Some Questions on Marketing

In what ways does the SWOT analysis help in the strategic marketing process?

Due to the fact that SWOT analyses strength and weaknesses of a company, the model analyze the favorable conditions that organizations and the unfavorable conditions. Through the analysis, managers can understand whether the marketing objective is workable or is the desired result attainable at any particular moment. The marketing team can then explore new solution by identifying barriers and making a decision based on the opportunities and limitation that are within a particular market spectrum. Moreover, the team can brainstorm using SWOT analysis to navigate and plan marketing that enhances credibility and profitability when presented to the management. The plan must also yield a substantial result when applied in a real market situation.

What is the difference between a for-profit and a nonprofit organization?

Non-profit organizations are majorly known to generate income that aids humanitarian or serves to preserve and protect the environment. For-Profit organizations are known to produce income that majorly benefits the owners (entrepreneurs) and their employees. Non-profit organization focuses much on under-met need or unmet need in the society; some of those needs are education, food, shelter, and water. At a time non-profit organization majorly concentrated on environmental crisis such as protection of endangered species of trees or animals. An example saves the elephants initiative. The for-profit organizations, on the other hand, focuses mainly on providing products and services that are valued in the society and most people are willing to pay for their activities.

What is the meaning of an organization's mission?

Organization's Mission is a statement or sentence that describes and explains the purpose of the organization. Organization mission also explains the scope within which an organization will operate. Additionally, it illustrates the key values, philosophies and fundamental matters that the organization intends to establish and pursue. Finally, the mission statement also states the future that the company desires as well as the main competitive challenges that the company will face or is facing during its operations.

Chapter 8

What are examples of the pros and cons of primary and secondary data in the marketing research process?

Pros

When using primary and secondary data, one is able to gain insight from analysis of information provided by both sources of data

Secondly, the two sources of data enable one to address the target issues and control the spending when carrying out marketing research

Thirdly, the accessibility of the two types of data also gives them an edge when conducting marketing research.

Cons

In most instance, researchers are not able to control both primary and secondary sources of data.

A collection of both primary and secondary data consumes a lot of time. This is wasteful when one is conduction market research.

Finally, inappropriate feedback when carrying out research using the two types of data

What is the five-step marketing research approach?

This is a marketing research tool that takes only five steps highlighted below to enable quick and efficient decision making.

Problem definition; this is where the market researcher lays down a strong, sturdy foundation for the research.

Developing a concrete research plan; the research can use several default methods to build a workable research plan.

A collection of relevant information; this is where the researcher gathers all the needed data for the research.

Data analysis and presenting findings; this does not depend on the hypothesis of the research. Data analysis and interpretation must be clear from the beginning to enhance the credibility of the research.

Taking a marketing action; this will largely depend on the recommendations and evaluation of the marketing research data.

What is the difference between secondary and primary data?

The first major difference between primary data and secondary data is that primary data is information collected by the researcher himself/herself while secondary data is information obtained from the third party. Secondly, gathering primary data is very involving and expensive as compared to secondary where one get information from available resources efficiently and economically. Finally, a researcher using primary data has more information than a researcher using secondary sources of data.

Chapter 9

What is positioning and the two methods for accomplishing the strategy?

Positioning is a marketing strategy that marketing researchers do use to enable a brand to occupy a distinct locus in the market. It balances the concept of product distinction, similarity, and differentiation as unique unified brand emblem. The main methods that marketing department can use to place a product at a certain locus include customer intimacy and product leadership.

Customer intimacy where customers are convinced that the brand is the best through differentiation and distinction.

Product leadership is where the quality of the product is raised above other competing brands; the strategy mainly targets first-hand consumers who will market the brand on behalf of the company.

What is the difference between the demographic and behavioral bases of market segmentation?

Demographic segmentation of the market mainly deals with population distribution regarding age, income, gender, ethnic, and family line. The segmentation targets each group as per their needs and capability as per their financial capabilities.

Behavioral segmentation also depends on population but mostly how different clusters of the population responds to a certain product as per their needs. Decision making in this segment depends on the behavior but not age, gender or income. For instance, most Christians tend to have certain permanent behaviors during the festive season which does not depend on their age or ethnicity. During New Year eve most hotel tend to expect lots of activities due to the population behavior and not demographics.