Project Report on Marketing

Contents:
1. Introduction to Marketing
2. Marketing Organisation
3. Concept of Marketing
4. Marketing Environment
5. Marketing Concept versus Selling Concept
6. Duties of Marketing Managers
7. Strategies of Marketing
8. Functions of Marketing
9. Process of Marketing

1. Introduction to Marketing:

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the
product or service fits him and sells itself.

Most precise and befitting definition of marketing is, “Marketing is human

activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange
processes.” To understand this definition clearly, we must know the terms:
needs, wants, demands, products, exchange, transactions and markets.
(i) Human Needs:
Human need is a state of felt deprivation in a person, and includes physi-
ological and social needs. People in industrial society look for an object that
will satisfy the needs.

(ii) Human Wants:
The human needs with the effect of culture and individual personality takes
the shape of human wants. For example: need for food may be converted into
wants for chapati, rice, bread, vegetarian or Non-vegetarian items.

(iii) Demands:
Since the people may have unlimited wants, but due to limited resources,
they opt for products which gives maximum satisfaction. Thus wants backed
by purchasing power become demands.

(iv) Product:
This is a thing that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or
consumption that might satisfy a want or need.

(v) Exchange:
It is the act of obtaining a desired object from someone by offering something
in return.

(vi) Transaction:
It consists of a trade of values between two parties.

(vii) Market:
It is the set of actual and potential buyers of a product.

Marketing can also be defined as:

“Marketing is the performance of business activities that direct the flow

of goods and services from the producer to» the consumer”.
Marketing is a total system of interacting business activities designed to plan,
promote and distribute need satisfying products and services to existing and
potential consumers.

Marketing originates with the recognition of a need on the part of a consumer

and terminates with the satisfaction of that need by the delivery of a usable
product at the right time, at the right place and at an acceptable price.

Marketing Process:
It is the performance of business activities that directs the flow of goods or
services from producer to consumer to satisfy their wants or needs.

2. Marketing Organisation:
Marketing has grown, over the years, from a simple sales department into a
complex group of marketing activities. Small companies appoint a sales
manager who manages a sales force and also does some selling.

For the purpose of marketing research or advertising, the sales manager hires
help from the outside. As the company expands, it needs to add certain
marketing functions.

Medium and large companies warrant additional investment in marketing

research, new- product development, advertising and sales promotion, and
customer service. Such companies have separate sales and marketing
managers (or General managers or Vice presidents).

Marketing department may be organised by:

(a) Functions, e.g. sales, marketing research, new product, advertising, sales
promotion etc.

(b) Geographical Organisation, e.g. north, south, east, west etc.

(c) Products or brands, e.g. products A, product B, product C etc.

3. Concept of Marketing:
In modern times the marketing concept gives emphasis on consumer needs
and the freedom of consumer to choose. It is realized that production is no
longer a problem due to technological developments, but marketing the
product is most important.

The basic features of the modern concept are:

(i) Customer orientation,

(ii) Integrated marketing, and

(iii) Profitable sales through customer’s satisfaction.

1. Customer Orientation:
The company should completely customer oriented. The company should be
looked through customer’s eyes. Customers wants should be taken care of,
and firm should manufacture what the customer wants. Consumer research
should be carried on to study the new and changing needs of the customers.

2. Integrated Marketing:
In this, it should be remembered that “the purpose of the company is to create
customer”. Integrated marketing means that, the various departments of the
company must recognize that the action they take, must have a good effect on
the company’s ability to create and retain customers.

Integrated marketing also means that there should be intelligent adaptation

and coordination of the four P’s of Produce, Price, Place and Promotion to
have strong relationships with customers.

3. Customer Satisfaction:
Since focus is on customer, a clear ‘commitment to quality of product or
service’ and a ‘considerate mechanism for dealing with customer complaints’
should be there.

From the point of view of customer satisfaction, following elements are

considered:
1. Specification i.e. expectation of the customer from product.
2. Conformance to the specification i.e. whether it meets the expectations
from the product.

3. Reliability i.e. whether it continue to meet expectation.

4. Value (cost) i.e. whether customer is willing to pay the price of product or
service.

5. Timely delivery i.e. delivery should be at the lime when it is desired by the
customer.

Customers’ requirements can be met by listening to him and responding to

what he wants and to what is agreed.

From the above, it is clear that, whether the buyer is satisfied after purchase
depends on the offer’s performance in relation to the buyer’s expectations.
Customer satisfaction can be defined as, a person’s feeling of pleasure or
disappointment resulting from comparing a product’s perceived performance
in relation to his or her expectations.

4. Marketing Environment:
Company’s marketing personnel are supposed to constantly monitor the
changing scene. They should observe the changing environment first-hand
and also rely on marketing intelligence and marketing research system to
track the changing environment more closely.

A company’s marketing environment consists of the actors and forces

external to the marketing management functions of the firm that impinge on
the marketing management’s ability to develop and maintain successful
transactions with its target customers.

Company’s micro-environment consists of actors in the company’s

immediate environment that affects the ability to serve its markets. Such
actors are: company itself, suppliers, market intermediaries (including
middlemen, distribution, service agencies, and financial firms), customers,
competitors and public (including government, media).

Company’s macro-environment consists of major forces impinging on the

company such as; demographic (population growth, geographical population
shift, educated, uneducated, white- collar population etc.), economic,
physical, technological, political/legal and socio-cultural.

Environmental Variables:
Environmental variables of the marketing are the variables affected by the
environmental forces and are external to the enterprise.

These variables are:

1. Customer Variables:
(a) Number and location

(b) Purchasing power

(c) Buying behaviour

(d) Habits, personality, traits & attitudes

(e) Life styles and needs

(f) Quality and brand awareness.

2. Competition Variables:
(a) Structure of industry

(b) Buyer’s or seller’s market i.e. intensity of competition

(c) Nature of competition

(d) Number of competitors, their capacities and territories

(e) Products or services offered by the competitors

(f) Competitor’s strengths and weaknesses.

3. Trade Variables:
(a) Structure of the trade.

(b) Types of intermediaries and their strengths.

(c) Trade practices.

(d) Services provided by the trade.

4. Other Environmental Variables:

(a) Government regulations

(b) Social, cultural and economical

(c) Climatic variables

(d) Level of technology

(e) Political variables

(f) Attitude of public.

Major Environmental Forces:

Within the rapidly changing global picture, marketers must monitor
following major environmental forces:
1. Demographic

2. Economic

3. Natural

4. Technological

5. Political/legal

6. Social/cultural.

1. Demographic Environment:
Marketers monitor this force because people make up markets, and therefore,
marketers are keenly interested in the size and growth rate of population in
different cities, regions, and nations, age distribution, ethnic mix, educational
levels, household patterns, and regional characteristics and movements.

2. Economic Environment:
Marketers are also interested to know the purchasing power of the people.
This depends on current income, income distribution, levels of savings, debts,
prices, and credit availability. Marketers pay close attention to major trends
in income and consumer-spending pattern.

3. Natural Environment:
In this marketers need to be aware of raw materials shortages, increased
energy costs and pollution levels, and the changing role of governments in
environmental protection. New legislation passed as a result of
environmentalism has hit certain industries very hard.

4. Technological Environment:
Every new technology is a force for ‘creative destruction’. Transistors hurt
the vacuum-tube industry, xerography hurt the carbon-paper business. New
technology creates major long-run consumers that are not always foreseeable.

In this, marketers should take into account of the accelerating pace of

technological changes, opportunities for innovation, varying R&D budgets,
and the increased governmental regulation brought about by technological
change.

5. Political/Legal Environment:
Since environment is composed of laws, government agencies and pressure
groups that influence and limit various organisations, marketing decisions are
affected by developments in the political and legal environment. Sometimes
these laws also create new opportunities for business.

6. Social and Cultural Environment:

The society in which people grow up shapes their beliefs, values and norms.
Marketers must understand people’s views of themselves, others,
organisations, society, nature, and the universe.  
5. Marketing Concept versus Selling Concept:
Now-a-days more emphasis is given on the “Marketing Concept”.

The Marketing Concept states that a firm should have its basic objective, as
the satisfaction of consumer desires or needs.

To accomplish this objective, Marketing managers try to identify what

consumers want and then produce the goods that will identify consumer
desires. Marketing managers then evaluate how successful the firm is in
satisfying consumers while at the same time earning a fair profit.

Selling concept states that since consumers will normally not buy enough
products of the company unless they are approached with a substantially
selling and promotion efforts.

Thus selling focuses on the needs of the seller whereas marketing focuses on
the needs of the buyer.

This is shown by the following line diagram:

1. Selling focuses on the needs of seller. Seller need to convert his product
into cash.

Marketing focuses on the needs of the buyer. The idea behind marketing is to
satisfy the needs of the customer by means of the product or services.

2. Selling concept starts with the company’s existing products by adopting

heavy selling and promoting activities.

Whereas marketing concept starts with the company’s target customer.

Company integrates and coordinates all its activities to meet the customer
satisfaction. Thus marketing concept expresses the company’s commitment
to consumer sovereignty, and the company produces what consumer wants.

6. Duties of Marketing Managers:

They make management decisions about firm’s marketing programme.
Functions of the marketing managers are to plan the marketing programmes,
put them into action and evaluate how successful they are in terms of
satisfying customers and earning a profit.

For Goods to move from manufacturers to consumers, marketing

managers should see that following functions are performed:

(i) Selling

(ii) Buying

(iii) Transportation

(iv) Storage

(v) Risk bearing

(vi) Standardization and Grading

(vii) Financing

(viii) Market Information.

(i) Selling:
Selling function does not only concerned with making sales but also
includes:
(a) Locating and identifying buyers

(b) Making buyers aware of goods through advertising and sales promotion
techniques and

(c) Offering advice and service to the purchasers.

(ii) Buying:
This function involves both the marketing manager and the customer. The
marketing manager should know about the customers so that their demands
and buying patterns can be predicted. For the customer, the buying function
includes a consideration of price, quality, quantity, kind and style.

(iii) Transportation:
Most of the products are manufactured far from the market place and the
transportation function fulfills the need of moving products from factory site
to the market place.

(iv) Storage:
A major reason for storage is for the convenience of the consumers, since
most of them purchase goods just when they require it. Storage is an
important function, as products are to be made available when consumers
want them. There are some products which are manufactured only seasonally
but purchased throughout the year.

(v) Risk Bearing:

Keeping large stocks of goods in inventory involves, “risk”.

Demand for goods may decline because of:

(i) Change in fashions or styles,

(ii) Goods may be lost through fire or flood or may be stolen,

(iii) Some customers may fail to make payments for the goods. Such
situations may put the seller in a financial squeeze to meet bills.
Part of the risk may be transferred by means of insurance. However the
businessman has to bear some risk. The only real means of meeting with risk
is the wise use of market information and sound business judgement in
decision making.

(vi) Standardization and Grading:

Today there are huge number of goods available and the customer may be
confused when buying unless there is some suitable basis for comparison.
This function can be accomplished by standardization and grading.

Standardization determines the specifications of a manufactured product such

as size, quality, performance etc. Goods that cannot be produced of a single
size, weights or colour such as fruits, grains, eggs or cotton are graded or
sorted into classes on the basis of quality.

(vii) Financing:
The retailer receives and gives credit. The merchant often buys on credit from
suppliers since money is not always available to pay for purchases
immediately. The extension of credit to the retailer makes it possible to have
a large stock of goods available always to meet customers demand.

(viii) Market Information:
The marketing concept states that “a major objective of any enterprise is to
produce goods and services that satisfy wants and needs of society and thus
earn profit”. Managers must constantly seek data about their specific market
size; location, type of customers, shifts in consumer demands, knowledge of
competitors and general economic trends in the country.

The gathering of this market information is “Marketing Research”. Managers

analyze and interpret the findings of consumer research and attempt to make
projections of future market conditions based on these data.

7. Strategies for Marketing:
Marketing Managers should develop a marketing strategy to move goods or
products from where they are manufactured to the final consumer.
A Marketing Strategy consists of two parts:
(a) Market Segment and

(b) Marketing Mix.

(a) Market Segment:

“Market Segmentation” consists of identifying a sufficient number of
common buyer characteristics to permit subdivision of the total demand for a
product into economically viable segments. To be economically viable, a
market segment must be sufficiently large for the manufacturer to be able to
earn sufficient profit.

Marketing Managers should identify the “Market segment” that is the target
group of persons to whom the firm wishes to appeal. For example, the
consumer market may be segmented on the basis of sex, age, race, usage,
income level, level of education, occupation, life styles, geographical
boundaries etc.

(b) Marketing Mix:

It consists of marketing plan that will be followed to satisfy the wants and
desires of the consumers identified in the market segment.

It involves decision making in the following four areas (also known as

elements or variables of marketing mix or 4 P’s of marketing):
(i) Product

(ii) Price

(iii) Distribution (place) and

(iv) Promotion.

(i) Product:
Marketing Managers plan and develop the right products or services in terms
of quality, packing, branding and design for the market segment. This plan-
ning includes determining the product line and the product mix of the firm.
The product line is a broad group of products that are reasonably similar.
Product mix is the total list of products sold by the concern.

(ii) Price:
Marketing Managers determine a competitive fair price for products, which
should earn a fair profit.

(iii) Distribution:
Marketing Managers make products or services available to customers by
distributing goods through channels of distribution. It provides place and time
utility to the products.

(iv) Promotion:
Marketing Managers inform customers about their products or services by
means of such marketing functions as personal selling and advertising.

While planning marketing strategy, equal weightage should be given to each

activity, since each of the factor is equally important.

Designing Marketing Strategies:

Marketing strategies are designed considering the different stages of the
product life cycle. Companies must try to anticipate new attributes that the
market wants. Profits go to those who introduce new and valued benefits
early.

The search for new attributes can be based on customer survey work,
intuition, dialectical reasoning, or needs hierarchy reasoning. Successful
marketing is developed through creatively visualising the market’s
evolutionary potential.

Marketing strategies are also designed considering the competitors.

Considering the competition, a firm will occupy one of the following six
positions in the target market:
1. Dominant

2. Strong
3. Favourable

4. Tenable

5. Weak

6. Nonviable

The firms can also be classified by the role they play in the target
market:
1. Leader

2. Challenger

3. Follower

4. Nicher.

Marketing strategies are highly dependent on whether the company is a

market leader, challenger, follower, or nicher.

A market leader has the largest market share in the relevant product market.
To remain the dominant firm, it must (i) look for ways to expand total market
demand by seeking new users, and new uses of its products, (ii) attempt to
protect the current market share, and (iii) try to increase its market share.

A market challenger attacks the market leader and other competitors in an

aggressive bid for more market share. In terms of specific attack strategies,
challengers can discount prices, produce cheaper goods, produce prestige
goods, produce wide variety of goods, innovates widely in products or
distribution, improve services, reduce manufacturing costs, or engage in
intensive advertising.

A market follower must have strategies aimed at running and increasing

market share and expanding the market.

A market nicher firm serves the small market segments not being served by
larger firms. These can select one or more of the following areas of
specialisation: end user, customer size, specific customer, geographic,
product or product line, job shop, quality/price, service, channel or product
features.

Analysing Competitors:
To prepare an effective marketing strategy, a company must study its
competitors as well as its actual and potential customers. Companies need to
identity their competitors’ strategies, objectives, strengths, and weaknesses
etc.

They also need to know how to design an effective competitive intelligence

system, which competitors to attack, and which to avoid, and how to balance
a competitor orientation with a customer orientation.

A company’s closest competitors are those seeking to satisfy the same

customers and needs and making similar offers.

A company’s competitive intelligence needs to be collected, interpreted, and

disseminated continuously. Timely information about competitors are
necessary. These information help in easily formulating the strategies.

Marketing managers need to conduct a customer value analysis to reveal the

company’s strengths and weaknesses relative to competitors. The aim of this
analysis is to determine the benefits that customers want and how they
perceive the relative value of competitors’ offers.

Identifying Market Segments and Selecting Target Market:

In order to choose its markets and serve them well, companies must target
their markets. Target marketing involves three activities: market
segmentation, market targeting, and market positioning.

Major segmentation variables for consumer markets are:

(a) Geographic— nation, region, state, city, neighborhood.

(b) Demographic— age, family size, family life cycle, gender, income,
occupation, education, religion, nationality, social class.
(c) Psychographic— life style, personality.

(d) Behavioural— occasion, benefits, user status, buyer-readiness stage,

attitude.

After identifying its market-segment opportunities, a firm has to evaluate the

various segments and decide how many and which markets to target. In
choosing segments to target, the company can focus on a single segment,
several segments, a specific product, a specific market or the full market.
Marketers should develop segment-by-segment invasion, plans, entering one
segment at a time.

Differentiating and Positioning the Market Offering:

In the age of competition, the key to competitive advantage is product
differentiation. Here differentiation means an act of designing a set of
meaningful differences to distinguish the company’s offering from
competitors’ offerings.

A market offering can be differentiated along following five dimensions:

1. Product Differentiation:
Features, performance quality, durability, reliability, repair ability, style,
design.

2. Services Differentiation:
Ordering ease, delivery, installation, customer training, customer consulting,
maintenance and repair, miscellaneous services.

3. Personnel Differentiation:
Competence, courtesy, credibility, reliability, responsiveness, communication
clarity.

4. Channel Differentiation:
Distribution channels.

5. Image Differentiation:
Media, atmosphere.
8. Functions of Marketing:
(i) Distribution Channel:
The term channels of distribution are used to refer to the various alternative
ways for supplying the products to the consumers from producers. Some
ways are direct ways in which producers are direct in touch with consumers
while others are lengthy and indirect ways in which the producers take
assistance of intermediary in delivering the products to the consumers.

In other words channel of distribution refer to the exchange of ownership of

the product until it reaches to the final user.

Following are the channels of distribution:

1. Direct selling by the manufacturer to the consumers known as Direct
Distribution.

2. Selling through middleman (e.g. a wholesaler or a retailer or both) known

as Indirect Distribution.

1. Direct Distribution:
In this system manufacturer sell his products direct to consumer. For selling
the products he can take help of salesman or Main or Retail branches. The
system is very effective where margin of profit is more, number of products
are less, consumers are limited and products are costly e.g. computers,
photocopying machines, special purpose equipment’s etc.

2. Indirect Distribution (Distribution through Middleman):

In this system products reaches from manufacturer to the consumer through
middleman. This system is effective where huge volume of products with a
low margin of profit is sold to the large number of customers e.g. consumer
goods like tooth paste, soap, face powder etc.

These middlemen may be either retailers or wholesalers or both, i.e. 3

level distribution or 4 level distribution as shown below:
(a) Manufacturer → Retailers → Consumer

(b) Manufacturer Wholesaler → Retailers → Consumer.

Middlemen are of various types, out of which the following are common:
1. Wholesalers and

2. Retailers

(A) Moving retail dealers, and

(B) Fixed shop dealers.

(ii) Packaging:
Packaging plays a significant and vital role in industrial as well as social
growth. It protects complements and rationalizes products, adopting them to
the pertinent conditions of storage, transport, marketing and consumption. It
carries and conveys identity and origin of the product and helps to sell
product, saving the time involved in the conventional system of selling
process.

Packaging technology has provided higher productivity, better and quicker

distribution, adoption of self service and super market systems, consumer
protection, and customer satisfaction.

Scope of Packaging:
Packaging has many faces. In its more familiar form it is the box on the
grocer’s shelf and the wrapper on a soap cake. It can also be the crate around
a heavy lathe machine or a bulk container for chemicals. It is art and science,
it is materials and equipment, it is protection, promotion and materials
handling all rolled into one. It is many things to many people and a very
difficult concept to describe and define.

There are three different broad categories that require different technologies
and talents for packaging.

These are:
1. Consumer Packaging

2. Industrial Packaging and

3. Military Packaging.
1. Consumer Packaging:
It is concerned generally with small units in large numbers, often decorated in
an attractive manner.

2. Industrial Packaging:
It is usually made up of larger and heavier units with no attempt to make
them appealing to the eye.

3. Military Packaging:
It is a highly specialised type of protective packaging in which all the
elements have been worked out by the Government and documented in the
most intricate details.

9. Process of Marketing:
Marketing management process consists of the activities described here
under:
1. Organising the Market Planning:
(a) Adopt Strategic Market Planning:
(i) By preparing one long term plan say for 5 years and another short term
plan say for 6 months or 1 year.

(ii) By considering threats and opportunities in respect of each of the product,

brand.

(iii) By making plans for marketing, finance, production and personnel.

(iv) And integrate it with overall objectives and strategies of the company.

(b) Prepare a Detailed Marketing Plans:

(i) By getting timely and accurate information’s through a reliable system
regarding past, present and future states of the environment, target customers,
competitors, suppliers, resellers and public.

(ii) For getting above information’s utilise internal records, market trends
published in reliable journals or other publications, market research and
marketing intelligence.
(iii) Information’s regarding product review, competition, and distribution
system should also be collected.

2. Analysing Market Opportunities:

(a) Identify New Market Opportunities:
(i) By understanding the product/market expansion for market penetration,
market development, product development.

(ii) By knowing high barriers to entry in the market.

(iii) By knowing weak competitors, weak products, weak buyers and weak
suppliers.

(b) Know the Marketing Environment:

(i) By carrying out study for understanding suppliers, middlemen, distribution
firms, service agencies, customers i.e. consumer market, industrial market,
government market, reseller market or international market, competitors.

(ii) Understand public: This means customers, media, general public,

consumer forums, governmental attitudes and rules etc.

(iii) Changing habits of the public and purchasing capacity.

(iv) To study economic environment which includes changes in real income,

changing consumer expenditure pattern.

(v) Latest innovations/research.

(vi) To know political environment.

(c) Study consumer behavior:

(i) By studying factors influencing consumer behaviour including social and
cultural patterns.

(ii) Knowing personal factors and their influences e.g. buyers’ age,
occupation, life style, personality, economic circumstances, self-concept,
belief and attitudes.
(iii) Identifying the buyers and their buying decision process. This includes
information’s required by buyers.

(iv) Post purchase behaviour of buyer.

(d) Study of Organisational Markets:

This includes the study of characteristics, decision process and behaviour
in respect of;
(i) Government/semi-government organisations.

(ii) Industrial market.

3. Selecting Target Market:

Target market can be selected in following steps:
(a) Demand measurement and forecasting

(b) Market segmentation

(c) Market targeting by studying possible market segments

(d) Market positioning.
This means identifying the products and brands serving in each customer
segment, and to know how the current brands compete and the degree of
meeting the consumer desires.

4. Developing the Marketing Mix:

Marketing mix is the set of controllable marketing variables (i.e. product,
price, place and promotion) that the firm blends to produce the response it
wants in the target market.

(а) Decisions Regarding Products:

(i) Characteristics of a product arc quality level, features, styles, brand name
and packaging.

(ii) Augment the product with benefits to satisfy consumer’s desires e.g.
installation, delivery and credit, after sales service and warranty.
(iii) Products can be classified as, either durable goods, non-durable goods
and services, or convenience goods, shopping goods, specialty goods and
unsought goods or materials, parts, capital items, supplies and services.

(iv) To decide about brand name, brand mark, trade mark and copy-right.

(v) Packaging decisions regarding attraction, describing product benefit,

make overall favourable impression, how much a consumer can pay for
appearance and prestige of better packaging.

(vi) To take decisions regarding customer services i.e. service-mix, level of

service, form of service, maintenance service, information service and
technical service.

(vii) To decide about product line, product safety, product additions and
deletions.

(viii) Product life cycle decisions.

(b) Decisions Regarding Pricing:

(i) Consider internal factors like marketing objectives, marketing mix
strategy, costs, organisational considerations.

(ii) Consider external factors like market and demand, competitors prices and
offers.

(iii) Pricing approaches: cost plus pricing, break even analysis and target
profit pricing, buyer based pricing or competition based pricing.

(iv) Decide pricing strategies for new product: market skimming pricing or
initiative pricing.

(v) Decide pricing strategies for product-mix: product line pricing, optional
or accessory product pricing, by-product pricing.

(vi) Decide price-adjustment strategies: discount pricing, discriminatory

pricing on customer basis, product form basis, place or time basis,
psychological pricing, promotional pricing.
(vii) Study reaction of buyers on price changes.

(c) Decisions Regarding Place:

(i) Retailers can be classified according to amount of service, product line
sold, discount store, warehouse, show-room, nature of business premises,
self-service, limited service, full service.

(ii) Wholesalers can be classified as merchant whole-sellers, brokers and

agents, manufacturers branches.

(d) Decisions Regarding Promotion:

(i) Marketing promotion mix consists of 4 major tools i.e. advertising, sales
promotion, publicity, personal selling.

(ii) Target audience must be in any of the readiness states—awareness,

knowledge, liking, preference, conviction or purchase.

(iii) Choosing a promotion media and a system for collecting feedback.