Retail Marketing vs. Commercial Marketing

By: Shannon Crilley

      Marketing is a field dedicated to persuading people to choose a specific product over several competing goods. The two most popular types of marketing right now are retail marketing and commercial marketing. Although the goal of both methods is to sell products, they have differences that both make them unique.
      Commercial marketing is pitching goods to corporations and individuals. Commercial marketing is very broad in scope and focuses on the market as a whole. The goal is to develop a relationship between the consumers and the product. The producer must create a brand identity which the consumer can relate with. They must make the consumer interested in the ad and convince them that they should buy the product.
      Retail marketing has some of the same goals as commercial marketing, but it is limited to only retail products. Retail marketing focuses on selling to individuals instead of whole markets. The producers want consumers to walk into a store and feel connected with the store and the products they are selling. Companies make signs and displays to draw costumers in and have them engage with the product inside the store hoping to make a sale.
      All forms of marketing include connecting the consumer to the product that the producer is trying to sell. There are different styles and techniques in doing so but they all result in the same goal.

""  Capoozi, Catherine. "The Differences in Retail and Commercial Marketing." Chron Business News. Accessed 21 Feb. 2017. 

What is Integrated Marketing?

By Shuting Qi

Integrated marketing is the most important part in the holistic marketing model because integrated marketing contains actual marketing strategies that apply directly to business’s customers. Integrated marketing is a definition of unified multiple marketing activates to maximize customers’ profits and to deliver values. In another word, when a business is designing their marketing strategy, other business activities should also be considered.

There are a great number of marketing strategies could be applied, but all of the marketing strategies could be categorized into four parts, which also called “4P”-product, price, place, and promotion. This term was first presented by E. Jerome McCarthy.

Product:

Business need to find their target customers and focus on main services or products

Price:

Business should list prices for their products, payment methods, and discount rate etc.

Place:

Business should figure out their distribution channel and coverage for products. Logistics and transportation should also be considered.

Promotion:

Most people stereotype only promotion is marketing, but promotion is only partial of marketing strategies. Promotion includes advertising and sale promoting etc.

The 4 Ps above are the basic of simple marketing strategies. Recently, there was another model has been presented by Robert Lauterborn, called “4C”- customer, cost, convenience, and Communication. This 4Cs model is not a replacement of 4Ps. Instead, it is a supplement of 4Ps. Both models need to work with the other one in order to offer the best customer’s experiences.

Customer:

Business should find customers’ preferences first, then apply marketing research findings to design product.

Cost:

Business should know the customers’ willingness to pay before setting the price for a product.

Convenience:

When considering products’ sale channels, business should think about which channel would be the best convenience for their customers.

Communication:

Communication means business need to hear back from their customers instead of the one-way relationship, promotion.

All of the above are must consider elements for business when they practicing integrated marketing.

Kotler, Philip, Kevin Lane Keller, and Taihong Lu. Marketing Management in China. Singapore: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.

Prompt 4: Blogs vs Articles

By Lindsey Murphy

Style is important. I’m not talking about how well your shoes match your outfit, but rather your style of a particular piece of writing. Style can vary based on audience, purpose, and format. Today we are going to be looking at two different forms of writing focused on marketing: “Seth’s Blog” and “Marketing the Unpleasant Truth.”

Blogs are a fun way to write or read about a specific topic. For example, I am enjoying seeing all of the different blogs for class all focused on different career fields. I chose to write about Seth’s Blog because of how simplistic and fun it looked when I first clicked on it. His first post at the top of his page reads,”The opposite of ‘more.’ It’s not ‘less.’ If we care enough, the opposite of more is better.” I think this is very important in most blogs because in this day in age, we are always rushing through things and don’t want to read several large chunks when we can read something shorter that gets to the point fast. Most of Seth’s posts are short or medium sized with paragraphs consisting with only around three or four sentences. Other posts consist of long bullet pointed lists or short numbered lists with sentences. Seth is consistent with this short and sweet style and it also fits with his simplistic but bright appearance of his blog.

The scholarly article,”Marketing the Unpleasant Truth” possesses a style consistent with most scholarly writing pieces. The title is shown at the top, and below it lists the author, the newspaper it was written for, along with the place and the date it was published. The article is pretty long, but broken up nicely with many paragraphs, varying from one to four sentences throughout the piece. With around 1200 words, this piece of writing style definitely contrasts to Seth’s marketing blog motto of “less is more.” Yet, the article is nicely organized with a broad claim in the first sentence,”Brands are adopting a franker approach to advertise their highly personal products.” Then the author uses several different examples and quotes to explain this claim. This style of writing is good for people who would like a large amount of information on a specific topic.

Godin, Seth. "Seth's Blog." Seth's Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.

Rigby, Rhymer. "Marketing the Unpleasant Truth." Financial Times [London] 23 May 2013: n. pag. Web. 19 Feb. 2017. <http://search.proquest.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/docview/1354441084?pq-origsite=summon>.

Infographics

By Jen Mylett

When it comes to making a decent advertisement for the general public, not much does the trick to catch peoples’ attention like some colors and imagery. In fact, the majority of digital marketers say more than half of their creations involve visual elements such as images, graphic designs, video, etc. (Nanji). A visually engaging way to appeal to a target audience could be through the use of an infographic.

So what even is an infographic? An infographic is a visual image like a chart or a diagram that is used to represent information or data to provide an easy-to-understand overview for a more complex subject. In the marketing world, it’s also a great way to promote an idea, company, or product.

Here is an infographic on what an infographic should contain:

Nanji, Ayaz. "How Digital Marketers Are Using Visual Content." MarketingProfs. MarketingProfs LLC, 12 Jan. 2017. Web. 17 Feb. 2017. <https://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2017/31367/how-digital-marketers-are-using-visual-content-infographic>.

Consumer Behavior

By Allison Zwarka

Consumer behavior is important in improving marketing strategies and figuring out the best way to effectively market a product. Consumer behavior is the study of when, where, and why people buy goods and services. Knowing these things is extremely helpful in figuring out how to sell products. Consumer behavior looks at a variety of psychological reasons for why consumers select certain brands and how they make their decisions. These observations can be the difference sales. There are three main uses of consumer behavior:

Market Strategy

This is the most common use of consumer behavior. Market strategy entails using consumer behavior to better market goods and services. Market research reports can help with advertisements and placement in order to make the utmost sales.

Social Marketing

Social marketing is using consumer behavior reports to sell a thought or idea instead of a product. This can include campaigns, legal issues, or any other important issues.

Insight into Yourself as A Consumer

Consumer behavior data can also be used to learn more about yourself as a shopper. By analyzing what others are attracted to it correlates back to things you yourself are attracted to as well.

This data is extremely important in making sure you are producing something consumers will buy. Research helps reduce risks and works to insure you make good sales While this research can significantly reduce risk, you never truly eliminate it altogether. Consumer behavior studies are vital in efforts to minimize them though.

Perner, Lars, Dr. "Consumer Behavior: The Psychology of Marketing." Consumer Behavior: The Psychology of Marketing. USC Marchall School of Business, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2017.

Marketing Techniques

Shannon Crilley


      As a freshman in college headed in the direction of a marketing major, there is still a ton of information I do not know about my field and the jobs within this field. What exactly does a marketing major do? What tools should I become firmiliar with during college? What can I expect in the future? And finally, how can I be successful in this field?
      I started to research the jobs that marketing majors do everyday on the job and I came across a list of new techniques that marketing teams are starting to use with the constant new technology coming out. According to Bob Leduc, a marketing strategist working for Business Know- How there are five new techniques he has been using that has been successful for his marketing team.
#1- Keep Adding Something New: Adding new material, information, or knowledge will always create an opportunity to get a new customer or create more sales.
#2- Become A Valuable Resource- By becoming a resource to your customer, co-workers, and even supervisors you can help things within your company get done faster, easier, and cheaper.
#3- Separate Yourself From Your Competition- Find or create a reason for a customer to do service with you rather than someone else. Determine what makes you unique and then focus on that aspect.
#4- Promote The End Result- Promote the end result that the consumer is searching for by buying your product. For example, no one actually wants braces but people do want straight teeth. By promoting that end result, consumers spend thousands to get what they want.
#5- Anticipate Change- Markets are constantly changing and so are consumer's wants and needs. It's crucial to anticipate change and stay ahead of the curve.
      I know that marketing entails much more than just these five steps but I thought this was a good place to start! I am constantly learning new information everyday that excites me to be pursuing a career in the marketing field.

Leduc, Bob. "Five Successful Marketing Techniques." Business Know-How. N.p. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.

What is Relationship Marketing?

By Shuting Qi

Relationship marketing is a strategy to establish the long-term relationship with not only customers but also business patterns. In order to build a double-bottom line which will benefit both of them. Relationship marketing requires a strong marketing network that business can connect with economy, social, and technology fields. Therefore, each one of the company has special marketing network considered as part of this company’s assets because a company establishing a marketing network is equivalent to gaining consumers’ and partners’ trusts. It will deduct certain costs of advertisement to new customers.

Moreover, as companies put more attention to customer’s behavior and like, their products could be made more adaptive to market, which would absolutely bring profits to companies.

Indeed, more and more companies realize how important of collecting customers’ data, so that their customers bond to the value that these companies created. Thus, consumer loyalty implements the increasing profits to businesses.

For example, BMW, a well-known vehicle manufacturer, allows customers to build their own vehicle from body color to interior. There are over 500 packages, over 90 interior color and 170 sized for the customer to choose. Many of their customers choose to design their perfect vehicle. Because of these type of strategies, companies and their customers both benefit from it. For companies, they do not have to do a lot more marketing research to develop a vehicle that the “market” says customers would like to buy. Instead, the customers can develop their own. For the customer, they do not have to do research and multiple time test drives but still, cannot find one perfect vehicle. Instead, they can build their own vehicle.

There are lots of examples to illustrate the benefits of doing relationship marketing for business. Therefore, it is no doubt that the relationship marketing is useful and beneficial to companies.

Kotler, Philip, Kevin Lane Keller, and Taihong Lu. Marketing Management in China. Singapore: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.