Marketing Finale

     Hi all, this will be my final blog post. As the semester ends I reflect on what I have studied and learned thus far over the course of the past several months. In the past I was under the impression that marketing was simply involved one finding a product which one desired to sell, you price it, and you advertise it, then you sell it. Which is essentially marketing.  However, I have discovered that you have only begun to examine the aspects involved within each of these steps to marketing.                                 

                       

If you think this chart looks intricate, then you have a lot to learn about marketing. These are only some of the areas which need to be focused on when marketing.

Throughout the course we have focused on many terms that help define the categories within the marketing world. These definitions helped us understand more about what there are in terms of roles, marketing strategies, product pricing, placement and much more.  Did you know there was a difference between product place…. and product placement? I didn’t know this before I took this course.

Product place is an area in which a product is distributed. We all are aware of what this is: Convenience stores, department stores, mall, etc.

Product placement is a strategically placed product which is set, therefore the specific goal is to advertise for the product.  For this to occur the rights to show the product must be paid for.  For example, in movies you may notice a Coca Cola bottle within the movie with the logo being displayed. This was paid for by Coca Cola for their product to be shown in the movie.

                           

Have you ever stepped back and really thought about how our world is built upon marketing? We see thousands of ads each day and we subconsciously don’t recognize it.

I think marketing is a lot more in depth than we tend to think. We need to consider that to market a product you need to have a marketing strategy.  This is a plan you set in order to achieve your goals. Your goals also can come in different sectors as well, categorized as primary goals and secondary goals. 

                            

There are so many ways in which marketing can be done. Social media is today’s largest contributor to marketing. As we learned in class, the Internet has found ways to follow you everywhere you go. You can look up puppies on Amazon and the next thing you know you’re on Facebook and an Ad for puppies shows up, this is called behavioral retargeting.

                            

Opinion leaders are a common way that companies market their product. An opinion leader is a public figure that is used to promote a product. The idea is, “If the product is good enough for ________ then it must be good enough for me.” They’re often found within sports ads to promote athletic products.

                          

Lebron James Nike Ad

The idea is to create an ad and product which appeals to your target market. By doing so you create a customer product which people desire. 

The basis we focused on were the Four P’s of marketing, Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. These four points were how many of our group based projects were run.  We had several presentations in class in which we had to inform the class and analyze an Ad or idea regarding marketing in which we applied the four P’s to explain our point. These helped us analyze our topic and explain it to the rest of the class.

We learned how to apply certain formulas to acquire a break-even point, the amount in terms of money that we needed to reach to not lose money.  We also learned how to set prices to make revenue with several other equations. We had a group excel project in which we analyzed a company versus the industry and determined the break-even points and amounts of revenue, then analyzed the success rate for each.

We used all the knowledge we obtained during the semester to create, advertise, and successfully orchestrate an event for a charity organization of our choice. We soon found out how teamwork is also a key factor in marketing along with knowing how to efficiently utilize all of the knowledge learned from studying marketing.

                             

There is so much more to learn about marketing. The industry is ever changing, so as marketers it is our job to utilize our knowledge and keep up to date on the world changing around us. Marketing is everywhere and it’s a part of our everyday lives.