Marketing Flashcards study guide

MKTG 3101 Midterm Study Guide — Completed

This study guide follows your Class 2–11 slide notes and the uploaded midterm review topics. I’ve organized the material into definitions, frameworks, examples from class, and practice answers so you can study for your October 14 midterm.

The main idea connecting the entire course is:

Understand the customer, market, and competitors → choose a strategy → deliver value through the 4 Ps → measure results.

Part 1: Core concepts and frameworks

Class 2: What is marketing?

1. What is marketing?

Marketing is engaging customers and managing profitable customer relationships. It creates value for both the company (such as profit) and the customer (such as satisfying a need).

Science vs. art: Marketing is mostly science, with art mixed in. Science involves research, data, and analysis; art involves creativity, communication, and persuasion.

Marketing is NOT just advertising or sales. It includes understanding customers, developing products, pricing, distribution, promotion, and maintaining relationships.

2. Marketing myopia

Marketing myopia occurs when a company defines its business by the product it sells rather than the customer need it fulfills. This can cause the company to miss changing customer needs.

Example:

Product-oriented: Barbie sells dolls.

Market-oriented: Barbie helps girls imagine everything they can become.

Why it matters: A company that understands the need it serves can adapt when products, technology, and customer preferences change.

3. Three business orientations

Orientation

Definition

Example / focus

Production concept

Consumers favor products that are available and affordable.

Improve production and distribution efficiency.

Marketing concept

Success depends on understanding target customers and satisfying them better than competitors.

Focus on customer needs and satisfaction.

Societal marketing concept

Considers customers' and society's long-term interests.

Balance customer wants, company goals, and societal well-being.

4. Marketing decisions

Marketers decide:

Who to target: customers must have needs or wants and buying power.

How to attract attention and persuade.

Whether and how to grow.

How to retain and engage customers.

How to price products.

Where to sell products.

Marketing also applies to people, places, causes, events, nonprofits, and for-profit organizations.

Class 3: Marketing strategy

Strategic planning answers three questions:

Who are we? — Mission statement.

What should we do? — Analyze the customer, market, and competition; select a strategy.

How will we do it? — Deliver the value proposition through the marketing mix and measure results.

1. Mission statements

A mission statement describes an organization's purpose and what it wants to accomplish in the larger environment.

A market-oriented mission explains what the company does for its customers, rather than simply listing its products.

Company

Product-oriented

Market-oriented

Amazon

Sells books, electronics, toys, and other products online.

Customer obsession, invention, operational excellence, and long-term thinking.

Nike

Sells athletic shoes and apparel.

Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.

Barbie

Sells dolls.

Help girls imagine everything they can become.

A good mission statement is:

Realistic.

Specific.

Consistent with the market environment.

Based on distinctive competencies.

Motivating.

Lego example: Defining Lego around building and learning, rather than just plastic bricks, makes a coding education product like Raspberry Pi easier to see as a potential fit.

2. The three parts of marketing strategy

Understand the market

Customers, market conditions, and the competitive environment.

Develop and deliver value

Use the 4 Ps: product, price, place, and promotion.

Assess performance

Calculate return on investment (ROI).

The 4 Ps:

Product: What is being offered to meet the customer's needs?

Price: How much does the customer pay?

Place: Where and how is the product distributed?

Promotion: How does the company communicate value?

ROI measures the net return generated by a marketing investment relative to its cost.

ROI=NetreturnfrommarketinginvestmentCostofmarketinginvestment

3. BCG growth-share matrix

The BCG matrix evaluates strategic business units (SBUs) based on two dimensions:

Market growth rate: How attractive or fast-growing is the market?

Relative market share: How strong is the product compared with competitors?

Stars

High growth, high share

Invest to support growth; may become cash cows.

Question marks

High growth, low share

Decide whether to invest to gain share or divest.

Cash cows

Low growth, high share

Generate steady cash with relatively little investment.

Dogs

Low growth, low share

Harvest, manage for limited profit, or discontinue.

The matrix is arranged by market growth and relative market share; quadrant placement here is conceptual rather than a scaled chart.

Class examples from Apple: