Week 14

This week we covered pricing decisions. What stuck out to me most about this weeks lecture and chapter was how companies come up with the pricing for a product. It is amazing to me that only 15% of companies do any price research. In the chapter it explains that if a company comes up with a value-based pricing structure for their products, then they are more customer driven. This is the way of the future; a customer needs to know that their needs and wants are being taken into consideration. If a company asks the customers what they would pay for a product, then they will come up with a much better idea of what the product is worth to the customer.

Week 13

This week was focused on sales promotions. Sales promotions are another way to entice consumers to purchase a product. It centers around promotions like give a ways , price drops, rebates, coupons, and sampling. These are all effective to get consumers to purchase products for certain types of products. Different strategies are used with different companies, but it seems that many companies are using these strategies more and more. We also covered personal selling and how personal selling is trending toward relationship selling. This means that a sales man is looking to form a relationship in him product or company, instead of just making a one time sell. This is good because it adds value to the product and loyalty from the consumer for future purchases. Plus it is great for spreading word of mouth advertising. Which can also be very effective. If I am ever in a position of selling a product, I will focus on personal selling to ensure future sales.

Week 12

This week was dedicated to advertising. There is much to the marketing concept but I really learned how advertising can affect a companies product. It is amazing how much is spent on advertising every year and sometimes, how little is gained from spending all that money. Most successful advertising takes place in what is called advertising campaigns. This is where many tactics are used to promote a company or product. Only focusing on one media outlet like radio is very restrictive and knowing what type of media to use with your advertising is essential to the success of your company. I see that many companies are using more public relation types of advertising and that may be because of the a trend throughout the nation. I am now more familiar with the concept of advertising and when I see ads in my life I notice now what the company is trying to do.

Week 11

This week we talked about the promotional mix. This is the promotion concept in the 4 "p's." It was particularly interesting to learn how companies use different strategies in the life cycle of a product. For example you would focus more on informational and public relation type strategies when a product fist starts it's life cycle and then move to advertising the mass market once the word of the product gets out there. Then to keep the flame of the new product burning you can use sales strategies. This all depends of the type of product, as personal selling would relate to more complex products and would not work so well with convenience products. Overall most companies use a diverse promotional mix to ensure their products are seen and consumer are urged to buy.

Week 10

This week we learned about market channels. Getting a product to the consumer can be a very complex task. We learned about how products can be directly sold to consumers or go through avenues such as wholesalers and retailers before getting to the consumer. This is good because it enables the consumer to only shop at one location to find products from multiple producers. How a product is distributed is also very important as some products such as convenience products are distributed very widely. This is called an intensive strategy and products such as a jaguar, would be considered a exclusive product as you can only find them at very particular locations.

Week 9

Today we learned about products. What it takes to come up with a new product and how long products stay in the market. We also learned what it takes to market new products and why some products fail. I thought one of the most interesting thing was that many new products fail. The statistic use was 3 in 4 new products will fail. That is very high and after learning that it can take years to develop a new product it is a wonder that companies are able to stay in business.

Week 7

This chapter pertained to products. What is a product, how companies use and distribute their products, and how products promotes the company they represent. I thought brand equity was very interesting as brand equity can be priceless. For instance, can you put a price on the Apple band name or logo? It would be hard to really project how much money that little apple logo has generated and will generate.  Companies use their brand name and logo as equity to sell their products. We see these brands everyday and learning how companies utilize their brands is very beneficial to a marketing perspective.