Implementation evaluation control

Creating the actions which will be vital to your management of your product. You as a company need the solid logistics in order to effectively maintain and manage your brand. Taking into account all the possible changes ,and setbacks which can occur. A plan is needed to organize and assure the company's future and to for see all possible situations which can occur and most likely will occur within your structure.

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In addition to being good at the marketing in marketing management, companies also need to pay attention to the management. Managing the marketing process requires the four marketing management functions shown in Figure 2.6—analysis, planning, implementation, and control. The company first develops companywide strategic plans and then translates them into marketing and other plans for each division, product, and brand. Through implementation, the company turns the plans into actions. Control consists of measuring and evaluating the results of marketing activities and taking corrective action where needed. Finally, marketing analysis provides information and evaluations needed for all of the other marketing activities.

Marketing Analysis

Managing the marketing function begins with a complete analysis of the company’s situation. The marketer should conduct a SWOT analysis, by which it evaluates the company’s overall strengths (S), weaknesses (W), opportunities (O), and threats (T) (see Figure 2.7). Strengths include internal capabilities, resources, positive situational factors that may help the company to serve its customers and achieve its objectives. Weaknesses include internal limitations and negative situational factors that may interfere with the company’s performance. Opportunities are favorable factors or trends in the external environment that the company may be able to exploit to its advantage. And threats are unfavorable external factors or trends that may present challenges to performance.

SWOT analysis

An overall evaluation of the company’s strengths (S), weaknesses (W), opportunities (O), and threats (T).

Figure 2.6 Managing Marketing: Analysis, Planning, Implementation, and Control

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MANAGING THE SALES FORCE (pp 416–426)

Author Comment

Here’s another definition of sales force management: “Planning, organizing, leading, and controlling personal contact programs designed to achieve profitable customer relationships.” Here again, the goal of every marketing activity is to create customer value and build customer relationships.

We define sales force management as the analysis, planning, implementation, and control of sales force activities. It includes designing sales force strategy and structure and recruiting, selecting, training, compensating, supervising, and evaluating the firm’s salespeople. These major sales force management decisions are shown in Figure 13.1 and are discussed in the following sections.

Sales force management

The analysis, planning, implementation, and control of sales force activities. It includes designing sales force strategy and structure and recruiting, selecting, training, supervising, compensating, and evaluating the firm’s salespeople.

Designing Sales Force Strategy and Structure

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Large companies that produce many different products flowing into many different geographic and customer markets usually employ some combination of the functional, geographic, product, and market organization forms.

Marketing organization has become an increasingly important issue in recent years. More and more, companies are shifting their brand management focus toward customer management—moving away from managing just product or brand profitability and toward managing customer profitability and customer equity. They think of themselves not as managing portfolios of brands but as managing portfolios of customers.

Marketing Control

Because many surprises occur during the implementation of marketing plans, marketers must practice constant marketing control—evaluating the results of marketing strategies and plans and taking corrective action to ensure that objectives are attained. Marketing control involves four steps. Management first sets specific marketing goals. It then measures its performance in the marketplace and evaluates the causes of any differences between expected and actual performance. Finally, management takes corrective action to close the gaps between its goals and its performance. This may require changing the action programs or even changing the goals.

Marketing control

The process of measuring and evaluating the results of marketing strategies and plans and taking corrective action to ensure that objectives are achieved.

Operating control involves checking ongoing performance against the annual plan and taking corrective action when necessary. Its purpose is to ensure that the company achieves the sales, profits, and other goals set out in its annual plan. It also involves determining the profitability of different products, territories, markets, and channels. Strategic control involves looking at whether the company’s basic strategies are well matched to its opportunities. Marketing strategies and programs can quickly become outdated, and each company should periodically reassess its overall approach to the marketplace.

MEASURING AND MANAGING RETURN ON MARKETING INVESTMENT (pp 58–60)

Author Comment

Measuring return on marketing investment has become a major marketing emphasis. But it can be difficult. For example, a Super Bowl ad reaches nearly 100 million consumers but may cost as much as $3 million for 30 seconds of airtime alone. How do you measure the specific return on such an investment in terms of sales, profits, and building customer relationships? We’ll look into that question again in Chapter 12.

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Price

Price is one of the most important key roles in having a long lasting and successful business . You do not want to under price your product cause it can back fire on you and maybe the general public wont take your business , and or product serious. Or if it is priced so that you as a company dot get more back that what it costs to create produce , and manufacture the product then yo do not want to to price it to low for you to profit. you have to find that Certain price that will keep your customers and also benefit you so that you can profit. In the case of the Eat and BEAT all the pita wraps will be five dollars across the board.And the music down loads will be regulated by the artists and artists labels .And of course there agreements with Itunes.

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For most purchases, consumers don’t have all the skill or information they need to figure out whether they are paying a good price. They don’t have the time, ability, or inclination to research different brands or stores, compare prices, and get the best deals. Instead, they may rely on certain cues that signal whether a price is high or low. Interestingly, such pricing cues are often provided by sellers, in the form of sales signs, price-matching guarantees, loss-leader pricing, and other helpful hints.²⁰

Even small differences in price can signal product differences. Consider a stereo receiver priced at $300 compared to one priced at $299.99. The actual price difference is only 1 cent, but the psychological difference can be much greater. For example, some consumers will see the $299.99 as a price in the $200 range rather than the $300 range. The $299.99 will more likely be seen as a bargain price, whereas the $300 price suggests more quality. Some psychologists argue that each digit has symbolic and visual qualities that should be considered in pricing. Thus, 8 is round and even and creates a soothing effect, whereas 7 is angular and creates a jarring effect.

Promotional Pricing

With promotional pricing, companies will temporarily price their products below list price and sometimes even below cost to create buying excitement and urgency. Promotional pricing takes several forms. A seller may simply offer discounts from normal prices to increase sales and reduce inventories. Sellers also use special-event pricing in certain seasons to draw more customers. Thus, large-screen TVs and other consumer electronics are promotionally priced in November and December to attract Christmas shoppers into stores.

Promotional pricing

Temporarily pricing products below the list price, and sometimes even below cost, to increase short-run sales.

Promotional pricing: Companies offer promotional prices to create buying excitement and urgency.

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Competition-based pricing involves setting prices based on competitors’ strategies, costs, prices, and market offerings. Consumers will base their judgments of a product’s value on the prices that competitors charge for similar products.

In assessing competitors’ pricing strategies, the company should ask several questions. First, how does the company’s market offering compare with competitors’ offerings in terms of customer value? If consumers perceive that the company’s product or service provides greater value, the company can charge a higher price. If consumers perceive less value relative to competing products, the company must either charge a lower price or change customer perceptions to justify a higher price.

Competition-based pricing

Setting prices based on competitors’ strategies, prices, costs, and market offerings.

Next, how strong are current competitors and what are their current pricing strategies? If the company faces a host of smaller competitors charging high prices relative to the value they deliver, it might charge lower prices to drive weaker competitors out of the market. If the market is dominated by larger, low-price competitors, the company may decide to target unserved market niches with value-added products at higher prices.

Pricing against larger, low-price competitors: Independent bookstore Annie Bloom’s Books isn’t likely to win a price war against Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. Instead, it relies on outstanding customer service and a cozy atmosphere to turn booklovers into loyal customers.

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At the $15 price, the manufacturer must sell at least 600,000 units to break even (break-even volume = fixed costs ÷ (price − variable costs) = $6,000,000 ÷ ($15 − $5) = 600,000). That is, at this level, total revenues will equal total costs of $9 million, producing no profit. If the flash drive manufacturer wants a target return of $2 million, it must sell at least 800,000 units to obtain the $12 million of total revenue needed to cover the costs of $10 million plus the $2 million of target profits. In contrast, if the company charges a higher price, say $20, it will not need to sell as many units to break even or to achieve its target profit. In fact, the higher the price, the lower the manufacturer’s break-even point will be.

The major problem with this analysis, however, is that it fails to consider customer value and the relationship between price and demand. As the price increases, demand decreases, and the market may not buy even the lower volume needed to break even at the higher price. For example, suppose the flash drive manufacturer calculates that, given its current fixed and variable costs, it must charge a price of $30 for the product in order to earn its desired target profit. But marketing research shows that few consumers will pay more than $25. In this case, the company must trim its costs in order to lower the break-even point so that it can charge the lower price consumers expect.

Figure 9.3 Break-Even Chart for Determining Target-Return Price and Break-Even Volume

Thus, although break-even analysis and target return pricing can help the company to determine minimum prices needed to cover expected costs and profits, they do not take the price–demand relationship into account. When using this method, the company must also consider the impact of price on sales volume needed to realize target profits and the likelihood that the needed volume will be achieved at each possible price.

Competition-Based Pricing

Author Comment

In setting prices, the company must also consider competitors’ prices. No matter what price it charges—high, low, or in between—the company must be certain to give customers superior value for that price.

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• When IKEA first opened stores in China in 2002, people crowded in, but not to buy home furnishings. Instead, they came to take advantage of the freebies—air conditioning, clean toilets, and even decorating ideas. Chinese consumers are famously frugal. When it came time to actually buy, they shopped instead at local stores just down the street that offered knockoffs of IKEA’s designs at a fraction of the price. So to lure the finicky Chinese customers, IKEA slashed its prices in China to the lowest in the world, the opposite approach of many Western retailers there. By increasingly stocking its Chinese stores with China-made products, the retailer pushed prices on some items as low as 70 percent below prices in IKEA’s outlets outside China. The penetration pricing strategy worked. IKEA now captures a 43 percent market share of China’s fast-growing home wares market alone, and the sales of its six mammoth Chinese stores surged 25 percent last year. The cavernous Beijing store draws nearly 6 million visitors annually. Weekend crowds are so big that employees need to use megaphones to keep them in control.

Several conditions must be met for this low-price strategy to work. First, the market must be highly price sensitive so that a low price produces more market growth. Second, production and distribution costs must fall as sales volume increases. Finally, the low price must help keep out the competition, and the penetration pricer must maintain its low-price position—otherwise, the price advantage may be only temporary.

PRODUCT MIX PRICING (pp 286–290)

Author Comment

Most individual products are part of a broader product mix and must be priced accordingly. For example, Gillette prices its Fusion razors low. But once you buy the razor, you’re a captive customer for its higher-margin replacement cartridges.

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Variable costs

Costs that vary directly with the level of production.

Total costs

The sum of the fixed and variable costs for any given level of production.

The company must watch its costs carefully. If it costs the company more than competitors to produce and sell a similar product, the company will need to charge a higher price or make less profit, putting it at a competitive disadvantage.

Cost-Plus Pricing

The simplest pricing method is cost-plus pricing (or markup pricing)—adding a standard markup to the cost of the product. For example, an electronics retailer might pay a manufacturer $20 for a flash drive and mark it up to sell at $30, a 50 percent markup on cost. The retailer’s gross margin is $10. If the store’s operating costs amount to $8 per flash drive sold, the retailer’s profit margin will be $2. The manufacturer that made the flash drive probably used cost-plus pricing, too. If the manufacturer’s standard cost of producing the flash drive was $16, it might have added a 25 percent markup, setting the price to the retailers at $20.

Promotion

The process by which you choose how and what way to advertise your product or service. May it be in the way you design your look or who you associate your product with. In the case of this situation it is a mobile food truck named the Eat and Beat . Promotion can also be the way you let the public see your service and product. with market research you can test the waters. What i mean by test the waters is the way you advertise. May be put some coupons in a magazine or the newspaper. these can be very beneficial to your whole marketing promotion agenda.

Sales promotions are found everywhere. For example, your favorite magazine is loaded with offers like this one that promote a strong and immediate response.

Rapid Growth of Sales Promotion

Sales promotion tools are used by most organizations, including manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and not-for-profit institutions. They are targeted toward final buyers (consumer promotions), retailers and wholesalers (trade promotions), business customers (business promotions), and members of the sales force (sales force promotions). Today, in the average consumer packaged-goods company, sales promotion accounts for 74 percent of all marketing expenditures.²⁸

Several factors have contributed to the rapid growth of sales promotion, particularly in consumer markets. First, inside the company, product managers face greater pressures to increase their current sales, and promotion is viewed as an effective short-run sales tool. Second, externally, the company faces more competition and competing brands are less differentiated. Increasingly, competitors are using sales promotion to help differentiate their offers. Third, advertising efficiency has declined because of rising costs, media clutter, and legal restraints. Finally, consumers have become more deal oriented. In the current economy, consumers are demanding lower prices and better deals. Sales promotions can help attract today’s more frugal consumers.

The growing use of sales promotion has resulted in promotion clutter, similar to advertising clutter. A given promotion runs the risk of being lost in a sea of other promotions, weakening its ability to trigger immediate purchase. Manufacturers are now searching for ways to rise above the clutter, such as offering larger coupon values, creating more dramatic point-of-purchase displays, or delivering promotions through new interactive media, such as the Internet or cell phones.

In developing a sales promotion program, a company must first set sales promotion objectives and then select the best tools for accomplishing these objectives.

Sales Promotion Objectives

Sales promotion objectives vary widely. Sellers may use consumer promotions to urge short-term customer buying or to enhance customer brand involvement. Objectives for trade promotions include getting retailers to carry new items and more inventory, buy ahead, or promote the company’s products and give them more shelf space. For the sales force, objectives include getting more sales force support for current or new products or getting salespeople to sign up new accounts.

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Two arguments support this method. First, competitors’ budgets represent the collective wisdom of the industry. Second, spending what competitors spend helps prevent promotion wars. Unfortunately, neither argument is valid. There are no grounds for believing that the competition has a better idea of what a company should be spending on promotion than does the company itself. Companies differ greatly, and each has its own special promotion needs. Finally, there is no evidence that budgets based on competitive parity prevent promotion wars.

Objective-and-Task Method

The most logical budget-setting method is the objective-and-task method, whereby the company sets its promotion budget based on what it wants to accomplish with promotion. This budgeting method entails (1) defining specific promotion objectives, (2) determining the tasks needed to achieve these objectives, and (3) estimating the costs of performing these tasks. The sum of these costs is the proposed promotion budget.

Objective-and-task method

Developing the promotion budget by (1) defining specific objectives, (2) determining the tasks that must be performed to achieve these objectives, and (3) estimating the costs of performing these tasks. The sum of these costs is the proposed promotion budget.

The advantage of the objective-and-task method is that it forces management to spell out its assumptions about the relationship between dollars spent and promotion results. But it is also the most difficult method to use. Often, it is hard to figure out which specific tasks will achieve stated objectives. For example, suppose Sony wants 95 percent awareness for its latest Blu-ray player during the six-month introductory period. What specific advertising messages and media schedules should Sony use to attain this objective? How much would these messages and media schedules cost? Sony management must consider such questions, even though they are hard to answer.

No matter what method is used, setting the advertising budget is no easy task. John Wanamaker, the department store magnate, once said, “I know that half of my advertising is wasted, but I don’t know which half. I spent $2 million for advertising, and I don’t know if that is half enough or twice too much.”

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Distribution

Key factor in how your product is given to the world or just your set route and chosen places of business.The distribution is how you get your product out there. If you want to go for a large distribution lets say maybe all of the united states you will need a very large distributor in order to get your product to all the locations desired. And in this case you will need  distributor for the food you wish to have on your menu. This can be a very large part of weither your company is succesful or not. Cause you have to be able to trust that the product is going to get to the the various locations and wharehouse's in which it will be sold to and from.

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Exclusive distribution

Giving a limited number of dealers the exclusive right to distribute the company’s products in their territories.

Between intensive and exclusive distribution lies selective distribution—the use of more than one, but fewer than all, of the intermediaries who are willing to carry a company’s products. Most television, furniture, and home appliance brands are distributed in this manner. For example, Whirlpool and General Electric sell their major appliances through dealer networks and selected large retailers. By using selective distribution, they can develop good working relationships with selected channel members and expect a better-than-average selling effort. Selective distribution gives producers good market coverage with more control and less cost than does intensive distribution.

Selective distribution

The use of more than one, but fewer than all, of the intermediaries who are willing to carry the company’s products.

Responsibilities of Channel Members

The producer and intermediaries need to agree on the terms and responsibilities of each channel member. They should agree on price policies, conditions of sale, territory rights, and specific services to be performed by each party. The producer should establish a list price and a fair set of discounts for intermediaries. It must define each channel member’s territory, and it should be careful about where it places new resellers.

Companies must also determine the number of channel members to use at each level. Three strategies are available: intensive distribution, exclusive distribution, and selective distribution. Producers of convenience products and common raw materials typically seek intensive distribution—a strategy in which they stock their products in as many outlets as possible. These products must be available where and when consumers want them. For example, toothpaste, candy, and other similar items are sold in millions of outlets to provide maximum brand exposure and consumer convenience. Kraft, Coca-Cola, Kimberly-Clark, and other consumer-goods companies distribute their products in this way.10 Marketing Channels Delivering Customer Value (page 24 oMarketing Intermediaries

Marketing intermediaries help the company to promote, sell, and distribute its products to final buyers. They include resellers, physical distribution firms, marketing services agencies, and financial intermediaries. Resellers are distribution channel firms that help the company find customers or make sales to them. These include wholesalers and retailers who buy and resell merchandise. Selecting and partnering with resellers is not easy. No longer do manufacturers have many small, independent resellers from which to choose. They now face large and growing reseller organizations such as Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Costco, and Best Buy. These organizations frequently have enough power to dictate terms or even shut smaller manufacturers out of large markets.

Marketing intermediaries

Firms that help the company to promote, sell, and distribute its goods to final buyers.

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Product

The Eat and Beat would provide a healthy product .This product being our delicious and simple menu. Also to the list of items that you could add to the list would be the beat portion of why our brand is even called the Eat and Beat is the music store that is within the food truck. Where our guests can choose off our menu of pita bread style burritos with various vegetable's , and meats ,and also for the vegatarian's out there.Top it off with a download or actual compact disk. And of couse with a nice cold soft drink what could be better?. Our product is a food truck which serves hot pita bread buritos with a side of music.

Product Mix Decisions

An organization with several product lines has a product mix. A product mix (or product portfolio) consists of all the product lines and items that a particular seller offers for sale. Some companies manage very complex product portfolios. For example, Sony’s diverse portfolio consists of four primary product businesses worldwide: Sony Electronics, Sony Computer Entertainment (games), Sony Pictures Entertainment (movies, TV shows, music, DVDs), and Sony Financial Services (life insurance, banking, and other offerings).

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A company’s product mix has four important dimensions: width, length, depth, and consistency. Product mix width refers to the number of different product lines the company carries. Sony markets a wide range of consumer and industrial products around the world, from TVs and PlayStation consoles to semiconductors. Product mix length refers to the total number of items the company carries within its product lines. Sony typically carries many products within each line. The camera and camcorder line, for instance, includes digital cameras, camcorders, photo printers, memory media, and tons of accessories.

Target Market Strategy

The desired target marketing strategy for the Eat and Beat mobile food trucks would be that of field research. By experimenting with how and who to market the service for. Weither it be to the younger generation or to a more upper class of citizens. As a a food truck experiance you want to provide top quality to whom you as a company want to cater to. And you want to be able to provide and meet the needs of your target market consumer. For the Eat and Beat food truck I as my companys ceo would like to market to those who love music and also love pita bread style burritos.

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A marketing strategy consists of specific strategies for target markets, positioning, the marketing mix, and marketing expenditure levels. It outlines how the company intends to create value for target customers in order to capture value in return. In this section, the planner explains how each strategy responds to the threats, opportunities, and critical issues spelled out earlier in the plan. Additional sections of the marketing plan lay out an action program for implementing the marketing strategy along with the details of a supporting marketing budget. The last section outlines the controls that will be used to monitor progress, measure return on marketing investment, and take corrective action.

Marketing Implementation

Planning good strategies is only a start toward successful marketing. A brilliant marketing strategy counts for little if the company fails to implement it properly. Marketing implementation is the process that turns marketing plans into marketing actions in order to accomplish strategic marketing objectives. Whereas marketing planning addresses the what and why of marketing activities, implementation addresses the who, where, when, and how.

Marketing implementation

The process that turns marketing strategies and plans into marketing actions in order to accomplish strategic marketing objectives.

Many managers think that “doing things right” (implementation) is as important as, or even more important than, “doing the right things” (strategy). The fact is that both are critical to success, and companies can gain competitive advantages through effective implementation. One firm can have essentially the same strategy as another, yet win in the marketplace through faster or better execution. Still, implementation is difficult—it is often easier to think up good marketing strategies than it is to carry them out.

In an increasingly connected world, people at all levels of the marketing system must work together to implement marketing strategies and plans. At Black & Decker, for example, marketing implementation for the company’s power tools, outdoor equipment, and other products requires day-to-day decisions and actions by thousands of people both inside and outside the organization. Marketing managers make decisions about target segments, branding, packaging, pricing, promoting, and distributing. They talk with engineering about product design, with manufacturing about production and inventory levels, and with finance about funding and cash flows. They also connect with outside people, such as advertising agencies to plan ad campaigns and the news media to obtain publicity support. The sales force urges Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other retailers to advertise Black & Decker products, provide ample shelf space, and use company displays.

Situation or swot analysis

The situation in the case of the Eat and Beat food truck would be that of finding out who your customer is and making them feel like a guests. You have to decide as a company weither you want to appeal to a large mainstream ,or a niche market in which you know that your business can make a quality product or in this case a quality food that your company can market to.

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The buying center is not a fixed and formally identified unit within the buying organization. It is a set of buying roles assumed by different people for different purchases. Within the organization, the size and makeup of the buying center will vary for different products and for different buying situations. For some routine purchases, one person—say, a purchasing agent—may assume all the buying center roles and serve as the only person involved in the buying decision. For more complex purchases, the buying center may include 20 or 30 people from different levels and departments in the organization.

The buying center concept presents a major marketing challenge. The business marketer must learn who participates in the decision, each participant’s relative influence, and what evaluation criteria each decision participant uses. This can be difficult.

For instance, the medical products and services group of Cardinal Health sells disposable surgical gowns to hospitals. It identifies the hospital personnel involved in this buying decision as the vice president of purchasing, the operating room administrator, and the surgeons. Each participant plays a different role. The vice president of purchasing analyzes whether the hospital should buy disposable gowns or reusable gowns. If analysis favors disposable gowns, then the operating room administrator compares competing products and prices and makes a choice. This administrator considers the gowns’ absorbency, antiseptic quality, design, and cost, and normally buys the brand that meets requirements at the lowest cost. Finally, surgeons affect the decision later by reporting their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the brand.