Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning – Achieving a Successful Marketing Mix.

Develop a marketing strategy before making a marketing strategy, you need to know the market if the product will gain support to the consumer. Simple things such as segmentation, targeting and positioning are part of marketing strategy. A company should know how to compete to its competitors and has a high expectation to its product and has a better understanding of its target market. A company should have ability to invest money and can afford to have a great positioning in the market and can satisfy smaller to larger market that leads to a more efficient use of resources.

1. To succeed in today’s competitive marketplace, companies must be customer-centered, wining customers from competitors and keeping them by delivering greater value.

Advertising is bringing a product (or service) to the attention of potential and current customers. Promotion is a way to increase customer awareness of a product or a brand, generate sales and create brand loyalty.

A well-developed marketing plan is an essential blueprint for a business to attain the prime financial support and consumer base it requires in order for it to develop and grow. A marketing plan’s detailed structure allows manager’s to define the business’ marketing strategies in clear and in-depth formats that feature a precise roadmap to future growth and expansion. A first class and properly structured marketing plan will guide the entire organization’s marketing actions and keep them focused and dedicated toward achieving the company 's overall goals and strategies.

Companies today try their best to continue to keep up with the changes of services, products and technology. Companies rely on their abilities in marketing to keep consumers interested in their products and services. The success of a company may rely on the company’s marketing performance. Marketing planning starts by thinking of the targeted audience needs, strategies, and the development of the products and or service needed. Developing a marketing strategy will consist of the marketing mix.

The function of promotion is to affect the customer behavior in order to close a sale. Of course, it must be consistent with the buying process described in the consumer analysis. Promotion includes mainly three topics: advertisement, public relations, and sales promotions.

Sales promotion consists of all promotional activities other than advertising, personal selling and publicity that help to increase sales through non repetitive and one time communication. In other words, it includes marketing activities other than personal selling, advertising, and publicity, that stimulate consumer purchasing and dealer effectiveness, such as point of purchase displays, shows and exhibitions, demonstrations and various non-recurring selling efforts not in the ordinary routine. Purpose: The ultimate aim or purpose of sales promotion is that of increasing the volume of sales and profits but it differs from advertising and personal

The last element to be discussed is promotion. The primary purpose of the promotion element is to affect the customer behavior in order to close the sale. Promotion includes mainly three topics: advertisement, public relations, and sales promotions. Advertisements come in many forms, such as commercials on television or radio, ads on the internet or in the newspaper, and pop-up ads on the internet. Public relations depend a lot on one 's individual personality and developing relationships with customers. Many sales promotions come in the forms of coupons, discounts, or discounts that are linked to the sales strategy.

Promotion is when a business decides which forms of communication it wants to use in their marketing plan.

Market Targets : The total market for a product /service package can be segmented because of the differences between groups of customers .These differences may allow for product and

The crux of your business-plan marketing strategy should be focused on sales and advertising. Determine where and how to disperse your sales team. For example, decide in which regions you need sales managers. Consider employing inside sales reps to handle small town or rural markets. Additionally, establish an advertising budget for your company. Decide which types of advertising media you will use to market your products, such as direct mail or radio advertising. Allocate a certain percentage of your budget to each specific advertising media.

According to Smallbusiness.chron.com (2016) “Marketing plans serve as the blueprints for your company’s sales strategy.” It also enables a business to provide details plan for the upcoming year so that they will be able to make changes to or evaluate the plan if the market changes. A marketing plan provides all the tactics that a business uses to achieve its objectives in order to gain results in sales. Marketing plan helps an organization to execute its marketing strategy and it also enables them to create services or products that will satisfy customers’ needs.

At its core, any sound business strategy should be based on a sound understanding of the needs and wants of its customers and striving to not only meet, but exceed those expectations. In order to meet those needs, potential customers need to know who you are. This is where marketing, or more specifically, segmentation and target marketing, take their role in an overall corporate strategy. As all markets are heterogeneous (Baker & Hart, 2008, p. 222), attempts to please all of the people all of the time are doomed to fail. In order to effectively use marketing resources to meet a company’s goals, it is often in their best interests to develop a marketing strategy with a basis in segmentation.

Pricing policy refers to how a company sets the prices of its products and services based on costs, value, demand, and competition. Managers should start setting prices during the development stage as part of strategic pricing to avoid launching products or services that cannot sustain profitable prices in the market. This approach to pricing enables companies to either fit costs to prices or scrap products or services that cannot be generated cost-effectively. Through systematic pricing policies and strategies, companies can reap greater profits and increase or defend their market shares.

The word Promotion, originates from the Latin word ‘Promovere’. The meaning is “to move forward” or “to push forward”. The aim of production is sales. Sales and promotion are two different words and sales promotion is the combination of these two words. sales promotion is one among the three pillars of promotional mix. The other two pillars are personal selling and advertising. Sales promotion is the connecting link between personal selling and advertising.