Typical Marketing Mix

Typical Marketing Mix for a given product class is not necessarily right for all situations. Some very profitable marketing mixes depart from the typical—to satisfy some target markets better.

A marketing manager may have to develop a mix that is not special because of various market realities, including special characteristics of the product or target market, the competitive environment, and each firm’s capabilities and limitations.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Strategic Decision

Unlike many other decisions, strategic decision deals with the long-run future of the entire organization and has three characteristics:

1.  Rare: Strategic decision is unusual and typically have no precedent to follow;
2. Consequential: Strategic decision commits substantial resources and demands a great deal of commitment from people at all levels.
3. Directive: Strategic decision sets precedents for lesser decisions and future actions throughout the organization.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Marketing Mix

Matching offerings and markets requires recognition of the other marketing activities available to the marketing manager. Combined with the offering, these activities form the marketing mix.

A marketing mix typically encompasses activities controllable by the organization. These include the kind of product, service, or idea offered (product strategy); how it will be communicated to buyers (communication strategy) , the method for distributing the offering to buyers (channel strategy) and the amount buyers will pay for the offering (price strategy).

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Organization Structure

Any group possessing common goals is an organization. But business organizations can be classified according to the nature of their internal authority relationships. Although there are five forms of organization structure, four forms are common: line, line and staff, committee, and matrix. The line structure is the oldest form and is frequently used today in smaller organizations. The functional form uses specialist managers entirely responsible for their own fields within the operation. The line and staff form uses specialists to assist line officers. This is commonly used in medium and large size firm. The fourth and fifth types, committees and the matrix organizations exist in many firms but only ready as the sole types. They are typically used as a sub-organizational form within a line and staff structure.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Not-for-Profit Marketing

Non-for-Profit organizations encounter a special set of characteristics that influence their marketing activities. Like profit making firms, not-for-profit organizations may market tangible goods and/or intangible services. One important distinction exists between not-for-profit organizations and profit oriented companies. Profit-seeking businesses tend to focus their marketing on just one public—their customers. Not-for-profit organizations, however, must often market to multiple publics, which complicates decision-making regarding the correct markets to target. Many deal with at least two major publics—their clients and their sponsors—and often many other publics, as well. Political candidates, for example, target both voters and campaign contributors. A college targets prospective students as clients of its marketing program, but it also markets to current students, parents of students, alumni, faculty, staff, local businesses, and local government agencies.

A second distinguishing characteristic of not-for-profit marketing is that a customer or service user may wield less control over the organization’s destiny than would be true for customers of a profit-seeking firm. A government employee may be  far more concerned with the opinion of a member of the legislature’s appropriations committee than with that of a service user. Not-for-profit organizations also often possess some degree of monopoly power in a given geographic area.

Perhaps the most commonly noted feature of the non-profit-organization is its lack of a bottom line—business jargon referring to the overall profitability measure of performance. Profit-seeking firms measure profitability in terms of sales and revenues. While not-for-profit organizations may attempt to maximize their return from specific services, they usually substitute less exact goals, such as service-level standards, for overall evaluation criteria. As a result, it is often difficult to set marketing objectives that are aligned specifically with overall organizational goals.

A typical aspect of a non-for-profit organization is the lack of a clear organizational structure. Not-for-profit organizations often respond to constituencies that they serve, but these usually are less exact than, for example, the stockholders of a profit-oriented corporation. Not-for-profit organizations often have multiple organizational structures.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Pro Forma Income Statement

Because marketing managers are accountable for the profit impact of their actions, they must translate their strategies and tactics into pro forma, or projected, income statements. A pro forma income statement displays projected revenues, budgeted expenses, and estimated net profit for an organization, product, or service during a specific planning period, usually a year. Pro forma income statements include a sales forecast and a listing of variable and fixed costs that can be programmed or committed.

Pro forma income statements can be prepared in different ways and reflect varying levels of specificity. They have a typical layout consisting of six major categories or line items:

1. Sales—forecasted unit volume times unit selling price
2. Cost of goods sold—costs incurred in buying or producing products and services. Generally speaking, these costs are constant per unit within certain volume ranges and vary with total unit volume.
3. Gross margin (sometimes called gross profit)—represents the remainder after cost of goods sold has been subtracted from sales.
4. Marketing expenses—generally programmed expenses budgeted to produce sales. Advertising expenses are typically fixed. Sales expenses can be fixed, such as a salesperson’s salary, or variable, such as sales commissions. Freight or delivery expenses are typically constant per unit and vary with total unit volume.
5. General and administrative expenses—generally, committed fixed costs for the planning period, which cannot be avoided if the organization is to operate. These costs are frequently called overhead.
6. Net income before (income) taxes (often called net profit before taxes—the remainder after all costs have been subtracted from sales.

A pro forma income statement reflects a marketing manager’s expectations (sales) given criterion inputs (costs). This means that a manager must think specifically about customer response to strategies and tactics and focus attention on the organization’s financial objectives of profitability and growth when preparing a pro forma income statement.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

The Contract Theory

The contract theory holds that when a person buys a product or service, he or she is entering into a contract with the manufacturer. The manufacturer (and by implication the employee representing the manufacturer) has four main obligations:

1. To make sure the product or service complies with the contract in several respects: it should do what its advertisements say it can, it should operate a certain period of time before needing service or maintenance, and it should be at least as safe as the product information states and the advertising suggests.
2. To disclose all pertinent information about the product or service, so that the potential consumer can make  an informed decision on whether to purchase it.
3. To avoid misrepresenting the product or service.
4. To avoid coercion.

Critics of the contract theory argue that the typical consumer cannot understand the product as well as the manufacturer does, and that consumer ignorance invalidates the contract.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Outdoor Training

A trend in employee development has been the use of outdoor training. The primary focus of such training is to teach trainees the importance of working together, of gelling as a team. Outdoor training typically involves some major emotional and physical challenge. This could be mountain climbing, paint ball games, or surviving a week in the jungle. The purpose of such training is to see how employees react to the difficulties that nature presents to them. Do they face these dangers alone? Do they freak? Or are they controlled and successful in achieving their goal? The reality is that today’s business environment does not permit employees to stand alone. This has reinforced the importance of working closely with one another, building trusting relationships, and succeeding as a member of a group.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Electronic Mail

The cost of paper, printing and postage for the typical direct mail package is increasing its cost. What’s more, the cost of processing a response can easily be more expensive than producing the mailing. That means direct mail is only cost effective for relatively high-value purchases. Therefore, imagine how many more applications there would be for electronic direct mail costing—just a few pennies per piece. Use email.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Characteristics of Quality Function Deployment

• Simply a technique that keeps the companies focused on what is important to the customer;
• A standardized approach to document and keep track of customer’s needs;
• A technique to help neutralize the voice of the executives;
• A process that force conversation about customers’ needs that typically would not happen later in the product development process;
• A systematic tool on technique that supports the old adage: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure;
• A planning methodology that organizes relevant information helps companies make better decisions;
• A technique that helps companies do the things they know they should be doing;
• A systematic process that helps ensure that the voice of the customer doesn’t get lost in the product development process;
• A formalized way to keep track of all of the customers’ needs and to make sure that the most important needs get special attention.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.