Sunday, April 9, 2017

A Marketing Reflection

Throughout the semester, working on this blog, I have been exposed to several marketing strategies to allow my blog to appeal to the largest demographic possible. It is interesting to examine the way’s that consumers are manipulated into buying products without even knowing. Consumers are tricked by a mix of psychology and what appeals to their aesthetic. One of our course objectives was to understand marketing decisions and their relation to other functional areas of business. Marketing is very similar to Finance in some ways, because marketer’s must examine the break-even units to figure how many units they will have to sell of a product to recoup for the initial investment. One would think marketing only focuses on how to appeal to consumers and those who may purchase a product or service, but marketers must be able to see if a product is worth marketing before they put the efforts into the project.

It’s important for one to understand the legal and ethical responsibilities of marketing management. In class we have discussed how important packaging can be to consumers. Some consumers will not buy a product because they don’t like the way it appears. Sun Chips, owned by PepsiCo, decided to change their bag’s to make them biodegradable. Consumers didn’t like how noisy the product was and the company changed back to the less sustainable version they had prior. It is important for marketers to be sustainable while providing the consumer with a benefit from choosing to make better decisions.

            One thing learned throughout the course and while writing these blogs is that Marketing research is very important. We must look at the consumer and their habits through Primary and Secondary data. Primary data requires that the Marketers put out a survey or obtain data for the purpose of appealing to certain consumers. Secondary data already exists, such as info from the U.S. Census. Marketing research is how we look for consumers that we would like to target our product or service towards. We are more likely to produce a product or service the consumer likes if we know what they do with certain products and their lifestyle.

            One of the most important concepts in marketing is the four P’s, which are Product, Promotion, Price, and Place. When finding information to write each post, I had to analyze the four P’s to develop a complete understanding of where and how a company and its services work.  By looking at companies such as Apple and Tesla, two brilliant companies, which have very intelligent marketing strategies, I was able to understand marketer’s responsibilities and how I would like to market a company in the future. I am now able to incorporate key concept to make business decisions and evaluate the outcomes that the company may have.


            Writing these blog posts has been very beneficial to my learning through the semester. I have been able to use the marketing skills gained through the blog to market the Kickball Homerun Derby event. Social media is an important medium which can provide a platform to expand your social network and also market your assets to the world.  

Thank You for reading!

-Jake