1. Chapter 4 Marketing Begins with Customers Study Guide

2. What are the four basics of marketing?
Understanding the marketing concept
Planning a marketing strategy
Responding to competition
Integrating marketing into the business

3. What are the seven marketing functions?
Product/Service Management
Distribution
Selling
Marketing-Information Management
Financing
Pricing
Promotion

4. Effective marketing is an investment because . . .
It is responsible for matching a company’s offerings with market needs

5. Why is having a superior product or service not sufficient to assure success in business?
Businesses must respond to customer needs and desires, or they will take their business elsewhere

6. What is the marketing concept?
Using the needs of customers as the primary focus during the planning, production, distribution, and promotion of a product or service

7. If a new business regards marketing as an investment rather than as an expense, what is a common mistake that it is more likely to avoid?
It is likely to avoid the mistake of cutting marketing expenditures when it faces a cash squeeze, because it realizes that marketing will increase future profits

8. What is wrong with treating marketing mainly as a problem-solving tool?
Treating marketing mainly as a problem-solving tool may deprive a business of the many opportunities that marketers can identify and create when marketing is used to uncover new markets and seek out ways to improve customer satisfaction

9. When a business uses the marketing concept, what is the first step in its planning process?
The first step in the planning process with the marketing concept is to conduct research to identify potential customers and their needs

10. Putting Marketing Up Front
Planning that identifies how a company expects to achieve its goals is known as a strategy.
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11. A good marketing mix is based on what?
Customer needs and wants

12. Understanding the Customer
Identifying customer needs
Satisfying customer needs
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13. Businesses tend to deal with customer needs in one of two ways
Businesses tend to deal with customer needs in one of two ways. What are the two ways?
Customers are all alike and can be influenced to buy what a business offers.
Customers are quite different and they select products and services to meet their unique needs.

14. What is a market segment?
A group of similar customers within a larger market – categorized according to similar characteristics

15. Two Views of Consumers
Customers are all alike and can be influenced to buy what a business offers.
Customers are quite different and they select products and services to meet their unique needs.
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16. Planning the Offering The marketing mix Creating the right mix
Developing products
Making distribution decisions
Pricing products and services
Planning promotion
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17. What is a market opportunity analysis?
It prioritizes market segments to locate the best potential

18. What are the elements of the marketing mix?
Product Development
Distribution
Pricing Products and Services
Promotion

19. Parts of the product development decision that can improve customer satisfaction are ____________ such as _____________________________________________.
Special Features
unique design, construction, size, color, or
operation, accessories

20. What is the most difficult marketing decision to understand and plan
What is the most difficult marketing decision to understand and plan? Why?
Pricing products and services. Marketers must try to balance the costs of the product with the customer’s feelings about the value of the product/service

21. In pricing products and services, what must marketers try to balance?
The costs of the product with the customer’s feelings about the value of the product

22. How do consumers measure or define value of a product or service?
Better quality
More/better service
Lower Prices

23. What are the most common forms of promotion?
Advertising
Personal selling
Sales
Promotion
Visual display
Publicity

24. Under what conditions would promotion not be helpful to a company?
If the company has a poor product, excessively high prices, or ineffective distribution

25. How might aggressive promotion be useless if distribution is ineffective?
No matter how effective a promotional campaign, sales will not increase if the product cannot get to the consumer

26. Name three reasons it is difficult to meet customer needs
They may not be sure of their needs or have conflicting needs
They have limited resources with which to satisfy their needs
People have very different needs

27. What do consumers with different needs require?
Specialized products and services

28. Name several ways businesses can alter the prices they charge
Prices can be altered with discounts
Markdowns
Allowances
Trade-ins
Coupons
Extensions of credit

29. Why is it important for businesses to understand the consumer decision-making process?
So they can provide the consumer with the right information at the right time to facilitate a satisfying exchange

30. What benefit do consumers get from a large number of competitors in a particular industry?
More choices
Cheaper prices
Convenience

31. List the three types of competition?
Intense
Limited
Monopolistic

32. Of the three types of competition, which is the most difficult type of competition? Why do you think this is so?
Intense competition because the product is very similar and consumers can find a replacement very easily

33. What is pure competition?
Many businesses offering the same product

34. What is an oligopoly?
Only a few companies compete in the same market, consumers see few if any differences

35. What is some of the typical responses a business can make to deal with intense competition?
Emphasize price
Emphasize promotion – convince customers that their products were better, relatively minor differences as being important, unique brand names and images – more personalized or detailed information, non-traditional methods or media
Distribution can focus on making the product available at better locations and times, with more careful handling, or greater customer service
Pricing can offer alternative methods of payments, greater ease of obtaining credit, extended time for payment, or leasing

36. Explain limited competition and how businesses respond.
Little or no direct competition – Monopoly
Don’t have to worry so much about price or promotion
Business concentrates on maintaining its advantage in the market
Customers often become dissatisfied with their lack of choice

37. Explain monopolistic competition and how businesses respond.
Many competitors, some differences among the choices
It is important for the companies to have clearly-identified differences that result in customers selecting their brands
Companies in monopolistic competition find the marketing concept to be of most value
Focus different groups of customers and try to identify their needs
They make changes to the marketing mix that not only make the brand different from its competitors but more attractive to potential customers

38. Why does monopolist competition allow businesses to benefit most from the marketing concept?
Because the businesses with monopolies do not have to pay much attention to consumer needs, and businesses facing intense competition tend to rely primarily on price. Monopolistic competition gives a business an opportunity to differentiate its products to win customers from other businesses.

39. What are the five stages of the consumer decision-making process?
Problem Recognition
Information Search
Alternative Evaluation
Purchase
Postpurchase Evaluation

40. Name three things that businesses use marketing research for.
To identify customers, characteristics that make groups of customers different from others, their needs, and how they make purchase decisions
To identify the type of competition and the strengths and weaknesses of competing companies
To determine which are most effective and which are most profitable marketing strategies

41. From a consumer perspective, which type of competition offers the most choice? The least choice?
Intense competition offers the most choice; limited competition offers the least

42. Explain what is meant by a “channel of distribution.”
The businesses that work cooperatively to move products from the producer to the consumer

43. Another name for a channel member is?
Middleman

44. List two types of channel members and what part(s) of the marketing mix the focus their efforts on.
Wholesalers emphasize distribution planning; many help their customers with financing and provide marketing information
Retailers are responsible for most final pricing decisions and use a variety of promotion activities to encourage consumers to purchase their products

45. What is a markup and how is it calculated?
A markup covers a business’s operating expenses, taxes, and whatever profit it builds into its price before it passes a product on to another member of the channel or the end user
The difference between the price a business pays for a product and the price it plans to sell the product for. Expressed as a percentage of the price paid by the business
MU = Profit / Cost

46. Who is responsible for adding the markup to a product?
The middleman

47. A video game store charges $28 for a video game that is purchased for $22. What is the markup on the video game? Round to the nearest percent.
MU = $27 - $15 = 8
8/15 = 53.3 = 53%

48. A gift shop purchased 25 handmade scarves for $10. 50 each
A gift shop purchased 25 handmade scarves for $10.50 each. If the price is marked up 20%, what will the customer be charged for each scarf?
MU = $10.50 * .2 = $2.10
$ = $12.60

49. What is the gross profit margin and how is it calculated?
The gross profit margin is the difference between the price it plans to sell the product for and the price a business pays for a product.
MU = Profit / Cost

50. A sweatshirt shop pays a local supplier $15 for each sweatshirt and charges customers $27. What is the gross profit margin on each sweatshirt? Round to the nearest percent.
GPM = $27 - $15 = 8
8/27 = 29.6 = 30%

51. List three challenges faced by service businesses?
The work directly with their consumers rather than through a channel of distribution, so they are responsible for the entire marketing mix
More difficult to control quality of the service
Distribution planning must be available where and when the customer wants it
Difficult to promote since the customer can’t see or examine them

52. Why should not-for-profit organizations worry about marketing?
Because satisfying their customers’ needs is necessary if they are to achieve whatever their goals are and maximize their effectiveness