PROGRAM'S BACKGROUND

Marketing is an exciting, fast-paced, and contemporary business discipline. We are always engaged in marketing activities, either as buyers or as sellers. Marketing managers make marketing-related decisions like choosing who customers are, what goods and services to offer, where to sell these goods and services, the features to stress in ads, and the prices. They also determine how to be ethical and socially responsible, and whether to sell products globally (in addition to domestically).

This intensive marketing program is for all marketers, including those wanting to brush up on their skills or upgrade their knowledge, and for those without a formal marketing background. Loaded with examples and practical applications, this program is designed to bring you quickly up-to-speed and to provide you with the tools to make you and your organization a success.

It blends theory and practice to facilitate immediate implementation and impact. You will learn to develop a strategic marketing plan for organizational implementation and integration with sales and customer plans. A review of the marketing environment (social, economic, legal, regulatory, competitive, and technological forces) is used to help develop the segmentation, targeting and market positioning strategy for implementation along with the marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion). The goal is the identification and delivery of organizational competitive advantage and customer satisfaction – key to long-term revenue growth, profitability and success.

 This program is designed to provide the student with an overview of the marketing concept and how it can be applied to any type of organization or service. It includes the controllable and uncontrollable elements of marketing, strategic planning, market characteristics, marketing research techniques, market segmentation, and target market selection. Marketing involves anticipating, managing, and satisfying demand via the exchange process. Marketing involves a wide range of activities as:

›       Marketing research and market analysis

›       Broadening an organization’s scope

›       Consumer analysis

›       Product and product price planning

›       Distribution planning

›       Promotion planning

›       Managing the marketing process and marketing mix

PROGRAM'S OBJECTIVES

This Program’s Attendees Will Be More Able To:

›       Illustrate the exciting, dynamic, and influential nature of marketing

›       Define marketing and trace its evolution with special focus on the marketing concept, a marketing philosophy, customer service, and customer satisfaction and relationship marketing

›       Show the importance of marketing as a field of study

›       Describe the basic functions of marketing and those who perform these functions

›       Examine the environment within which marketing decisions are made and marketing activities are undertaken

›       Differentiate between those elements controlled by a firm’s top management and those controlled by marketing, and to enumerate the controllable elements of a marketing plan

›       Enumerate the uncontrollable environmental elements that can affect a marketing plan and study their potential ramifications

›       Explain why feedback about company performance and the uncontrollable aspects of its environment and the subsequent adaptation of the marketing plan are essential for a firm to attain its objectives.

›       Define domestic, international, and global marketing domestic marketing covers a firm’s efforts in its home country. International marketing involves goods and services sold outside a firm’s home country.

›       Explain why international marketing takes place and study its scope

›       Explore the cultural, economic, political and legal, and technological environments facing international marketers.

›       Analyze the stages in the development of an international marketing strategy

›       Learn how to build, and integrate and analyze a strategic marketing plan

›       Develop a marketing plan for organizational implementation and integration with sales and customer plans

›        Appreciate the impact of the market environment on the development of the marketing mix

›       Learn market segmentation techniques that result in effective targeting and positioning strategies designed to maximize market share

›       Effectively launch new products and services and achieve marketing objectives

›       Understand cost effective market research techniques

›       Learn the advantages of market segmentation

›       Learn how consumer behavior can impact the advancement of product strategies

›       Develop appropriate pricing strategies that align with marketing objectives

›       Apply product strategies and brand management principles to guide your product portfolio through the stages of the product life cycle

›       Understand modern channel management strategies and alternatives

›       Identify the best advertising, communications and promotion options designed to achieve marketing and corporate objectives

PROGRAM'S ATTENDEES

›       Marketing Managers

›       Managers who’ve recently assumed responsibility for the marketing function

›       Finance managers responsible for understanding and quantifying marketing effectiveness

›       Sales & Marketing Professionals

›       Business Development Team Members

›       Customer Service Professionals

›       Team Leaders & Supervisors

›       Administrators

›       HR & Training Professionals

›       Accounts Personnel

›       Public Relations Professionals

PROGRAM'S OUTLINE

MARKETING DEFINED

›       A proper marketing definition should cover organizations, people, places, and ideas

THE EVOLUTION OF MARKETING

›       There have been three basic philosophies/concepts over the centuries and they are "product", "selling" and "marketing".

›       Each of these philosophies has had a particular time in its history when it was dominant, but the concepts did not die out, they instead evolved and merged with the other philosophies and are still actively used today by companies large and small.

SELLING VERSUS MARKETING PHILOSOPHIES

›       Marketing stresses consumer analysis and satisfaction, directs the resources of the firm toward satisfying consumer wants, and adapts to changes in consumers.

›       Selling is a function of marketing that is geared to communicate with and understand consumers.

DEVELOPING A MARKETING STRATEGY

›       Company and product positioning: In positioning its offering against competitors, a firm needs to present a combination of customer benefits that are not being provided by others and that are desirable by a target market.

›       Customers must be persuaded that there are clear reasons for buying the firm’s products rather than those of its competitors.

BUSINESS TO BUSINESS MARKETING

›       The unique nature of B2B Marketing, customers and derived demand

›       Understanding business buyer behavior and motivation

›       business buying process

›       Unique B2B customer segmentation strategies

›       Target market selection and positioning

›       Channel relationships, conflicts and options

›       Integrated marketing communication and promotional strategies

›       Sales management

›       Pricing strategy, delivering value and avoiding commoditization

›       Unique marketing challenges and opportunities in the b2b sphere

›       Product management and branding strategy

›       Marketing strategy implementation

DEVELOPING A MARKET FOCUSED STRATEGY

›       Strategic customer and market segmentation

›       Optimizing your target market

›       Strategic market, product and company positioning

›       Channel partnerships and strategic relationships

›       Product development, innovation and brand strategy

›       Pricing to achieve strategic objectives

›       Sales management and direct marketing options

›       Developing business and marketing strategic alternatives

›       Developing and implementing integrated marketing communications

MANAGING THE MARKETING MIX

›       The last step in the target marketing process is for a firm to develop a marketing mix for each customer group to which it wants to appeal.

›       Marketing mix decisions are concerned with: product, distribution, promotion, price and politics

DEFINITION AND METHODS OF SALES FORECASTING

›       The importance of sales forecasting is to outline expected company sales for goods or services which are offered to a specific consumer group over an identified period of time through carrying out a defined and well calculated marketing program.

›       Sales forecasting involves industry forecasts, outlining sales potential, setting a realistic sales forecast, and considering the effects of the environment and the firm’s performance.

GLOBAL ASPECTS OF MARKETING

›       Today, worldwide international business transactions account for trillions of dollars in revenues each year. Virtually every country is engaged in international business.

›       Domestic marketing encompasses an organization’s efforts in its home country while International marketing involves marketing goods and services outside the organization’s home country.

›       Global marketing is an advanced form of international marketing in which a firm engages in marketing efforts in many foreign countries.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

There will be a hands-on, practical workshop at the end of this program.