For this week's blog post, the assignment was to create a Weebly website that served as a portfolio. I decided to showcase the blog assignments by linking my blog account as well as show the marketing plan I had created earlier this semester for BH Cosmetics.
There is plenty of competition out there in the world. Small businesses have to compete with both small and large businesses that offer similar products or services as them with competitive pricing, better quality or simply they have been in business much longer. The same thing can be applied to individuals when they go out to seek for employment. For that reason, it is important to market yourself to not just the public, but also to businesses that may want to hire you. There are some strategies that both individuals and businesses can take in order to appeal and present the qualities that make them stand out from the crowd.
Social media is incredibly important since it is where it is easier as a business to grab the attention of a certain population that may be attracted to your product or service. It is also a way to keep in touch and update your customers with anything that concerns your business.
Another way to market what your business has to offer, making videos is another option. Often times people are in a hurry and they do not have the time to read about what you have to offer, so to adapt to your customer's lifestyle, it is easier to just make videos of what you have to offer and let the customer see and hear for themselves.
The production concept is based on the approach that a company can increase mass production through an increase in supply while decreasing its overall cost.
By doing do, the company will be able to profit much more from a product or service rather than spending more on labor, material, and overhead.
Product Concept
Based on the company's assumption that customers prefer products of greater quality, lower prices, and an increased availability.
When a company decides to introduce a new product or service into the market, they need to give the customer a reason why they should choose their product or service over the one that a competitors is selling.
Selling Concept
A company's assumption that a customer would only purchase their products exclusively from them, but the assumption does not include the relationships that could be built with the customer.
Marketing Concept
Concept that places the consumer at the center of the organization and al the activities. As a result, all the activities and research a company does is aimed to get to know the consumer better.
Social Marketing Concept
The belief that a company as a whole needs to target and deliver better values than its competitor. It emphasizes the importance of the well-being of both customers and society as a whole, It also demonstrates to consumers that the company isn't exclusively a sale driven entity but instead also take into account the more human nature of it's consumers.
Advertising is a form of communication from a sponsor or source that draws attention to ideas, goods, or services. The majority of the advertising is directed towards groups rather than individuals and delivered through the media that group of people would most likely use in order to create the most effective impact on them. There are a lot of factors that make make advertising more or less effective, often times revolving around what the group of people have in common. Often times there is also a need to
There are many reasons why a business would invest money and time into advertising a product, service, or cause. There are three main reason that summarize the overall goal of advertising for businesses:
Informative Advertising
Creates awareness of brands, products, services, and ideas.
It announces new products and programs which can as a result educate people about the attributes and benefits of new or established products the company has to offer.
Persuasive Advertising
The overall goal is to attempt to convince customers a company's services or products are one of the best on the market.
It attempts to influence consumer to take action and switch brands, try a new products, or simply continue to be loyal to that particular brand.
Reminder Advertising
Simply reminds people about the need for a product or services, the features that makes it unique, and the benefits it will provide when purchases as soon as possible.
Marketing is a major part of business in order to plan and execute a plan to not just promote but also generate sales for a business. Since marketing is seen in nearly every aspect of our lives, it is imperative to have at least some guidelines to follow whenever creating a marketing plan in order to prevent any backlash from the public as well as have mutual respect anyone that views the advertisement.
Just like any career in business, it is important to have a strong background in ethics. As many know, most of ethics revolved around the discussion of values and how to approach different scenarios that may conflict with company and personal beliefs. In order to reconcile for these varying views, most marketer approach the varying scenarios using a utilitarian way of thinking. In that approach, the overall goal of a marketer is to create the greatest good and happiness for the majority.
The best way of thinking of it is "does our product or service result in greater harm than good?" It is also important to inform those who are in charge of the potential impact, whether positive or negative, in order to change the approach or keep it that way. If at some point it is unethical or the ethical impact is not strong enough, it is imperative to communicate those ideas in order to make others understand why it's wrong.
There are millions of people using Instagram every day, engaging in all sorts of posts and stories that their favorite influencers post. Rather than just using it to engage with the followers, many companies are using this platform to advertise the various products and services they have to offer through Instagram ads.
Instagram ads is a way for businesses to not just market what they have to offer to a select demographic, they can view and monitor their engagements and profile visits throughout the day also have the options to direct the customers directly to the company website. Since Facebook does own Instagram since it acquired it back in 2013, the ads work similar to Facebook. Depending on the budget the company has available, they can target hundreds of thousands of people to their business through the ads and as a result increase sales.
There are various ways to present the ads to the audience. Whether it is story, photo, video, carousel, or collection ads, they will each advertise the product, service, or event that is trying to get exposure. The most crucial part about using this feature is figuring out which is the most effective to get the audience's attention. From there you simply choose the demographic, upload the post or story, and then pay the budgeted advertisement.
In a business, it is absolutely imperative to be able to price a product or service in order to cover manufacturing costs and to leave some profit for the company to continue to grow and potentially expand. Pricing is defined as the method of determining the value a manufacturer with receive in exchange for the product or service they have to offer. All businesses work to gain a profit, but pricing a product too high will not attract enough consumers to their company, that is why they need to keep certain points in mind when deciding on a price:
Nature of a particular product or service
Price of a similar product or service in the market
Target audience that would be interested in the product or service
Cost of production, labor, raw material, machinery, inventory, transit, etc...
Various external factors, i.e. the economy, government policies, legal issue, etc...
There are also some objectives that businesses have to be aware of when it comes to when it comes to deciding what direction they want the pricing to go.
1. Survival
A company needs to be able to provide profitable yet competitive prices in order to be able to survive over the years against their competitors.
2. Maximize current profits
Estimate supply and demand throughout the year in order to be able to maximize the potential profit.
3. Capture market share
Base pricing on the economies of scale. Lower prices means there would be a potential of a higher multitude of customers that are able to afford that product or service. Although with a more expensive product or service, there would be a higher profit, but it would also become more exclusive to those that have the purchasing power.
4. Market skimming
Charge higher price on products or services that are innovative and use modern technology since there while be a slightly higher manufacturing price.
5. Product quality leadership
Charging the prices that are considered fit for a particular product or service bases on the quality that is perceived by the consumer. So higher quality means higher prices and vice versa.
