Marketing

1. Identify and explain five benefits of developing a marketing orientation within AGES, using examples to support your answer:

Benefits of marketing orientation:  EJEMPLIFICAR CON FRASES DEL TEXTO

 Customer needs are met
 Customer loyalty is increased
 Also applies to internal customers – employees
 Aids in the compilation of customer database
 Helps the organization to grow
Provides a competitive advantage
 Costs of retaining customers are less than those taken to acquire new customers
 The longer you retain a customer the higher their spend will be

Candidates will mention that achievement of marketing orientation is difficult and needs to be driven from the top of the organisation.

2. Identify and explain, with examples from the case study, five keyimplications for AGES when developing a marketing oriented approach:

Key implications:  EJEMPLIFICAR CON FRASES DEL TEXTO

 Need to understand the importance of retaining good customers
 Need to understand how to build and maintain customer loyalty
 Ensuring that all departments and employees focus on the customer
 Customer is central to the function of the organization
 May involve changeto the organizational structure

3. Definition of marketing research:

Marketing research is the collection, analysis and communication of information undertaken to assist decision making in marketing.

4. Reasons for carrying out marketing research:

The benefits of conducting marketing research are as follows

 Find out about their market and customers, so they can provide a productthat meets their customer’s requirements
 Find out about competitors’ products and activities, so they can provide a product that is competitive, attract new customers and retain existing ones
 Understand demand for the product, so they can respond to any changes by developing the product, entering new markets or developing new products as appropriate
 Identify prices that the customer willaccept, so they can maximize profit levels while keeping prices to a level where they can also maximise sales
 Decide on methods of marketing its products.

5. Explain the difference between primary and secondary research methods:

Primary research is the collection of new information. An advantage of primary research is that the researcher knows the source of the information, thecircumstances under which it was gathered, and any limitations or inadequacies in the research

Secondary research – or desk research – involves researching sources of information that are already available. This is often the cheapest, easiest and quickest type of market research. This latter type of research methods occur first in the conduction of a marketing research project

Some of the primaryresearch methods most commonly used:

 Interviews or surveys: May be conducted face to face or by telephone. The interviewer can ask the interviewee a wide range of questions. Interviews are particularly useful for obtaining people’s views and ideas. One problem with interviews is that they are subject to bias from the interviewer.
 Questionnaires: They are lists of questions designed to obtainthe information required in a way that is not open to misinterpretation and can easily be analysed.
 Focus groups: A small sample group of typical consumers under the direction of a leader.
 Observation: It is a way of observing the people’s behaviour when they perform certain acts of purchase and / or consumption

Sources for secondary research may be internal or external:

 Internalsources include company records such as sales records and reports, accounts and customer records.
 External sources include specialist libraries, articles and reports in trade and other journals, research carried out and made available by trade associations, reports published by local and national government departments….

6. Describe the five stages of the planning process used for gathering...