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Marketing

According to Kotler et al 1999 marketing is a managerial activity through which

individuals or groups obtain goods and services they need through trading. Marketing provides

an interactive platform between the consumers and the producers hence gives a direction towards

the fulfillment of customers' needs. It is one of the broad branches of business and it is discussed

exhaustively in this paper.

Marketing mix is composed of the fundamental factors involved in the marketing process

of goods and services, also known as the 4ps. These factors are product, place, price, and

promotion. Product is a good or a service and is obligated to fulfill consumers' demand. Price is

the cost paid for a product by a consumer depending on the value of the product. Place entails

were to sell the product and the means through which it gets to the market. Promotion requires

advertisement and creating awareness of the goods to the consumer and why the product is fit for

them. The four factors work in correlation to each other and affect both the external and the

internal environment of a business (Twin, 2020).

Marketing is an important tool for a successful business and comes with the following

advantages:

It helps to increase sales in a business. Creating awareness makes the customer get

information such as the price, uses, and how better it is from others. This information increases

the chance of its purchase.

Marketing gives a favorable platform to engage the customers. Customer engagement

enables the business to get the views of the customers about the product and how they should

improve it.

The relationship between customers and the business is built through marketing.

Market researches assist a business to know the views of the customer about the product and

their expectations thus winning their trust.

Through marketing, businesses communicate with their customers. Customers get useful

information from the producers on the new products in the market, the prices, and how they are

used (Mansoor, 2019).

Businesses sometimes face challenges when the market is competitive especially when

the businesses produce the same product. Some of these challenges and their remedies are

discussed below.

Inadequate resources to produce good quality content. It requires a lot of skills and

resources for a company to maintain a constant production of high-quality content. This

challenge can be curbed by outsourcing the same content instead of producing them in-house,

small businesses can directly pay another business to produce quality content.

Lack of budget. Most unplanned businesses run into a budget issues leading to the

collapse of the business due to losses. A company allocates many funds on marketing which may

not be compensated back which leads to collapse. This can be solved by creating a marketing

budget and have strategic market plans on how to attain financial aims. For instance, in a small

market, a small marketing budget should be allocated to reduce the risk of overspending.
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Little visibility of the product in the market. Customers in a given market may lack

information about a product in the market and always go for other products they are aware of.

The best way to handle this is to create an improved brand that can sustain visibility in the

market and creating awareness of the product (Barnhart, 2020).

In the world of business globalization of competitive markets is one of the greatest

developments in the recent past and it has several contributions to the competitive market, firstly

is the development of unbreakable trade links between nations this implies that the countries will

always depend on each other either in terms of infrastructure or even the market for their goods

and services, secondly, globalization of markets has moved the attention of the market players

from their respective countries, industry and specific enterprises to the rest of the world this has

led to an increased number of suppliers and possible trade partners. Thirdly globalization of

competitive markets has affected pricing and costs of goods depending on supply and demand of

the product, it has also led to lower costs of startups due to the availability of goods and services

across the globe. Improved communication and transport networks, reduced restrictions on

international trade, development of trade zones amongst nations, and the distribution of resources

are among the factors fueling globalization of the competitive markets (Bang & Markeset, 2012).

SWOT Analysis otherwise known as the SWOT matrix is the short form for “strength,

weaknesses, opportunities, threats”. SWOT is an analysis business tool used to examine the

company’s internal and external strengths which can be used to improve its competitive

advantage in the market (MindTools, 2009). The various aspects of SWOT analysis are

discussed below;
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Strengths are the various positive attributes that the company has and it does the

extremely perfect thus differentiating them from the other market players in the competitive

market, some these strengths might include efficient and well-trained employees, proper funding

thus good access to resources or strategic location with access to infrastructure and the market.

Weaknesses on the other hand are what the organization considers as a weak point or a

vulnerability in their structure, weaknesses are internal and they ought to be sorted internally.

Weakness can arise from the human resources, organizational structure, and the access to

resources. To identify weaknesses, they should be looked at from an outsider's point of view.

Opportunities are unexploited chances in the market that a company has not yet

identified, they are chances of positive progress but they need to be seized by the company.

Opportunities occur outside the company and they need a close examination so that they can be

identified, they might arise in the market or a given advancement in technology or even a change

in the government policy that favors a given business. Conducting a SWOT analysis regularly

helps the company identify the opportunities as they arise.

The last procedure of the SWOT analysis is looking at the threats that threats face the

company, a threat is anything likely to take the company down, threats are external factors and

they may arise from the following area; supply chain issues, a change in the market requirements

or even lack of manpower. Identifying the threats enables the company to avoid them hence the

continuous growth of the business (MindTools, 2009).

Ansoff’s growth matrix is an essential strategic business tool taught in business schools

across the world, the tool was invented by Igor Ansoff and published in the Harvard Business

Review first in 1957. In the strategy, Ansoff says that there are just 2 ways of coming up with a
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growth method; by reviewing the product being sold and its target market. When combined

Ansoff’s matrix brings out four options that can be used to grow a business (Oxford College of

Marketing, 2018). This paper will go through each of them;

Market penetration is the most secure amongst the other 4 strategies, this strategy focuses

on increasing the sales of the current product in the market it already exists in, this is because the

product and the market are well known. The next strategy is product development, it involves a

higher amount of risk compared to market penetration, because one is trying to introduce a

different product into an old market. Next is market development, here an existing product is

introduced in a new market, it can be introduced either by upgrading an existing product by

giving it new features that increase its productivity. The last strategy is diversification, this is the

riskiest in Ansoff’s growth matrix because it involves introducing a new product into a new

market (Mindtools, 2009).

Digital marketing is a form of marketing that is done on social media, forms of digital

marketing include social media marketing, email marketing, and blogging (Aden Andrus, 2018).

Below are some ways through which a business gains from digital marketing;

Digital marketing is relatively cheaper. It is cheaper compared to other forms of

marketing since it does not require traveling to the marketplace.

It’s flexible. Creating a wide range of markets builds a better platform to open more

possibilities for wider market scope in the future of the business.

Digital marketing leads to business expansion. Large numbers of consumers do their

shopping online. Digital marketing exposes the business to these buyers thus expanding the

business.
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Enables tracking. This is simply monitoring of the customers through the internet and

tract their activities this enables a business to know the marketing methods to use (Ballantine,

2018).
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References

Aden Andrus (2018). What is Digital Marketing and How Do I Get Started? [online]

Disruptive Advertising. Available at: https://www.disruptiveadvertising.com/marketing/digital-

marketing/.

Ballantine (2018). 10 Clear Reasons Why You Need Digital Marketing... [online] Ballantine.
Available at: https://www.ballantine.com/10-undeniable-reasons-need-digital-marketing/.

Bang, K.E. and Markeset, T. (2012). Impact of Globalization on Model of Competition and
Companies’ Competitive Situation. Advances in Production Management Systems. Value
Networks: Innovation, Technologies, and Management, pp.276–286.

Barnhart (2020). Solutions for the 5 Biggest Marketing Challenges. [online] CMA. Available at:
https://cmasolutions.com/blog/solutions-for-the-5-biggest-marketing-challenges.

Mansoor, H. (2019). Why Is Marketing Important? 9 Reasons Why You Need It. [online]
Business 2 Community. Available at:
https://www.business2community.com/marketing/why-is-marketing-important-9-
reasons-why-you-really-do-need-it-02186221.

MindTools (2009). SWOT Analysis – Discover New Opportunities, Manage and Eliminate
Threats. [online] Mindtools.com. Available at:
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05.htm.

Mindtools (2009). The Ansoff MatrixUnderstanding the Risks of Different Options. [online]
Mindtools.com. Available at:
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_90.htm.

Oxford College of Marketing (2018). Using The Ansoff Matrix to Develop Marketing Strategy.
[online] Oxford College of Marketing Blog. Available at:
https://blog.oxfordcollegeofmarketing.com/2016/08/01/using-ansoff-matrix-develop-
marketing-strategy/.
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Twin, A. (2020). Four Ps of Marketing: Know What They Are. [online] Investopedia. Available
at: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/four-ps.asp.