know it before you can grow it. Most brands don't know who they are, where they've been, and where they're going. 3. Always remember the Spandex rule of brand expansion. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. 4. Everything matters. Even your restroom. 5. Relevance, simplicity, and humanity. Rather than technology, these will distinguish brands in the future.