Week Two

This past week's marketing classes consisted of us business students combining for the first time with the engineers to begin thinking about our smart projects, as well as learning about the marketing environment. My biggest takeaway from our classes this week is definitely to consider all aspects of a situation, and not just think of a problem from one side.

This week's focus was on chapter four of our textbook, The Marketing Environment. To me, the marketing environment is all about understanding how aspects outside of your company's control impact your ability to sell a product. The chapter begins by explaining what elements of an external environment a marketing manager has to understand in order to intelligently plan for the future. These elements include:

1. Current Customers
2. How customers make decisions.
3. Who the most valuable customers to you are.
4. Competition

I believe that if you can understand these four elements, and how they work, you will be successful in the business world. 

The rest of the chapter discusses different factors that influence the external environment, mostly consumers. Deborah Baker from the Texas Christian University uses the image below to display these factors.

Social factors are the most difficult to predict, and include an individual's attitudes, values, and lifestyle. These things influence the product someone will buy, what they are willing to pay for that product, the effectiveness of a certain promotion, and so much more. Two types of social factors that are increasingly influencing consumers today are component lifestyles, or what I like to call "wearing many hats", and social media.

Demographic factors are aspects such as age, race, ethnicity, and location. What part of the population someone is in (GenX, Millenials, tweens, etc) and their ethnic background greatly influence the effect different marketing strategies will have on them. Economic factors include income, purchasing, power, inflation, and recession. The amount of money someone makes, the amount they have to spend, the cost of goods, and the relative growth or not of the market all influence the success of a marketing strategy.

Technological factors include basic research (expanding existing knowledge) and applied research (creating new or improved products). Technological factors influencing the external environment are summed up well in the image below by Jane Spark.

Political and legal factors involve the protection of innovators of new technology, the interests of society in general, one business from another, and consumers. This includes federal legislation such as Obamacare, State and Local laws such as those regarding fast food, and regulatory agencies such as the FDA. Finally, competitive factors are the organizations fighting for share and profits in the same market. As population and technology grow, it is harder for a company to maintain it's market share. With the increased globalization of the world, companies are now competing not only domestically, but with other organizations around the globe.

After our two classes this week, I realized how important this chapter would be to our smart projects. Without understanding of the environment our product is in, it could not be successful. For example, before we begin with designing and marketing the product, we have to understand who our customer will be and define our target market. Throughout the process it will be important for us to think about the factors that influence the external environment. For example, if we can think of a way to effectively use social media, like DiGiorno pizza did, we will be able to connect on a more personal level with consumers and "humanize" our brand.

During class this week, we watched a Shark Tank clip featuring DDPYoga. Their focus was on incorporating four different aspects of physical health into one workout.

When Barbara explained why she was out of the deal she said "I don't like investing in businesses that are based on trends. All the up and down just doesn't work for me." In the case of this type of yoga, I believe that Barbara is right. Often times people go on kicks when they are interested in alternative ways to get fit. However, if they don't work right away, if they are time consuming, or if they are too complicated, people will revert to more traditional fitness regimens. 

I think Barbara saw that DDPYoga already had their big moment when Arthur's video went viral, but that the effect of that video would soon wear off. At the time the video first came out DDPYoga might have had a high demand because people saw the transformative power it had. However, once people knew the story, it's effectiveness to entice people to try the product would decrease. For these reasons, I believe that Barbara was right when she said that DDPYoga was a business based on a trend, and agree with her decision not to invest.

Looking forward to what we do next!

-Kristen

Week One

This past week has been both eye opening and informative. Never before have I looked at business the way I do, and will continue to, after only two days in the classroom. For me, Peter Drucker's beliefs really stood out. I've always though about business in the mathematical sense, but to think about it from a marketing perspective seems to be much more logical now. I truly agree with his belief that creating and keeping a customer is the purpose of a business and the only way you do that is through marketing. Also, like Drucker believed, marketing is looking at the whole business in the point of view of results. This idea is extremely valuable to a business because their results are the most important aspect of their organization.

Additionally this week, I learned what marketing is, and summarized what it means to me:

1. Stresses customer satisfaction and processes to implement the philosophy as an organizational factor.
2. To create, communicate, deliver, and exchange offerings with value to a customer
3. Involves exchange (giving something up to get something else you would prefer)

I also found the four different marketing philosophies to be crucial to my understanding of marketing. To sum of these philosophies, I have included the chart below from George Mason University.

Throughout the past week, we have learned about strategic planning, and how that could lead to a competitive advantage. Strategic planning is the managerial process of creating and maintaining a fit between the organization's objectives and resources and the evolving market opportunities. In order to measure the strategic direction of a business (or what they should do for the best results) strategic alternatives are used. 

These alternatives such as Ansoff's Strategic Opportunity Matrix, the Innovation Matrix, the Boston Consulting Group Model, and the General Electric Model address where the company and the market stand and what the company should do from there in order for the best results. For example, in Ansoff's Matrix the company should focus on market penetration if the product they are selling and the market for that product already exist.

Further along we learned about a marketing plan, which is basically a guidebook for a marketing manager. Having a successful marketing and strategic plan can lead to a competitive advantage. 

As the image displays, there are three types of competitive advantage. A cost advantage means the company's cost to their consumer is lower than the competition's, but they still maintain a profit margin. A product/service advantage occurs when one company's product/service is better than another's for some reason, such as it lasts longer or offers something unique. A niche advantage targets and effectively serves a single market segment. Something I found interesting was that a sustainable competitive advantage cannot be copied.

Finally, I found the idea of a marketing strategy to be extremely important. A marketing strategy is selecting a target market and developing and maintaining a unique blend of product, place, promotion, and pricing (a marketing mix) to produce mutually satisfying exchanges.

Last but not least, this week we learned about the company Kaylx through a Shark Tank segment. During the segment, Robert asked the owner and creator, "How in the world are you going to compete?" Although Kaylx was not succeeding, I definitely think the product could have competed, even in the small market opening. I believe this because the Kaylx product provided value to the consumer that you cannot find as successful anywhere else.

The Kaylx bra provides functional value through quality and variety. The owner spent about three years researching to make the best product she could. If I was searching for a product like the one Kaylx offers, I would believe in the quality behind that much research. She also made three different types of her product. As you can see in the image below from the Shark Tank segment, there are multiple different styles and colors of the Kaylx bra.

Therefore, the Kaylx bra has both quality and variety to offer to the customer. The Kaylx bra also offers the emotional values of wellness and attractiveness. The bra reduces breast pain for women during exercise while aiming to maintain a positive image of themselves. 

By focusing on these values Kaylx could provide to consumers, they could have competed in the limited market. This is because they would have focused on the needs of consumers who are struggling with self image and/or breast pain while also providing a high quality product in a variety of styles. If they could do this, they would create a successful exchange between the consumer and the company because they would have created a product that the consumer wanted, and that they had to sell.

Overall, this first week has been one filled with learning the basics of marketing, and jumping right in to hands on tasks. I can't wait to see what the rest of the semester has in store.

-Kristen

Introduction

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog!!

My name is Kristen Breen and I am a sophomore here at WNE. I am currently studying Sport Management and Marketing and hope to also minor in either journalism or coaching. I am a member of the women's lacrosse team, and am currently in my 11th year of playing the sport.

In my "free time" I am a Student Ambassador in the admissions office, which basically involves giving tours to prospective students, organizing files and mailings, and other such office tasks. As a freshman, I worked as a tutor in the math center, and am sad not to be able to do that anymore.

Other than playing lacrosse and working, I am a member of the Sport Management Association, C.A.R.E. club, and Outing club. I love to go on adventures (like studying abroad in London) and be outdoors. I have three sisters, and am a triplet. I also love to bake (if you ever want cookies you know where to find me), read, write, and color. I am a creator for the online media platform Odyssey which has given me the opportunity to write an immense amount over the past year. I was also fortunate enough to spend this past summer as Editor in Chief for our campus community.

I'm really looking forward to taking this marketing class with all of you and hopefully learning a lot as we go! Looking forward to seeing what you all post in the future.

-Kristen