Blog 10: My Final Blog

Hi Everybody! 

Today I am writing my final blog post. As the semester comes to an end I can say that I definitely learned a lot about marketing and I hope that you did too.

In todays blog, I am going to take a look at some of the objectives and outcomes that my professor, Professor Nelson, laid out for us at the beginning of the semester. The objectives that I am going to focus on today are: (1) To examine and convey basic and emerging marketing concepts and terminologies, (2) To set personal and professional goals and positively contribute in an engaged class, (3) To have the opportunity to put marketing into action via team and individual projects, research, reports and presentations. The outcomes that I am going to talk about today is how through experiential learning, improve your knowledge and skills. I am also going to talk about how to analyze and evaluate basic financial statements and business formulas (profit, ROI, etc.).

1. To examine and convey basic and emerging marketing concepts and terminologies

This semester, I had so many opportunities to apply the marketing terminology and concepts that I was learning. We had so many group projects and activities in and out of the classroom that allowed me apply these skills while also enhancing them. We had a main group project that we worked on for the whole semester that allowed my teammates and I to test out these concepts during out simulation. We also had a few reports that we had to do where we needed to use the formulas that we learned in class to figure out certain things like Change in Sale, Change in Units, Return on Sales, the Break-even point and a few more. Writing this blog also allowed me enhance my understanding of certain terms and ideas. This was because I would pick out terms or ideas that I wanted to learn more about and then write a blog post on it to break it down for my readers, you, as well as myself.

2. To set personal and professional goals and positively contribute in an engaged class

Before I went into this class, I had already set a personal goal to work as hard as I can so that I could not only learn as much I can but to also get the best grade possible. At times throughout the semester this became very difficult because I had to deal with work in all of my four classes. I also wanted to try to engage in class at least once a week but with the goal of participating everyday. I hoped that by doing this I would be able to learn a lot more that would help me get good grades. While my grades are not where I had hoped they would be I did try my hardest for the most part, with a few slip-ups early in the semester, and I also participated in class multiple times a week. I guess you can say that I was somewhat successful with my personal goals. This class also gave me the tools to set goals for myself when it comes to the professional world, which will be a great help once I graduate and look for a job.

3. To have the opportunity to put marketing into action via team and individual projects, research, reports and presentations

The team projects really allowed me to put marketing into action throughout the semester. When doing the simulation this semester, we needed to create, sell and market a backpack to a specific target market.   We needed to decide how much to price the bag, where to sell it, and how to advertise our product. While doing this, we also need to do a few papers and presentations on what we have learned and what we were doing. The reports that we had to do required us to analyze the data that we received from the simulation in order to figure out if our business was successful. The presentations that we had to do allowed us to gain practice presenting out findings to a large group of people but to also focus on and learn more about certain marketing concepts that interested us.

4. Improve your knowledge and skills through experiential learning

This semester I had many opportunities to improve my marketing knowledge and skills through experience. The two experiences that I really learned from is definitely the Practice Marketing Simulation that I had to do as well as the through the Income Statement, Return on Sales and Market Share Analysis. The simulation allowed me to improve my decision-making skills because each week I needed to make a decision on what the next step was when it came to my backpack company. The Income Statement, Return on Sales and Market Share Analysis really helped me because I was not very good with Excel or with formulas. For this assignment we need to create formulas through Excel to form our Income Statement and to find out our Return on Sales and Market Share. It was also one of the first times that I was really able to create an Income Statement on my own which was really helpful because I will definitely need one in the future.

5. Analyze and evaluate basic financial statements and business formulas (profit, ROI, etc.)

Like I said right above this I to complete many financial statements and business formulas. Before this semester I was never really sure how companies calculated their profit or Return on Investment. As time went one I was able to figure out all of these formulas through practice as well as through having to use them in my Income Statement. When I graduate, I want to open a Lifestyle Clothing company so one day these financial statements and business formulas are going to very important so the fact that I learned how to complete them this semester is very important.

I just want to thank you all for staying will me all semester long and reading my blogs each week.

Thanks,

Chris

Blog 9: The Promotional Elements in Marketing (Part 2)

Hi Everybody!

I hope you enjoyed learning about the first two promotional elements that companies use to market themselves and their products. Today we are going to talk about public relations, sales promotion, and direct marketing.

Public relations is a type of communication management that seeks to influence the feelings, opinions, or beliefs held by customers, prospective customers, stockholders, suppliers, employees, and other publics about a company and its products or services. Most of the time, companies will have their own public relations department. These departments will often use tools such as social media, special events, and press conferences. Many people still believe that publicity is the most important and powerful tool that a public relations department has. Publicity is a nonpersonal, indirectly paid presentation of an organization, product, or service. The thing that separates publicity from personal selling and advertising is the fact that companies do not have to pay for then publicity. This is because it can be seen in many different forms such as news stories, reviews, and consumer’s social media accounts. The biggest advantage that companies gain from publicity is credibility while it’s biggest disadvantage is that companies cannot control what others are saying about their brand. We see examples of publicity every day when we go onto social media, watch the news, look online for restaurant reviews or even when we are talking to a friend. When if I see a friend or an athlete that I follow on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter post something about a company that I have never heard I will sometimes be curious and go look at that company’s page. Even when I go on vacation I find myself looking at the Yelp reviews of restaurants in the area to see which one seems like the best choice. My favorite piece of publicity that I have seen recently is when the man from the Boston area started to sell the snow from in front of his house to people all over the country. This story became very popular with news outlets and I even believe that it was trending on Facebook for a while. This guy started this company as a joke but then because of all of the publicity his company started to make a more sales then he expected.

The fourth promotional element is sales promotion, which is a short-term inducement of value offered to arouse interest in buying a product or service. A few examples of sales promotion are coupons, discounts, and contests and these usually used with personal selling and advertising. Its main advantage is that these promotions are usually very short but still stimulates a lot of sales. The thing about these promotions is that sales will usually increase but then drop once the promotion goes away. Companies will then used advertising to try to build brand loyalty from those consumers who bought their product because of the sale. Everyday my email inbox gets filled with promotions from different companies. One website that I have used a few times called seshday.com only sells discounted products. What makes this company different is that they are a members only website and they only sell other companies products. These sales will only last for a few days. Everyday I receive an email that tells me which sales are about to end, which ones are just starting and some upcoming sales. Seshday also carries a lower inventory of these products, which stimulates its customers to hurry up to buy that specific product.

The fifth and final promotional element is called direct marketing, which uses direct communication with consumers to generate a response in the form of an order, a request for further information, or a visit to a retail outlet. This communication can be in many different forms such as magazines, mail, phone calls, face-to-face selling and online marketing. It’s main advantage is that you can customize the message to fit the specific target market that you want to communicate with while it can be a disadvantage because it can cost a lot of money to fill up databases with the most up-to-date information about your target market. An example of direct marketing is how a couple of times a year, local companies will fill up every student’s mailbox with coupons or ads that are direct at them. Usually we receive stuff from local restaurants or letters from the ski resorts telling us that it is almost time to buy our season pass for the upcoming year.

I hope that you all enjoyed this post!

See you next time!

Chris

Works Cited:
Kerin, Roger A., Steven W. Hartley, and William Rudelius. Marketing. 11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2013. Print.
Mailbox full of direct mail. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. 

"Man Sells Boston Snow Online | NBC Nightly News." YouTube. NBC News, 2 Mar. 2015. Web. 15 Apr. 2015. 

Seshday. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.

Blog 8: The Promotional Elements in Marketing

Hey Everybody!

Today I am going to talk about the five promotional elements that companies will use to communicate with their consumers. These five elements are advertising, personal selling, public relations, sales promotion, and direct marketing. Advertising, public relations, and sales promotion use what is called mass selling because they are used to communicate with groups of prospective buyers. The other two elements use what is called customized interaction because they target a specific customer. Personal selling is when the seller talks directly to the buyer through meeting, phone calls and emails, while direct marketing also uses customized messages to each specific customer.

Companies advertise when they pay for any form of nonpersonal communication about an organization, product, service or idea by an identified sponsor. This includes using mass media like TV's, radios, magazines and newspapers. It is important for a company to do their research before sharing their advertisement with the world. You want to know for sure that the consumer that you are targeting with see this advertisement and that the message will be clear. Just like anything else in the world, advertising has some strengths and weaknesses. The nice thing about ads is that they can get a person's attention very quickly and they can communicate specific product benefits to the potential consumers. The two big weaknesses of advertising is that it costs a lot to produce one and you do not receive that much feedback from consumers about your ad. I believe that the ad that you see right beneath this paragraph is really effective. It is showing us that when we over use water we can affect animals or people without even realizing it.

Another popular promotional element is personal selling. This is when there is a two-way flow of communication between a buyer and seller designed to influence a person's or group's purchase decision. The nice thing about personal selling that really sets itself apart from advertising is that it is usually face-to-face communication between the seller and consumer. This is important for businesses because they can control whom they are speaking with. This allows the seller to quickly receive feedback from the potential buyer, which they can't do through advertisements. This allows them to fix their message to better get their point across to their prospective buyer. One of the biggest disadvantages of personal selling has to be how much it cost to speak to each potential customer individually. Personal selling tends to be the most expensive promotional element because of the high cost. A good example of personal selling is when phone and Internet companies use sales representatives to sell their products to residential properties or other businesses. Comcast does this a good amount of the time. My uncle works for Comcast Business as a sales representative so basically he goes to a bunch of companies each day to see if they want to either renew their contract with Comcast or leave a competitors company for Comcast. I also know a little bit about this myself because I occasionally will sell custom die cut stickers and I always have to deal with customers complaining about the price of my product and because of this I usually end up having to change my prices depending on the feedback that the current customer is giving me as well as what customers in the past have said to me.

I hope that you guys enjoyed this post! Next time we are going to finish our conversation by talking about the last three promotional elements!

See You Then!

Chris

Work Cited:

Comcast Business Logo. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.

Kerin, Roger A., Steven W. Hartley, and William Rudelius. Marketing. 11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2013. Print. 

Promotional Elements. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.

Save Water Fishbowl. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.

Blog 7: The Different Shapes of the Product Life Cycle

Hi everybody!

I hope you enjoyed my last post. Today, I am going to talk more about the the Product Life Cycle. The difference between today's post and yesterday's post is that today I am going to focus on the shape of the sale curves of each Product Life Cycle.

Yesterday, I showed you all a picture of a generic product life cycle sales curve. This does not mean that all products have the same shape of their curve. There are actually four different life cycle curves for the four different types of products: high-learning, low-learning, fashion, and fad products. Each curve tends to have it's own marketing strategy.

A high-learning product is one that requires significant customer education and the introduction stage is extended. You could say that the GPS was a high-learning product. This is because when the GPS first came out, most people were used to either relying on maps or the directions of others. When the GPS first came out, many people were not sure how to exactly use it. I remember when my family first bought a GPS. It took my family awhile to get used to the new technology but once we did get used it we started rely on it more and more until it became a staple in traveling to new places. Now, most people always have GPS's with them because they come standard in almost every smartphone and new car.

Low-learning products are different because their sales begin very quickly due to the simplicity of the product. This allows consumers to understand the product almost right away. Often times, competitors can easily copy the low-learning products. This forces companies to broaden their distribution channels quickly. A low-learning product that has been very successful is Red Bull Energy Drink. Due to their marketing strategy, consumers from all over the world were able to learn about what the drink offers and how it can help them live their everyday life.

The next type of product that we are going to talk about is a fashion product. These products change with the style of the times and the life cycles frequently appear in apparel. They usually go from the introduction stage right to the decline stage and then eventually reappear. This does not mean that each fashion product has the same life cycle. Some cycles can last formally years while some might only last for a few weeks. When thinking about fashion product in men's apparel I thought about how most guys used to wear shorts that were really short. I remember when I was younger, I used to think that my dad and my uncles were hanging out or playing sports in their boxers. Back then, these shorts were a huge hit and almost every guy wore them. Today, that fashion product is starting to become big again even though many guys still wear shorts that reach their knees. This revival is partially thanks to a company called Chubbies. Chubbies has taken these shorts and made them their own. By doing this they create brand loyalty and with this loyalty they are beginning to make the shorter shorts popular again.

The last product that we are going to talk about is called the fad product. These fad products experience rapid sales during the introduction phase and then they decline at almost the same speed. These products tend to be novelties with a short life cycle. A product that had a very short life cycle is the bracket company Silly Bandz. These bracelets were designed mainly for kids and each one had a different design on it. Some were animals, holiday symbols or just simple shapes. These bracelets were huge for a few weeks but then all of a sudden children stopped buying them. Silly Bandz were really big somewhere around me freshman or sophomore year of high school. I remember going shopping with my younger sister and finding these bracelets at almost every store we went to. Everyone tried to have the most bracelets while also having a cooler ones then your friends. I even remember going to a Mets game and seeing Silly Bandz that have the Mets logo as the design being sold.

I hope you guys enjoyed today's post!

See You Soon!
Chris

Works Cited

Chubbies. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. 

GPS. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. 

Kerin, Roger A., Steven W. Hartley, and William Rudelius. Marketing. 11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2013. Print. 

Product Life Cycles. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. 

Red Bull. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. 

Silly Bandz. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.

Blog 6: Products Have A Life Cycle Too

Hey everybody!

Did you know that products follow a life cycle just like humans do? Products go through four stages in what is called the Product Life Cycle. These four stages are introduction, growth, maturity and decline.

The Introduction Stage is when a product gets introduced into its target market. During this period, the products sales are low but growing slowly. Product does now have much profit because the company usually invests a lot of money in product development. Companies want to raise consumer awareness for their product so they often will spend a lot of money on advertising. Sometimes consumers are also given the ability to try out a product before buying it. My textbook talks about how Gillette spent millions of dollars to develop the Fusion razor and then they went on to spend about $200 million in advertising. Within a few month over 60% of male shavers were aware of the new razor and about 26% of them tried out the product.

A lot of the money spent in the introduction stage is made to simulate two types of demands which are primary and secondary. Primary demand is when a consumer wants to buy a certain product class instead of a specific brand while secondary demand is the preference for a specific brand.

During the Growth Stage, the product has a rapid increase in sales and other competitors become present. Profit usually peaks during this stage because of the increase in competitors and the fact that the products are priced in a competitive manner. Advertising usually focuses on the products benefits and then compares itself to the competitors. This means that they are targeting consumers that already have purchased the product in the past as well as reaching out to new people. Companies wants to show how they are different and also show some new or improved features that they have added since the original design went on sale. You could say that tablets are a good example of being in the growth stage because originally most consumers only knew about the iPad but as time went on new competitors like Samsung or Microsoft have come out with their own tablets. Each company tries to show how their product is different from everyone else's while also developing new features for their own tablet.

You tend to see competitors leave the market and a decline the industries sales during the Maturity Stage. The consumers that buy these products tend to be brand loyal and repeat customers. There are fewer new consumers that enter the market so the sales begin to slightly decrease. Companies profit will also decline because of the competitive prices among competitors and it cost more money to reach new consumers. When marketing during the maturity stage, companies try to hold on to their market share through promotion of product differentiation and finding new buyers. My textbook uses soft drinks as an example of being in the maturity stage. This is because most of the consumers of soft drinks are brand loyal and will keep going back to the same product over time. As time has gone on, some smaller soft drink companies have gone out of business while companies like Pepsi and Coke have been strong competitors for years.

During the Decline Stage you will see the sales drop. Products often enter this stage because the environment around it has change and not because the company did anything wrong. The two strategies for handling product decline are deletion and harvesting. Deletion is when a company removes the product from the company's product line. This is considered a drastic approach because consumers still use the product even though it is the decline stage. Harvesting is when a company keeps the product and just reduces marketing costs. Sales people will continue to sell the product but they will not spend a lot of time or money marketing or selling the product. I thought that 35 mm film fits this stage very well because some photographers still use film to take pictures even though we are in a digital world. Camera companies still sell film even though they mainly focus products for digital cameras.

I hope you all enjoyed this weeks blog!

See you soon!
Chris

Works Cited

Film. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. 

Gillette Fusion. Helloadoorable, 22 Mar. 2006. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. 

Kerin, Roger A., Steven W. Hartley, and William Rudelius. Marketing. 11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2013. Print. 

Product Life Cycle. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. 

Soft Drinks. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. 

Tablets. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.

Blog 5: The Different Types of Products

Hey Everybody!

Did you know that there are two categories of products in Marketing? Neither did I. Usually I just something and it registers as a product or a service. Today I am going to go into more details about these categories so that you have an idea about what you are buying next time you go shopping. The two categories of products are called CONSUMER and BUSINESS products. My textbook tells us that consumer products are products purchased by the consumer while business products are products that organizations buy to assist in providing other products for resale. Business products are sometimes known as business-to-business or B2B products and industrial products. You need to keep in mind that that products can be both a consumer and a business product. For example, an HP printer could be bought by a consumer for use in his or her house while a company could buy the same printer for office use. Both groups would most likely buy these products in different places because a consumer would buy it through a store while a sale's representative for HP would most likely contact the company to place an order.

Consumer products are broken up into four sub-categories; the CONVENIENCE PRODUCT, SHOPPING PRODUCT, SPECIALTY PRODUCT, and the UNSOUGHT PRODUCT. These products tend to be different because the consumer will react differently while purchasing each product.

The CONVENIENCE product are different products that a consumer frequently purchases buys with convenience and a very small amount of shopping effort. Chips is an example of a type of products that fits into this category. These products tend to be inexpensive and can be located in many places. The consumer will usually be aware of favorite brands but will substitute for a different brand if necessary. Companies will tend to stress that their products are inexpensive and available in many locations.

The SHOPPING products are items that the consumer compares several alternatives based on price, quality and style. These products tend to be on the more expensive side of things but still available on a large scale. Consumers will usually show brand loyalty but they will substitute for another brand if they need to. These products are not bought very often and the consumer will tend to compare different products. Companies will usually stress how their product is different from the competitors product. A good example of a shopping product are sunglasses. Last time I went to a surf shop to buy sunglasses I had a certain brand and style in mind, which were Oakley Frogskins, but while I was there I tried on different models of Oakleys and different companies like SPY and Dragon to make sure that I was getting what I wanted but in the end I  did buy a pair of Oakley Frogskins.

SPECIALTY product are products that the consumer makes a special effort to search out and buy. These products tend to be very expensive and hard to find. Consumers are very brand loyal and will not accept substitutes. The consumer will purchase these products very infrequently and they spend a lot of time on searching and making a decision. The company will stress the uniqueness of their brand. For me, a specialty product that I buy is a snowboard. I am very particular when it comes to what I am looking for in my board. I will usually buy one every four to five years and I do a lot of research before making my decision. I will almost always read Snowboard Magazines Buyer Guide to make sure that I am getting exactly what I want. I grew up riding a K2 Snowboard and as I grow older my loyalty to K2 grows because I have never bought a board from them that I have not liked.

UNSOUGHT products are the products that consumers usually do not know about or does not initially want. A good example of an unsought product is a fire extinguisher because a consumer usually will know about them but they never think that they will need to use on in their house. The price for these products tends to vary and you can not buy them everywhere. For products like these consumers will accept substitute brands and they do not purchase them very often. Awareness is crucial when it comes to the promotion of unsought products.

Business products are broken up into two categories: COMPONENTS or SUPPORT PRODUCTS. They are usually a result of what is called derived demand, which is when the sales of business products are derived from the sale of consumer products.

Components are items that become a final project like the lumber used to build a deck. Components are not only raw goods but they can also be parts used to build a product like a door hinge.

Support Products are items used to assist in producing goods and services. Support Products are broken up into installations, accessory equipment, supplies and industrial services. An example of an installation is fixed equipment while accessor equipment is usually tools or office equipment. Supplies are push pins or staples while industrial services can be an elevator maintenance or a lawyer's service.

Thanks for reading todays post! 

See you soon!
Chris

References:

Chips. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2015. 

Consumer Product Chart. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2015. 

Fire Extinguisher. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2015. 

Kerin, Roger A., Steven W. Hartley, and William Rudelius. Marketing. 11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2013. Print. 

Lumber. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2015. 

Office Supplies. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2015. 

Snowboards. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2015. 

Sunglass Case. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.