Navigating the Marketing Process

Navigating the Marketing Process

Introduction

Now that we have developed a majority of the research for marketing our product we will begin navigating through the complete process in order to develop a final plan and have a complete marketing mix and strategy when we are finished.

Definition of Marketing

Marketing is a process of planning, promoting and following through with an idea as well as convincing and satisfying individuals and groups that your idea or product is profitable, economical and best suitable for the marketplace.

Introduction of Product/Service

I have chosen the product Gain, laundry detergent as my product to research. I can remember my mom and my grandma using Gain detergent. Nothing made me happier than to curl up in a blanket at my grandma's house, because it smelled so nice and clean. Gain laundry detergent has been around for many years. The product is produced by Procter and Gamble and they have proven to be great marketing company over the years. Procter and Gamble was accredited by the Better in 1928 and has been going strong since then.

Gain offers a wide variety of scents and fragrances as well for the different models of washing machines such as the HE machines. I think making the different varieties and keeping the availability of the product well know and distributed makes the product very well marketed by the company.

Situation Analysis -- Marketing Environment Forces Impacting Product/Service

Managing raw material costs: Surfactants, ingredients and related chemicals can affect the profitability of the product as well as have a huge impact on product with the rising costs of the raw materials it takes to make the product. The rising crude oil prices are just one example that has hugely affected the suppliers and producers of petroleum based products such as laundry soap and detergents.

Global Strategies play an in important role on a product that is being sold or produced abroad and can have a major impact on the product and profitability if the rules and regulations are not followed.

Volatile Production Demand is the overall demand for the soaps and laundry detergents and it can vary in many situations and result in a wide variety of production issues and cause various impacts such as: volume availability, cost effectiveness planning and limited supply and demand issues. It as well can make capacity planning very difficult. The production demand can be influenced by many situations like population growth, economic stature, world events and every day usage and overall supply and demand for the product.

Marketing Strategy: Target Market(s) & Positioning

I believe in the Gain detergent manufacturing market you could strategize on many of these markets and use them to your advantage. Geographically, if you were to put a store in a rural area, you probably wouldn't sell as much or in a poverty stricken area, you would want to highly promote and distribute your product in an urban or highly populated area so that the product will have a high volume of sales. You would as well want to strategize on the demographic area, psychographic areas as well as the behavioral. All of these areas are very important to product revenue and economic success. Demographically you would want to possibly take surveys, look at population statistics, family size etc. In the psychographic area you would want to pay close attention to the social class and lifestyle's lived. If the area is a well know wealthy area, they may not purchase their own household products and may have laundry services that do such things. Now, as for the behavioral area, this would probably be the most important area, where the consumer is loyal to a brand and the product usage is very high.

Product/Service Overview and Strategies to Consider

My product of choice has been Gain laundry detergent from the beginning. Not only is Gain the second leading selling laundry detergent in the industry, it has been around since the early 1960's, so it is a proven leader in laundry detergent. It is the best buy in the store aisle.

Gain offers 13 different scents, powdered, liquid and high efficiency detergent too. The detergent is very economical and always in a convenient location. You can most always find the detergent in every dollar store, Wal-mart or grocery store. I believe the marketing choice of "Convenience" is one of the best marketing tactics that Procter & Gamble could ever use. If you make it convenient as well as easy to shop for, the consumer is much more likely to purchase your product.

Some of your most important decisions in developing your market strategy for your product can be things such as packaging, labeling and branding. If a consumer sees a well known manufactures name on the package like Procter & Gamble, they are more apt to buy that product as they know that they are known for selling a great product. Creating an attractive package and the perfect clearly visible label is as well important. You want it to be appealing to the customer, but definitely eye catching too. Gain laundry detergent has a bright lime green package with orange writing and a pleasant yellow sun background with butterflies fluttering around. I personally love the packaging, it is easy to find in the aisle and I can usually send my kids to get it and not even worry that they will get the wrong thing.

In our competitors world I see that they spend lots of money on mass marketing, coupons, billboards and commercials. I know this helps a product in a lot of ways, but I also feel that it can be way over rated too. Gain does not promote or advertise near as much as Tide detergent. Tide costs more and offers coupons, but even with these coupons Gain is cheaper and does a better job on the laundry from my point of few. Tide is known for having the bright orange package, which is attractive but I do not think that it is known as well for the packaging, but more for the commercials and advertisements.

Pricing Strategy

When considering pricing for an item there are factors that will impact a company's pricing