Marketing Management

December 2022 Examination

Q1. A company provides consultancy to all its clients on the Pricing of their products.
M/s Herbal Life sells various types of FMCG products in the urban market. They sell
toothpaste, multi-vitamin ayurvedic tablets, chia seeds, tulsi tea, herbal soap,
shampoo, etc. The company has asked you to present various types of Product Mix
pricing and price adjustment strategies so that it can help them in taking pricing
decisions for their range of products. (10 Marks)
Ans 1.

Introduction:

The full range of goods and/or services that a company provides is referred to as its product
mix, often known as its product assortment or product portfolio. Product lines, which are
connected goods that customers frequently use together or perceive as related goods or
services, make up a product mix. Understanding a company's product mix is essential since it
has a significant influence on the company's brand image. A firm's product risk is diversified
and its reliance on just one product or product line is diminished by maintaining the high
product width and depth. Having said that, a brand's reputation might suffer from needless or
non-value-adding product wide diversification. Price adjustments, sometimes known as price
protection, are a retail practice used in the United States where customers can get a portion of
their money back if they can prove they bought an item for less within a set period of time.
Your monetization strategy's foundation is pricing. Price changes may improve all elements
of your business, and when those elements change, so can the pricing. A product mix strategy
is a marketing plan that evaluates the company's current product offerings before allocating
resources and efforts to different product lines and particular products in order to best
commercialise them to a particular market or audience and thereby increase the company's
expansion and target share.
Source: Chapter 11 Pricing Strategies. - ppt video online download (slideplayer.com)

Concept and Application:

A business offers all of its clients consultation over the pricing of their items. In the urban
market, M/s Herbal Life distributes a range of FMCG items, including toothpaste,
multivitamin ayurvedic pills, chia seeds, tulsi tea, herbal soap, shampoo, etc. The several
forms of Product Mix Pricing and Price Adjustment Strategies are listed below to aid the
business in making pricing decisions. The following are the four main product mix strategies:
● Expansion:
When a business adds more product lines, some of which may even be distinct from
the current line of business. This is typically done when a business believes its current
portfolio won't be enough to compete in the market.
● Contraction:
When a business discontinues some product lines or specific goods that are not
lucrative enough, or simplifies the remaining products. In this situation, a business
chooses to concentrate just on the most lucrative models or lines instead of
discontinuing or getting rid of one or more product lines or product items. Here, thick
product lines are thinned out. Some models or kinds that are unsuccessful are
dropped.
● Alteration of existing products:
When a business enhances current items' features, quality, or effectiveness as opposed
to creating new ones. In comparison to starting from scratch with a new business, this
approach is less hazardous.
● Product differentiation:
When a business begins to market a product as being a better option than the
competitors without changing its features, attributes, or cost. In this scenario, a
business uses persuasive marketing skills, effective marketing initiatives, and deft
promotion strategies to persuade its target market that their product delivers superior
functionality or greater quality.

There are seven types of price adjustment strategies, and they are as follows:

● Discount & Allowance pricing:

 Most businesses change their base pricing to offer discounts to consumers who pay
their bills on time, buy in bulk, or shop outside of peak times. Pricing with discounts
and allowances can take a variety of forms: A price reduction might be offered to
customers who pay their invoices on time in cash.
● Segmented pricing:
The term "segmented pricing" refers to the practise of offering a product at two or
more price points depending on cost variations. It takes on several shapes. Different
clients pay various prices for the same good or service with customer segment pricing.
Various product versions are priced differently under product-form pricing, but the
difference is not brought on by price variations. In location-based pricing, a company
sets different rates for various areas while incurring the same costs to provide each
location.
● Psychological pricing:
Pricing is said to be influenced by the psychology of the price that buyers are willing
to pay. It is not a reasonable price. This primarily serves to comment on the product.
Many consumers rely their opinions of a product's quality on how much it costs.
When purchasing any fragrant goods, cheap cost items are thought to be of bad
quality. Some consumers think that the price was expensive because it meant
something exceptional.
● Promotional pricing:
In order to boost immediate sales, promotion pricing necessitates temporarily selling
things below the list price and occasionally even below cost. Companies work to
generate a sense of urgency and excitement around purchases. Discounts from regular
prices might be used as promotional pricing to boost sales and lower inventory.
Additionally, to draw in more clients during particular seasons, special event pricing
may be used. Promotional pricing may also include low-interest credit, extended
warranties, or upkeep that is free.
● Geographical pricing:
Geographical pricing is the technique by which producers establish their prices for
clients who are based all over the world. Pricing must be properly calculated for
clients who reside in various regions of the world. Five distinct geographic pricing
models will now be demonstrated.
● Dynamic pricing:
Dynamic pricing is the practise of continuously changing prices to accommodate the
specific traits and demands of various clients and circumstances. When you consider
the past, pricing were often negotiated between buyers and sellers. As a result, pricing
were modified to suit the individual client or circumstance. Dynamic pricing begins
precisely at that point. Instead of having set pricing, prices are changed daily or even
hourly, taking into account a variety of factors such the current demand, stocks, and
expenses.
● International pricing:
International pricing is the final key price adjustment strategy. Companies that sell
their goods globally must choose the pricing to charge in the various markets where
they do business. The cost that a business should charge in a nation can vary
 depending on a number of variables, including the economy, market competition,
rules and regulations, and the evolution of the system of wholesale and retail sales.
Additionally, customer views and tastes may fluctuate from nation to nation,
necessitating pricing variations. Additionally, the business could have different
marketing goals in various areas, which call for adjustments to the price approach.

Conclusion:

Therefore, from the above strategies we can infer that these strategies will help the FMCG
organziation to quote the best price of the products for the target audience. The company
would be successful if the careful consideration needs to be taken into play before choosing a
strategies for their products for the growth and sale of the company’s merchandise.

Q2. Elaborate on various types of promotion mix that you will use for the Herbal Life
products (as explained in the first question). The main idea behind the promotion is that
it should become a household product like Patanjali or Dabur. (10 Marks)
Ans 2.

Introduction:

Promotion is a marketing approach used to interact amongst vendors and purchasers. The
merchant uses this to attempt to influence and persuade customers to purchase their items or
services. It aids in getting information out regarding the commodity, services, or
organization. Promotional activities assist a company in communicating the offering and its
characteristics to customers and generating their enthusiasm for the intended behavior. A
variety of actions can be deemed promotional. While some companies sell their products to
customers naturally, others use sponsored media or paid communication. The promotion mix
is made up of all of these actions. To accomplish a particular marketing objective, a
promotional mix is a mixture of marketing strategies such as advertising, sales, public
relations, and direct marketing. Generally, the promotional mix is merely one component of a
bigger marketing mix. It entails the amalgamation of many promotional tactics used by
businesses to establish, sustain, and expand demand for goods and services. The fourth
component of the 4 P's of Marketing Mix is promotion, which focuses on raising awareness
and encouraging customers to make a purchase. The Promotion Mix refers to the many
methods that aid in a company's promotion purpose. Advertising, personal selling, sales
promotion, public relations, and direct marketing are all part of the Promotion Mix. In order
to achieve a well-balanced combination of various promotional techniques, marketers must
think about the following issues. The main objective of the promotion mix strategies is to
transform herbal life products into household products like Patanjali or Dabur.
 Source: https://businessjargons.com/promotion-mix.html

Concept and Application:

Promotion is any sort of brand communication that is used to enlighten the intended audience
about the relative qualities of a goods, services, brand, or problem, and is usually aimed at
persuading them. The fourth of the four Ps of the marketing mix, promotion, focuses on
conveying the brand and product to the target consumer and influencing their purchasing
decisions. The promotion mix is the collection of all promotional factors used by a company
to develop, maintain, and enhance demand for its brands or goods. A promotional mix is
considered effective if you are able to present a clear, appealing message while using the
most effective advertising strategy. The promotional mix usually involves 5 elements and
they are as follows:

● Personal selling:
Personal selling is a component of the promotional mix that entails one-on-one
connection between buyers and customers (either potential or already customers).
Because it is one-on-one communication, it fosters direct interaction with prospects
and consumers. It entails tailored dialogues and promotional demonstrations by the
salesman produced after studying the demands and desires of the target client to
whom they advertise. Personal selling, as opposed to advertising, fosters a personal
relationship between the digital marketing manager and the client while incurring
higher expenditures per person contacted.
● Advertising:
Advertising is a significant component of the promotional mix that adds to brand
building and how the market views the organisation. Considering the enormous reach
of advertising and the message that you may deliver to your present and future clients,
it is always a key element of the promotional mix. This promotional mix component
employs paid media channels such as television, radio, newspapers, billboards, and
sometimes even digital advertising channels such as social media platforms and
search engines. Good advertising may help a firm establish a strong brand. On the
other side, poor advertising with the incorrect message can lead to the failure of a
brand or product.
 ● Direct marketing:
Direct marketing is a promotion method in which the brand contacts the target
customers directly rather than through an intermediary such as a store or wholesaler.
It's an excellent promotional method that enables the business to engage directly with
potential customer via channels such as door-to-door promotion, marketing phone
calls, SMS, emails, instant messaging advertising offers, targeted adverts, and so on.
However, direct marketing is not the same as personal selling. Despite the fact that it
involves direct interaction in between brand and the client, it does not frequently
entail truly customized sales presentations. Companies use direct marketing to
communicate with their consumers in one-way regarding product launches, special
deals, purchase confirmations, and customer queries.
● Sales promotions:
Sales promotions are one of the most prevalent sorts of company promotions. Their
primary goal is to increase purchasing and sales. While it has the ability to boost
sales, it is also useful for alerting prospects about new items on the market or just
recapturing former or lost clients. It is the promotion of an item via the use of
appealing short-term incentives to generate demand and enhance sales. Short-term
incentives are frequently used this to encourage new items in the market, promote
remaining stock, draw in more customers, and momentarily increase sales.
● Public relations:
Public relations include connecting with and attracting the target audience through
earned media channels such as news, the word of mouth, government
pronouncements, and so on. Simply said, public relations is a planned process of
disseminating organization-related data to the general population through reliable
channels such as news in order to preserve the brand's positive reputation.
Trustworthy sources, brand mission-oriented communication messaging, and two-way
communication are all part of public relations, as the brand publishes the
communication and awaits for the public response before strategically releasing
another set of communications.

Conclusion:

As a result, we can infer that the Herbal Life should take advantage of promotion mix aspects
in order to plan, create, and implement efficient marketing campaigns. Furthermore, it
enables businesses to capitalise on their strengths while avoiding needless expenses, as well
as to demonstrate to the target audience of Herbal Life goods the benefits, features, and
values of the items or services you provide. This distinguishes you from competitors such as
Patanjali and Dabur and drives sales.
Q3a. Mr. Raj is planning to purchase a new phone with the latest features. Explain
various steps involved for Raj in the decision process. (5 Marks)
Ans 3 A.

Introduction:

The consumer choice process, also known as the buyer decision process, assists markets in
determining how customers progress from learning about a product to making a purchasing
decision. Recognising the buyer's purchasing process is critical in marketing and sales. The
customer or buyer choice process will allow them to create a marketing plan that will
persuade them to acquire the product or service in order to solve the buyer's or consumer's
problem. The customer decision-making process includes problem identification, search,
assessment, and purchase choice. Post-purchase behaviour is the effect of the happiness or
discontent provided by consuming. When a consumer recognises a need or problem, or when
a need occurs, the buying process begins. It can be triggered by either internal or external
events. Mr. Raj has to go through various steps to make a decision on buying a new phone
with the latest features.

Source: https://animasmarketing.com/consumer-decision-making-process/

Concept and Application:

The customer decision-making process includes problem identification, search, assessment,

and purchase choice. Post-purchase behaviour is the effect of the happiness or discontent
provided by consuming. When a consumer recognises a need or problem, or when a need
occurs, the buying process begins. It can be triggered by either internal or external events. It
is vital to understand that the buyer journey, purchasing cycle, buyer funnel, and consumer
purchase decision process are all terms for the consumer decision making process. All of the
terms, however, basically allude to the same thing: the route a buyer takes while completing a
purchase. The consumer decision making process is a five-step procedure that analyses
customer behaviour prior to a purchase:

● Need Recognition:
The purchasing process begins with the identification of a need. Recognizing
customers' requirements requires recognising their internal and external sources of
developing needs. Internal factors include starvation, thirst, and houses, whereas
external ones include human influence, advertising, and exhibitions. A marketing
executive should investigate and analyse these sources at this stage of the purchase
process to determine their requirements and challenges. Nobody becomes ready to
purchase products or services without first recognising a need. As a result, the
purchase process begins with the identification of an unsatisfied demand or problem.
● Information Search:
The search for information is the second stage of the purchase process. Once the need
is identified, the customer is motivated to seek further information and enters the
information seeking stage. The customer may be paying close attention or doing an
active look for information. The quantity of searching a customer does is determined
by his motivation, the volume of data he starts with, the convenience with which he
may access more information, the importance he places on extra information, and the
enjoyment he derives from looking. Buyers and customers can obtain knowledge
about things from a variety of sources, including personal sources, commercial
sources, public sources, and experimental sources.
● Alternative Evaluation:
The third stage of the purchasing process is the evaluation of alternatives. Various bits
of information gathered from different sources are utilised to assess the desirability of
various alternatives. Various customers employ different criteria when assessing
goods and services. To pick appropriately, buyers often analyse the alternatives based
on product qualities, degree of significance, brand belief, contentment, and so on.
They assess options by concentrating on their level of satisfaction and importance.
Consumer income threshold, expertise, cognition, intuition, information availability,
data analysing capacity, and so on all impact alternative evaluation.
● Purchase Decision:
The consumer has now determined what to buy and where to buy it based on the
information obtained. At this point, a consumer has either examined all of the
information and reached a reasonable end, made a choice based on psychological
connectedness, or surrendered to advertising/marketing efforts, or a mix of all of the
above.
● Post-Purchase Behaviour:
Consumers reflect on their most recent purchase at this step of the buying selection
process. They consider how consumers feel about it, whether or not it was a smart
investment, and, most importantly, whether or not they will returning to the brand for
future orders and suggest it to family and acquaintances.
Conclusion:

Therefore, we can conclude that Mr. Raj will go through various steps mentioned above in
his decision making process to make a purchase decision on buying a new phone. Through
the organisation of pertinent data and the identification of alternatives, the process aids in
your ability to make more careful, considered judgments. This process enhances the
likelihood that the buyer will select the most pleasing option available.

Q3b. Global Stock is an online app for the purchase of international stocks from the
international market. Explain and elaborate any five ways through which you will
promote the app online. (5 Marks)
Ans 3 B.

Introduction:

Online marketing is sometimes referred to as digital marketing or Internet marketing. Online

advertising refers to any marketing message that appears on the Internet. Accordingly, it may
show up in an internet browser, a search engine, social networking sites, a smart phone, and
even an email. For a variety of reasons, including the fact that it's very affordable, attracts a
large audience, can be monitored to determine success (or failure), and may be tailored to a
particular demographic, intelligent marketers are increasingly using this venue to contact
customers. As more opportunities for marketers open up, internet advertising is indeed
expanding in breadth (think ads delivered through text message or branding messages
delivered to users in a specific region, known as geo-targeting). Global Stock, being an online
app for the purchase of international stocks from the international Market should use the
following ways mentioned below.

Source: How to drive marketing results with online advertising in 5 Steps - plista

Concept and Application:

Online advertising is a type of marketing that uses the Internet as a tool to drive visitors to
websites and target and communicate with potential consumers. Online advertising aims to
define markets through special and practical uses. There are different way through which the
app can be promoted online, they are as follows:
 ● Social Media Advertising:
Social media networks, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, are flooded with
marketing messages. Because the audience spend so much time going through our
newsfeed, responding, like, and promoting, social media is an excellent platform for
marketers to connect with their audience. This includes Facebook advertisements,
sponsored tweets, and adverts that appear between YouTube videos.
● Content Marketing:
Another wonderful strategy for reaching the proper audience is content marketing. Its
main objective is to improve a website's organic traffic through SEO; but, once a plan
and content are in place, it may expand the content's reach and engagement by
purchasing for it to appear on related websites. In other words, without publicity, the
production expenses might frequently exceed the potential return. Paid advertising
can assist to boost the ROI of content marketing.
● Email Marketing:
Since email advertising are such a common type of web marketing, many customers
don't even consider them to be advertisements. Opening the email will probably
reveal adverts for new cable services, discounts on children's clothing at Macy's, or
the newest Samsung or Apple smartphone technology. Email advertisements can
occasionally take the shape of newsletters or discounts.
● Search Engine Advertising:
Search Engine Marketing aims to make the website more visible on search engine
results pages (SERP) by paying to be seen on search engines like Google. It shouldn't
be confused with SEO (search engine optimization), which is the practise of getting as
far up in the search results as you can without spending money to do so. SEM is
sometimes referred to as PPC (pay per click), and it can be used to Microsoft Bing
Ads or Google Adwords, for instance. CPC (cost per click) or CPI are typically used
to gauge how beneficial an investment was (cost per impression).
● Display Advertising:
Display advertisements, perhaps the most traditional type of internet advertising, can
take the form of anything from banners of all sizes and forms to text ads that are
pertinent to the page's content. This form of advertising involves placing your
advertisement, which is often composed of branded images, videos, graphics, or rich
media content, on other websites so that when a person clicks on it, they are sent back
to the own website.
● Mobile Advertising:
A significant portion of the day, it seems sense that businesses are turning to mobile
advertising to connect with consumers. Nevertheless, it should be used with
precaution as this method of marketing goods and services is getting more and more
restricted. Advertising using mobile applications, push notifications, SMS/text
messaging, and MMS are just a few examples of mobile-specific marketing strategies.

Conclusion:
Therefore, we can conclude that Global Stock can utilize the above ways and methods can be
used to promote the app online. Promoting online gives them the ability to send the brand’s
message to a large audience that requires the services while focusing on a very specialised
vertical or specialty.