Question

Week 13: Marketing Management

1a. Identify and define each of the elements of the marketing mix, and the management issues associated with each.

1b. What are the customer segmentation variables that can be used to distinguish between consumers in the car market?

Answer 1

1. Elements of Marketing mix are:

1) Product: The product element of the Marketing mix signifies the tangible or intangible products offered to the customer whicb is the satisfier if the need. The producers, manufacturers or marketers try to add more and more utilities to the product to provide greater satisfaction to the customer and winning edge over competitor. Management issues related to product can be that your product may not provide that kind of satisfaction to customer which you were thinking of. So you must keep focus on customer satisfaction.

2) Price: Price is the value which the buyer passes on to the seller in lieu of the product or service provided. Price is the crucial element of Marketing mix because customer is very sensitive to this element. Little variation in the price may shift your customer to competitors product. Management issue related to price can be that your customer will be shifted to your competitor if you demand high price. Price of any product should be reasonable. Sellers increases price to earn more profit which somehow leads to shifting of their customers.

3) Place: Place refers to the set of decisions that need to be taken in order to make the product available. If the product are not made available to the customer at the right place at the right time then customer would not be able to buy them. Management issue related to place is that you may open your shop in a place where there is transportation issue than you will not be able to work their properly. So deciding a place plays a very vital role.

4) Promotion: Promotion is concerned with activities that are undertaken to communicate with customers and distribution channels to enhance the sales of the firm. The promotional communication aims at informing and persuading the customer to buy the product and informing it about the merits if the products. Management issues related to promotion can be that You may suffer from financial crises in business because of which promotion cannot be done in the way you want.

2. Customers segmentation variables which can be used to distinguish between the consumers in the car market are:

1) Income Level: This states that if the customer is having good income level than they may go for the luxury car with no hesitation but if the customer is having limited income than thay may go for normal car.

2) Different cars in Different countries: This point states that many cars are banned in India because the car's nature is sports. Sports cars are not allowed to drive in our country because we have different roads, conjusted roads etc. So this may be the reason of the banned cars in our Country.

3) Lifestyle: This point states that our country has simple lifestyle as compared to other countries because 70% people living in our country are middle class and they want normal car not high five stuff. So this may be the reason behind this point.