市场定位的基本策略是 [市场定位策略外文翻译]
Positioning in Practice
Powpaka Samart
Sasin Journal of Management, vol.5, 1999, pp.79-97
市场定位策略
勃帕克 斯玛特
萨辛管理学报，第五卷，1999，pp.79-97
市场定位策略
营销的战略性角色
对于拥有两个或两个以上战略经营单位的大公司来说，通常会有三个层次的战略，分别是： 总体战略，战略的－企业－单位层面的 （或企业层面的）战略，和营销战略。一个公司的战略在公司使命上提供了方向，它说明了公司的业务范围和相应的成长政策。一个战略经营单位说明了在一个行业里的竞争情况。最后，一个营销战略提供了一个带有独特市场细分的企业目标和对下一级战略的指导方针。
在企业层面，管理部门必须协调多个战略经营单位的活动。因此，有关该组织的业务范围和适当的资源部署，在其各部门或企业分配的决定是企业战略的主要焦点。试图开发和维护独特能力的公司往往会把重点放在创造卓越的财务、资金和人力资源，设计有效的组织结构和程序，以及寻求在该公司的各项业务的协同效应上。
在业务层面的战略，经理们注意力集中的焦点往往会在战略经营单位应该如何与其行业内其他经营单位的竞争上。一个商业战略的主要问题是如何实现和保持竞争优势。经营单位间的协同是要求整个产品市场和各职能部门发挥相应作用的。
一个营销策略的主要目的是有效地分配和协调营销活动和市场资源，以实现在一个特定的产品市场的目标。有关的营销战略范围的决定包括通过细分目标市场来追求和拓宽现有的产品线。在这个战略高度，企业通过有效整合多种符合目标细分市场上顾客需求的营销组合元素来寻求竞争优势和协同效应。
定位的战略性角色
基于上述讨论，很显然，营销策略由两部分组成：目标市场战略和营销组合战略。目标市场战略三个过程组成：市场细分，目标（或目标市场选择），市场定位等。营销组合战略指的是创造一个独特的产品，分销，促销和定价策略（4PS）的过程，旨在满足客户的需求和希望。目标市场战略和营销组合策略有密切的联系，有很强的相互依存关系。目标市场战略是用来制订营销组合策略方针。
市场细分是把一个市场当中具有相似需求和特点、可能会对特定产品和特定的营销程序产生相似回应的人们，分成不同的客户的子集的过程。目标或目标市场的选择是一个或多个，通过评估每个细分市场，寻求利益的相对吸引力，而且该公司业务的相对优势。最后，定位是设计产品和发展战略营销计划，共同在目标市场建立一个持久的竞争优势的过程。
目标市场定位战略的概念是众所周知的，尤其是被大多数消费品营销从业者在制定
市场营销组合策略有用作为非理论概念的方式。然而在实践中，营销人员往往绕过正式的定位，直接制定营销组合策略。这可能是由于这样的事实，这些经理们不知道如何获取感知图---表明这是一个客户原始需求的产品的位置。
本文的目的是展示营销从业者能够获得定位和营销组合策略制定的感知图的现实途径。具体来说，感知映射及其关系的定位总是被第一时间注意到。这是通过统计技术的讨论，可以遵循用于创建感知图。最后，通过因子分析定位过程的例子是证明。 感性定位：战略认同
优点：
定位追求的是特定的产品和目标市场需要直接的切合度，因此认为合适定位的概念必须定义相对于客户的需求和竞争的产品。这是最重要的战略概念之一，因为它与细分有关。定位反映了营销公司的精心努力，描绘出他们所提供的客户和利益，以区别于竞争者并从中脱颖而出。定位是一个产品=成功的关键。不仅仅是说产品传递给顾客需要，更为重要的是它比竞争更能带来好处。
有效的定位需要评估竞争产品所占据的位置，确定潜在的某些重要的方面，并选择在市场上选择一个一个合适的能使该组织的营销工作将产生最大影响的位置。定位为战略利益的重要工具是感性的地图。
顾客需求和知觉图：方法与程序
感知图代表主要客户需求的产品的位置。地图视觉感知维度总结了客户使用产品的感知和判断，并确定如何竞争力的产品放在这些方面上。在实践中，营销人员需要知道一些维数，这些方面的名字，一些更详细客户需要弥补的维数，竞争在哪里，并在为新产品或重新定位的理想位置。
一套有用的消费者行为模式已被拟订来把握市场上消费者态度对各种品牌的反映。Hauser和Urban(1977年），在一个新产品的背景下，描述产品属性的处理如压缩成较小的维数的总和，这被称作为Aevaluation标准。其中心思想是，在市场的品牌可以由一组分在一个多维空间的点组成。这个空间的坐标轴代表认为属性所特有的刺激。两种主要的分析方法，最常用的评价标准，建立派生感性地图decompositional方法，以多维尺度为基础，构图方法，基于因子分析（丽莲和科特勒1983年）。这些程序的每一个讨论在下面一节。
多个维度
多维尺度（MDS）是一个程序，其中一个产品的替代品减少了空间的反映知觉相似产品之间的异同，并通过跨产品的距离设置。
要使用多维尺度来创建感知图：
1. 有客户根据其相对的相似性评估现有的产品，形成矩阵的平均距离为每个条目
代表之间的客户，要分析产品的相似或相异。
2.使用多维尺度来拟定多维图。
3.根据管理经验，由于刺激次数的限制，以及Astress情节选择尺寸适当的名额。
4.在增长图或者衰退图上某个相应的位置，对维度进行命名，以此来调和属性的比率。
多维尺度是一个强大的技术，但必须慎用。有几个问题需要考虑。第一个问题是有关所需人数的刺激（即产品）。 Klabir（1969）显示，至少有八个产品都需要创造一个良好的二维地图。格林，温德（1973）表明，维数应比产品数量的三分之一少。第二个问题是有关维度命名。分析师普遍使用产品类别的知识来解释好的产品=定位的维度。这个程序是任意的，涉及高度的创造力。最后一个问题是有关维数。没有什么理论来指导的维数的选择。然而，从MDS的应力测量获得的可以绘制对维数来确定边缘的应力变化是越来越小。
广泛使用如SAS和SPSS统计软件等简便的数据包包含多维尺度的方案。例如，在SPSS软件中，我们可以通过选择多维尺度得到规模，然后从统计菜单多维尺度分析。
因子分析
因子分析最初是用在努力查明弥补人类智力的。教育与心理研究人员并不认为每一个教育规则能测试测量智力的不同方面。事实上，对于某些对测试的测试成绩是高度相互关联，表明一个更基本的心理能力测试性能的基础。因子分析，试图说明在一些基本的智力因素的测试随后作为口头表达能力，定量能力，空间能力鉴定结果，这些相互关联。自那时以来，因子分析已应用到许多其他问题，是在执行市场营销产品的评估分析常用的技术。
基本因子分析模型假设一个产品的原始感性评级获隐变量或因素产生的少数，而在每个原始知觉差异变量的观察是占了部分由一系列因素的共同部分由和一个因素特定于该变量。在一个由感性因素分析图的构建，产品的位置/品牌研究可以得到平均为每个产品/品牌的受访者的因子得分。因子得分计算出来的因子得分系数，它描述作为原始评分因素分数矩阵的线性函数。
用因子分析来建立感知图：
1、曾经，有消费者把所有研究中的产品/品牌归功于一系列的属性。你可以使用李克特量表（锚尺度非常赞成并坚决不同意），或在你的语意差别量表问卷（双极形容词量表）。
2、用因子分析与旋转（如varimax rotation）分析数据。还要求所有的产品/品牌因子得分。
3、对所有的平均每/品牌产品的受访者因子得分。
4、使用每个产品/品牌为坐标来绘制的空间位置上的感性因素的平均分数。通常，
二维图是有意义的，容易理解。如果超过两个因素是提取/确定从产品的属性集，多个二维地图可能会生成。
5、使用因素负荷表，这是一个输出代表之间的属性表和该计算机算法确定的因素的相关性，来命名的因素。
6、Theideal线（占得分的因素在决定对品牌态度的相对重要性），可以鉴定出作为因变量和自变量因子得分多元回归函数的态度。
因子分析是一种非常强大的生产感知图和有用的技术。还有许多软件的PC包含此统计技术（如SPSS软件，SAS，BMDP）。
在这次会议上，我们学习了短暂的目标市场战略的概念（其中包括市场细分，目标和定位），战略品牌管理和定位的研究。然后我们经历了概念和定位研究数据分析的步骤
目标市场战略
目标市场战略是确定一个（或多个目标市场）的过程和它的（或他们）独特的定位。目标市场策略包括：（1）市场细分，（2）市场选择，（3）市场定位。
市场细分：市场细分是一个分割成几部分或几个同质异构的潜在市场的进程。换句话说，在一个潜在的市场客户可能有不同的偏好。因此，使用产品和产品计划并不是一个有效和高效的办法。为了有效和有效率，管理者需要根据顾客的喜好对潜在顾客进行整合，根据该公司的实力，用独特的服务来满足其中一个或多个组别细分市场。另一种看待市场细分的方式是测试市场是否存在同质偏好或者需求差异性。良好的市场细分结果应具有以下特征的部分：（1）实体性（即：每个细分市场的容量足够大）（2）可盈利/可辨识/可测性（即每个段可在人口或消费心理特征方面的描述）（3）无障碍性（即媒体消费和购物行为可以识别）（4）可区分性（即，每个段都有一个唯一的偏好问题）。
市场选择：定位或目标市场的选择是选择一个或多个细分市场是目标市场或目标市场的过程中。该细分市场是通过匹配的优势/本公司的服务能力与在每个分部利润潜力的部分选择。通用电气公司矩阵（市场的吸引力与业务地位）是一个目标的好工具。有四个定位战略，你可以使用：（1）集中或集中的定位策略（即选择一大段是你的目标市场）（2）多段或有区别的定位策略（即选择两个或两个以上的大型段与一个为他们每个人独特的定位你的目标市场）（3）质量目标的策略（即选择两个或两个以上部分或全部是只有一个，他们都是你的目标市场定位）（4）利基战略目标（即选择一个小市场，是你的目标市场）
市场定位：定位有两层含义。首先，定位是最重要的好处是被特定目标市场的客户所驱动的。其次，定位是通过营销组合策略（即4Ps）创造（以利益或利益而言）在客
户的心中品牌形象的过程。 必须反映品牌形象的最重要的好处（县），目标客户想要的。要在目标市场定位你的品牌，首先要进行定位研究，以建立可在目标竞争品牌的感知地图）。
策略营销
正如您可能已经知道，任何企业的主要目标是使利润。另一方面，也有非营利性的或不以营利为目的的组织在社会上存在着。他们的主要目标是实现一个非盈利目的，或起到一定的作用，例如，香港红十字会希望获得足够的血液来帮助病人。这些非营利组织仍然需要赚钱或获取金钱。但他们不这样做为了赚钱，他们这么做是为了争取足够的资源来帮助他们实现他们的非利润目标。
为了实现其目标，企业和非营利组织需要有不同的人来执行不同的功能。他们通常把组织人谁执行相同的“部门”相同的功能。会计，财务，生产，研发，物流，营销和销售部门，通常在一个企业组织中存在的例子。
“什么是营销？”用美国营销协会（1985年）的定义，市场营销是“规划和构想，定价，分销，商品，服务和思想交流，促进建立或满足个人和组织目标的促销执行的过程。”在定义的基础上，这是很清楚的定义是一个业务功能倾向于对市场（或什么样的营销人）。从本质上讲，市场营销的功能是识别正确的目标市场（一消费者或企业客户组），创造、沟通，并提供本公司的产品（可以是货物，服务，理念，或货物，服务的结合，和想法）给所选择的客户。做营销策划和执行营销计划的都是什么样的人。这由产品策略，价格策略，分销策略和沟通策略组成。执行营销计划的人将创造机会或促进交流该组织与目标客户之间的交流。
当我们在市场营销由AMA的定义（2004年）看，你可以看到，市场营销，作为一种管理理念，要求每一个功能或部门整合到一起，以满足目标客户。目标客户是该公司的业务重点。（1）大家一起努力创造，交流和传递价值给客户（2）管理与客户的方式有利于公司及其利益相关者的关系。
然后，我们谈论的价值公式，以证明客户创造价值，从每一个公司的雇员综合努力来。
价值=质量/价格+关系
品质：品质代表了所有的客户购买你的产品得到的。因此，质量必须由您的客户来评判。有两种品质类型：（1）客观质量（即实际的质量，可在实验室测试根据该规范）
（2）知觉或主观质量（即：以质量为“知觉”或“相信”的客户）。研发和生产人员，确保了公司产品的客观质量是可以接受的。质量标准，如全面质量管理，质量控制，国际标准化组织，措施等，以确保使用的客观质量。营销人用整合营销传播（IMC），以建
立在顾客心中的感知质量。重要的是有一个客观和感知质量之间的匹配。
价格：价格的决定因素之一是成本问题。今天，有两个主要来源可以降低成本：（1）全球采购(2）物流管理。全球采购的关注与两个连续决定：（1）制造或购买（即生产的产品由自己或分合同的其他人产生对你）（2）凡作出或哪里可以买到。适当的全球采购可以给公司带来一定的成本优势。物流是有关于战略转移，产品储存到公司内部的，流出企业。购买或到港物流的流动和原料储存，加工材料，零部件到公司的关注。生产支持内部物流的流动和公司内部半成品存储问题。最后，物流配送站或出站物流与成品从公司转移到客户的关注。物流的主要概念是：（1）提供所需的服务水平，包括内部和外部的客户（2）以最低的总成本。物流系统由3个周期的表现：（1）进货物流（或采购），
（2）内部或内部物流（或制造支持），和（或物流）外向物流。一个良好的物流系统不仅为公司减少了成本，也为公司提供了竞争优势。换言之，一个良好的物流系统可以给公司提供适当的服务水平最低的总成本在持续的竞争优势。
在物流服务水平包括：
1、可用性
2、经营绩效 ：a.速度 b.湾一致性 c.灵活性 d.故障和恢复
3、可靠性
物流费用包括：
1、订单管理成本
2、库存管理成本
3、物料搬运成本
4、运输成本
5、仓储成本
关系：（1）与客户关系（即关系营销和客户关系管理或CRM）（2）与供应商和渠道成员（即:战略联盟/伙伴）关系。与客户和供应商的强烈关系/渠道成员都在为客户创造价值的过程很重要。
作为一个公司，采用其管理理念或公司定向营销将尝试在满足生存和成长的需要为重点的长期和希望（即，喜好更准确）通过在公司的每一个人综合努力。因此，一个营销导向的公司具有以下特点：
(1)长期的重点（即，利润和作为客户忠诚度/长期关系而增长）
(2)以客户为中心或以客户为导向（即，了解目标客户的需要/希望/问题及其替代品的现在和未来）
(3)竞争对手或客户的重点方向（即，了解各主要竞争对手的目标和战略，现在和将来）
(4)跨职能或跨部门协调（即每一位员工对对公司的成功/失败负责）
Positioning in Practice
Strategic Role of Marketing
For large firms that have two or more strategic business units (SBUs), there are generally three levels of strategy: corporate-level strategy, strategic-business-unit-level (or business-level) strategy, and marketing strategy. A corporate strategy provides direction on the company"s mission, the kinds of businesses it should be in, and its growth policies. A business-level strategy addresses the way a strategic business unit will compete within its industry. Finally, a marketing strategy provides a plan for pursuing the company"s objectives within a specific market segment. Note that the higher level of strategy provides both the objectives and guidelines for the lower level of strategy.
At corporate level, management must coordinate the activities of multiple strategic business units. Thus the decisions about the organization"s scope and appropriate resource deployments/allocation across its various divisions or businesses are the primary focus of corporate strategy.Attempts to develop and maintain distinctive competencies tend to focus on generating superior financial, capital, and human resources; designing effective organizational structures and processes; and seeking synergy among the firm"s various businesses.
At business-level strategy, managers focus on how the SBU will compete within its industry. A major issue addressed in business strategy is how to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage. Synergy for the unit is sought across product-markets and across functional department within the unit.
The primary purpose of a marketing strategy is to effectively allocate and coordinate marketing resources and activities to accomplish the firm"s objectives within a specific product-market. The decisions about the scope of a marketing strategy involve specifying the target market segment(s) to pursue and the peadth of the product line to offered. At this level of strategy, firms seek competitive advantage and synergy through a well-integrated program of marketing mix elements tailored to the needs and wants of customers in the target segment(s).
Strategic Role of Positioning
Based on the above discussion, it is clear that marketing strategy consists of two parts: target market strategy and marketing mix strategy. Target market strategy consists of three processes: market segmentation, targeting (or target market selection), and positioning. Marketing mix strategy refers to the process of creating a unique blend of
product, distribution, promotion, and pricing strategies (the four Ps) designed to satisfying the needs and wants of customers. Target market strategy and marketing mix strategy are closely linked and have a strong interdependence. The position of a product identified from the target market strategy serves as a guideline for formulating marketing mix strategy.
Market segmentation is the process by which a market is divided into distinct customer subsets of people with similar needs and characteristics that lead them to respond in similar ways to a particular product offerings and strategic marketing programs.Targeting or target market selection is the process of selecting a segment or segments to serve by evaluating the relative attractiveness of each segment, the benefit sought, and the firm"s relative business strengths.Finally, positioning is the process of designing product offerings and developing strategic marketing programs which collectively create an enduring competitive advantage in the target market.
The concept of target market strategy especially positioning is well-known and widely accepted by most marketing practitioners especially consumer goods managers as useful Atheoretical concepts in formulating marketing mix strategy. In practice, however, marketers tend to bypass formal positioning and go directly to formulate marketing mix strategy. This may be due to the fact that these managers do not know how to obtain perceptual maps, which are maps that show the positions of products on a set of primary customer needs.
The objective of this paper is to demonstrate a practical way for marketing practitioners to obtain perceptual maps for positioning and marketing mix strategy formulation. Specifically, perceptual mapping and its relation to positioning are first discussed. This is followed by discussion of statistical techniques that can be used to create perceptual maps. Finally, a example of positioning process by factor analysis is demonstrated.
Perceptual Mapping: Identification of Strategic
Benefits
Positioning is the perceived fit between a particular product and the needs of the target market, and thus positioning concept must be defined relative to the customer’s needs and competitive offerings. It is one of the most important strategic concepts because it is concerned with differentiation. Positioning reflect the careful efforts of marketing firms to portray the benefits they offer customers and to differentiate themselves from competition. Positioning is critical for a product=s success. Not only must the product deliver the benefits the customer needs, but it must do so better than competition.
Effective positioning requires assessing the positions occupied by competing products, determining the important dimensions underlying these positions, and choosing a position in
the market where the organization’s marketing efforts will have the greatest impact. An essential tool for strategic benefit positioning is perceptual maps.
Customer Needs and Perceptual Mapping: Method and Procedures
Perceptual maps represent the positions of products on a set of primary customer needs. Perceptual maps visually summarized the dimensions that customers use to perceive and judge products and identify how competitive products are placed on those dimensions. In practice, marketers need to know the number of dimensions, the names of those dimensions, what more detailed customer needs make up the dimensions, where competition is positioned, and where the ideal position for a new product or for repositioning is.
A set of useful consumer behavior model has been developed to handle consumer attitudes toward various pands in a marketplace. Hauser and Urban (1977), in a new-product setting, describe the processing of product attributes as compression into smaller number of aggregate dimensions called Aevaluation criteria. The central idea is that the pands in a market can be represented as a set of points in a multidimensional space. The axes of this space represent the perceived attributes that characterize the stimuli. Two main analytical approaches most frequently used to derive evaluation criteria and build perceptual maps are decompositional methods, based on multidimensional scaling, and compositional methods, based on factor analysis (Lilien and Kotler 1983). Each of these procedures is discussed in the following section.
Multidimensional Scaling (MDS)
Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is a set of procedures in which a reduced space of product alternatives reflects perceived similarities and dissimilarities between products by the inter-product distances.
mensional scaling to create perceptual maps:
1.Have customers evaluate existing products according to their relative similarity and form an average proximity matrix whose entries represent the similarities or dissimilarities among the products for each group of customers you wish to analyze.
2.Use multidimensional scaling to produce a map in 2, 3, ... dimensions.
3.Based on managerial judgments, limitations owing to the number of stimuli, and a plot of Astress select the appropriate number of dimensions.
4. Name the dimensions based on the relative position of the stimuli or a regression of the map coordinates on attribute ratings.
Multidimensional scaling is a powerful technique, but it must be used with caution. Several issues need to be considered. The first issue is concerned with the number of stimuli (i.e., products) needed. Klabir (1969) shows that at least eight products are needed to create a good two-dimensional map. Green and Wind (1973) suggest that the number of dimensions should be less than one-third of the number of products. The second issue is concerned with the naming of the dimensions. The analyst generally names the dimensions by using knowledge of the product category to explain best the products= positions. This procedure is arbitrary and involves a high degree of creativity. The final issue is concerned with the number of dimensions. There is little theory to guide the selection of the number of dimensions. However, the stress measure obtained from MDS can be plotted against the number of dimensions to determine when marginal changes in stress are becoming small.
Widely used, user-friendly statistical packages such as SAS and SPSS contain the programs for multidimensional scaling. For example, in SPSS, one can obtain a multidimensional scaling analysis from the statistics menu by choosing scale and then multidimensional scaling.
Factor Analysis
Factor analysis was originally developed in connection with efforts to identify the major factors making up human intelligence. Educational and psychological researchers did not believe that every test in an educational battery measured a different facet of intelligence. In fact, test scores for certain pairs of tests were highly inter correlated, indicating that a more basic mental ability underlies test performance. Factor analysis was developed to explain these intercorrelations in the test results of a few basic intelligence factors, subsequently identified as verbal ability, quantitative ability, and spatial ability. Since that time, factor analysis has been applied to many other problems and is a frequently used technique in performing product-evaluation analyses in marketing.
The basic factor-analysis model assumes that original perceptual ratings about a product are generated by a small number of latent variables, or factors, and that the variance observed in each original perceptual variable is accounted for partly by a set of common factors and partly by a factor specific to that variable. In the construction of a perceptual map by factor analysis, the positions of the products/pands studied can be obtained by averaging the factor scores of the respondents for each product/pand. Factor scores are calculated from the matrix of factor-score coefficients, which describes factor scores as a linear function of the original ratings.
To use factor analysis to create perceptual map:
1. Have consumers rate all the products/pands under studied, one at a time, on a set of product attributes. You can use Likert scales (scales anchored with strongly agree and strongly disagree) or semantic differential scales (scales with bipolar adjectives) in your questionnaire.
2. Analyze the data by factor analysis with rotation (e.g., with varimax rotation). Also request for factor scores for all the products/pands.
3. Average the factor scores over all the respondents for each product/pand.
4. Use the average factor scores for each product/pand as coordinates to plot the position on the perceptual space. Normally, two-dimensional maps are meaningful and easy to understand. If more than two factors are extracted/identified from the set of product attributes, more than one two-dimensional maps may be generated.
5. Use factor loading table, which is an output representing the correlations between the attribute scales and the factors that the computer algorithm identified, to name the factors.
6. Theideal line (representing the relative importance of the factor scores in determining attitude toward the pand) can be identified from the multiple regression function with attitude as the dependent variable and factor scores as the independent variables.
Factor analysis is a very powerful and useful technique for producing perceptual maps. There are also many software for PC that contains this statistical technique (e.g., SPSS, SAS, BMDP).
In this session, we piefly went through the concepts of target market strategy (which consists of market segmentation, targeting, and positioning), strategic pand management, and positioning research. Then we went through the concept and the steps in the data analysis for positioning research.
Target Market Strategy
Target market strategy is the process of identifying one (or more target markets) and its (or their) unique positioning(s). Target market strategy consists of (1) market segmentation,
(2) targeting, and (3) positioning.
Market Segmentation. Market segmentation is the process of segmenting a heterogeneous potential market into a few or several homogeneous segments. In other words, customers in a potential market may have different preferences. As such, it is not effective and efficient to teach all of them by one product and one plan. To be effective and efficient, a manager needs to group the potential customers into group according to their unique preferences and serves one or more of these groups according to the company"s strength. The other way to look at market segmentation is that it is the process to test if the
potential market is homogeneous in terms of preferences. Good market segmentation should result in segments with the following characteristics: (1) substantiality ( i.e., each segment is large enough), (2) profilability/identifiability/measurability (i.e., each segment can be described in terms of demographic or psychographic characteristics), (3) accessibility (i.e., the media consumption and shopping behavior can be identified), and (4) differential responsiveness (i.e., each segment has a unique preference).
Targeting. Targeting or target market selection is the process of selecting one or more segments to be the target market or target markets. The segment(s) is(are) chosen by matching the strengths/ability of the company to serve the segment with the profit potential in each segment. GE Matrix (market attractiveness versus business position) is a good tool for targeting.There are four targeting strategies that you can use: (1) concentrated or focused targeting strategy (i.e., selecting one large segment to be your target market), (2) multi-segment or differentiated targeting strategy (i.e., selecting two or more large segments to be your target markets with a unique positioning for each of them), (3) mass targeting strategy (i.e., selecting two or more or all segments to be your target market with only one positioning for all of them), and (4) niche targeting strategy (i.e., selecting one small market to be your target market).
Positioning. Positioning has two meanings. First, positioning is the most important benefit or benefits desired by the customers in a particular target market. Second, positioning is the process of creating pand image (in terms of benefit or benefits) in the customer"s mind through marketing mix strategy (the 4Ps). The pand image must reflect the most important benefit(s) that the target customers want. To position your pand in a target market, you first conduct positioning research to create a perceptual map of competing pands in the target
The following note is provided by Prof.Powpaka Samart
What Is Marketing?
STRATEGIC MARKETING
As you may already know, the main objective of any business is to make profit. On the other hand, there are also non-profit or not-for-profit organizations that exist in the society. Their main objective is to achieve a non-profit objective or to serve a certain cause, e.g., HK Red Cross wants to obtain enough blood to help the patients. These non-profit organizations still need to make money or obtain money. But they do not do it for profit; they do it in order to secure enough resources to help them achieve their non-profit objectives.
To achieve their objectives, businesses and non-profit organizations need to have different people to perform different functions. They normally organize people who perform the same function into the same
Then we look into the definition of marketing by AMA in 2004. Marketing is
When we look at the definition of marketing by AMA (2004), you can see that marketing, as a management philosophy, requires the integration of every function or department to work together to satisfy the target customers. The target customer is the focus of the company"s operations. Everybody in the company (1) works together to create, communicate, and deliver value to the customer and (2) manages the relationship with customers in ways that benefits the company and its stakeholders.
We then discussed about the formula of value to demonstrate that customer value creation comes from the integrated effort of every employee of the firm.
Value = quality/price + relationships
Quality: Quality represents everything that customers get from buying your product. As such, quality must be defined by your customers. There are two types of quality: (1) objective quality (i.e., actual quality as can be tested in the lab according to the specification) and (2) perceived or subjective quality (i.e., quality as
Price: One of the determinants of price is cost. Today, there are two major sources of cost reduction: (1) global sourcing and (2) logistics management. Global sourcing concerns with two consecutive decisions: (1) to make or to buy (i.e., to manufacture the products by yourself or to sub-contract other people to produce for you), and (2) where to make or where to buy. Proper global sourcing can give cost advantage to the firm. Logistics concerns with the strategic movement and storage of products into the firm, inside the firm, and out of the firm. Purchasing or inbound logistics concerns with the movement and storage of raw materials, processed materials, and component parts into the firm. Manufacturing support of intra logistics concerns with the movement and storage of semi-finished products inside the firm. Finally, physical distribution or outbound logistics concerns with the movement of finished products from the firm to its customers. The main concept of logistics is (1) to provide the desired service level to both internal and external customers and (2) at the lowest total cost. A logistics system consists of 3 performance cycle: (1) inbound logistics (or purchasing), (2) intra or inside logistics (or manufacturing support), and outbound logistics (or physical distribution). A good logistics system not only reduces the cost for the company but also provides competitive advantage for the company. In other words, a good logistics system can give a company sustainable competitive advantage by providing appropriate level of service at the lowest total cost.
The service level in logistics consists of:
1. Availability
2. Operational performance
a. Speed
b. Consistency
c. Flexibility
d. Malfunction and recovery
3. Reliability
The costs in logistics include:
1. Order management costs
2. Inventory management costs
3. Material handling costs
4. Transportation costs
5. Warehousing costs
Relationships: There are two types of relationships: (1) relationship with your customers (i.e., relationship marketing and customer relationship management or CRM) and (2) relationships with suppliers and channel members (i.e., strategic alliance/partnership). Strong relationships with both customers and suppliers/channel members are important in the value creation process for the customers.
A company that adopts marketing as its management philosophy or company orientation will try to survive and grow in long-term by focusing on satisfying the needs and wants (i.e., preferences to be more accurate) through the integrated effort of everybody in the firm. As such, a marketing-oriented company has the following characteristics:
* Long-term focus (i.e., profit and growth as a result of customer loyalty/long-lasting relationship)
* Customer focus or customer orientation (i.e., understanding the target customers" needs/wants/problems and their alternatives now and in the future)
* Competitor focus or customer orientation (i.e., understanding the major competitors" objectives and strategies now and in the future)
* Inter-functional or inter-departmental coordination (i.e., every employee takes full responsibility of the success/failure of the firm)