Marketing Principles

Marketing Principles

Introduction

This assignment discusses the marketing process and benefit and cost of marketing orientation with the example of ACL Company and the influence of the marketing environment on decision making for ACL Company. Moreover, it explains the segmentation, targeting and positioning of ACL cleaning products and services. The additional marketing mix of ACL is also explained.

Task 1-1.1

The marketing process comprises of steps, understanding the marketplace, formulating marketing mix strategy and implementing the strategy.

1.Understanding the marketplace

The marketplace constitutes of the potential customers and competitors. The understanding of customer needs, wants and demands are crucial for the marketer as this provides guidelines to develop the marketing strategy. The demand for more innovative and contemporary cleaning equipments is rising, and more awareness of a clean environment and hygiene is increasing in the consumers (Kotler & Armstrong, 2008, p.15). The marketplace for ACL is competitive as other competitors are very stiff and possess threat to ACL.

2.Formulating the marketing mix strategy

The marketing mix is the systematic combination of four key components for a business, product, price, place and promotion (Kotler & Armstrong, 2008, p.15).

The products of ACL are cleaning equipments for the consumer market. The point of differentiation is the innovative and technological advanced vacuum cleaners.

The prices of ACL cleaning equipments are based on premium pricing strategy as the company makes superior quality products and research and development cost are high.

The products must be placed near to the customer's point of purchase and from where they can easily buy. The ACL cleaning equipments are available with leading stores and are also available at ACL display outlets.

The promotion refers to the methods used in reaching the target audience. The ACL Company can reach their target market through using TV commercials, website pages, internet marketing, magazines, catalogs and in-store displays.

3.Implementing the strategy

The implementation process is not the task of the marketing function alone, but requires close coordination and integration among all the functions to successfully launch the product and make ensure the strategy is being implemented the way planned (Kotler & Armstrong, 2008, p.15).

Task 1-1.2

Marketing orientation is the concept which focuses on understanding the marketplace and customer needs, wants and demands. The benefit of marketing orientation is that the starting point is customer needs and wants and generates profits through customer satisfaction. The cost of marketing orientation is that businesses have to conduct several market researches (Kotler & Armstrong, 2008, p.15).

The ACL Company develops new and innovative cleaning equipments to satisfy their customers. First conducting research on what features, benefits and expectations customers attach to a cleaning products and then manufacturing according to their requirements. The cost of marketing orientation for ACL is that cleaning equipments are costly and require huge amounts to invest in research.

Task 1-1.3

The marketing decisions are influenced by the micro and macro environmental factors. The macro environment factors which can influence decision making for ACL Company are socio-cultural, technological and economic factors (Jain, 2010, p.55).

The socio-cultural environment comprises of values, traditions, beliefs, attitudes and behavior of a certain ...