The Marketing Top Ten

There are many different marketing strategies that can be employed according to your target audience, business needs and resources. However, below are a few examples of the different marketing strategies that are available.

- Single segment strategy: This requires focusing on only one single target market segment. This could be because a business has only very limited resources or alternatively, their marketing plan is highly targeted, possibly as a result of being a niche market or product.

- Differentiated marketing strategy: In this strategy there are more than one targeted market to offer your products and services. These different target markets usually need dissimilar advertising campaigns and messages as they aim to reach different segments of the same market.

- Undifferentiated marketing strategy: This strategy aims to reach the whole market with a single product which can reduce production costs. Nowadays, however, this particular approach has lost popularity due to the increase in consumer choice, and thus, customer targeting needs to be specific.

- Micro-marketing strategies: This plan entails focusing on a particular product or service which usually requires business’ to have improved technology

Successful marketing campaign aims to create an awareness of your product or service and then increase the number of satisfied loyal customers. The number of people who are willing or thinking of buying your products or services is an indicator of how effective your marketing tecniques are. First of all, you should develop a plan, developed from your marketing mix, deciding on who your targeted audiences are, the meassage you want to give them, the way you will give the message and your expected achievements after a specific time.  When you develop a plan, you need to think about lots of areas which would depend on the marketing strategy you choose. Some businesses may only rely on word of mouth while others may decide to spend lots of money and resources on advertising and promotional tecniques to draw their potential customers attention. Some of them may have a very specific target market and get high profit from exclusive sales, while others get their profit from high number of sales at cheaper price.

Take the likes of RyanAir and Emirates as examples that demonstrate this point. Both companies are offering the same service/product – air travel, however each possess completely different strategies. Ryan Air is known as a budget airline, keeping flight prices as low as possible, charge extra for food or luggage, has maximum number of seats on the place and aims to target low budgeted people. Emirates on the other hand prides itself on being a luxury airline service even for the economy class passengers, which makes their price considerably higher than the others.

The marketing mix is a buzz term used to describe the elements of a marketing plan, which are known as the Four P`s; Price, Place, Product and Promotion. Some commentators would also add People to the list, while others will increase this marketing melting pots to includes a further two elements – Physical evidence (uniforms, facilities ect) and Process – creating the 7Ps. To apply the marketing mix correctly, you need to define what your products and services are then decide on your pricing strategy and the delivery system to reach your target audience. Finally use the promotional activities to attract more customers, such as online-offline advertising, sales promotions. For instance, you could use online advertising if you are promoting Caribbean honeymoons because many of the couples book their honeymoons online.

Marketing can be defined as a management process that focuses on customer orientation and satisfaction. Basically you inform your target clients about your products and or services, aiming to achieve your companies goals through meeting and exceeding your customers needs better than your competitors.

Every business needs marketing to survive. Owning a good business does not mean anything if a) people do not know about it and b) you do not know how to market it. You could be producing the best product or providing the best service in the world but it would not be a business unless you sell it. Marketing is about how you communicate with your potential customers before selling the product or service you wish them to buy. It starts with understanding your target customers needs and preferences and finding the best way to reach them for the satisfaction of both parts. The ultimate goal is that they buy the product or service they need and you get their hard earned cash.