Answer the following questions in about 50 words each at one place. MP-2009

a. Marketing
Marketers must connect effectively with customers, others in the company and external partners in face of major environmental forces that influence these actors. A company’s marketing environment consists of actors and forces outside that affect marketing management’s ability to develop and maintain both opportunities and threats.

b. What is Marketing
Marketing is probably one of the most confusing terms used in business circles today. Its meaning is not often clear to people who use the word quite frequently. Even marketing authorities widely differ on the scope and subject matter of marketing – chiefly because this science can be applied to the entire business unit and yet it can simply be limited to the distribution of products only. According to Edward and David:
Marketing is the economic process by means of which goods and services are exchanged and their values determined in terms of money price.
In the words of Tousely, Clark and Clark, “Marketing consists of those efforts which affect transfers in the ownership of goods and services and which provide for physical distribution”.
Converse, Hugey and Mitchell define marketing as:
“Marketing includes those business activities which are involved in the flow of goods and services from production to consumption”.

c. Promotion Mix
A business total marketing communications programme is called the “promotional mix” and consists of a blend of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public relations tools. It is use to describe the set of tools that a business can use to communicate effectively the benefits of its products or services to its customers. It is a part of the wider marketing mix. It consists of:
· Advertising
· Public relations
· Sales promotion
· Direct Marketing
· Personal Selling

d. Steps in Target Marketing
1. Identify bases for segmenting the market
2. Develop profiles of resulting segments
3. Evaluate the attractiveness of each segment
4. Select the target segment(s)
5. Develop positioning for each target segment
6. Develop marketing mix for each target segment.

e. Branding
A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.
The objectives that a good brand will achieve include:
· Delivers the message clearly
· Confirms your credibility
· Connects your target prospects emotionally
· Motivates the buyer
· Concretes User Loyalty
To succeed in branding one must understand the needs and wants of the customers and prospects. This can be achieved by integrating our brand strategies through your company at every point of public contact.

f. Product Mix Decisions
A product mix consists of all the product lines and items that a particular seller offers for sale. Each product line consists of several sub lines. A company’s product mix has four important dimensions like width, length, depth and consistency. These product mix dimensions provide the handles for defining the company’.

g. Online Marketing
Online Marketing is the marketing of products or services over the Internet. It ties together creative and technical aspects of the internet, including design, development, advertising and sals. Online marketing methods and strategies encompass a wide range of services such as search engine marketing (SEM) which can be broken down into search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC), display advertising, test-based advertising, behavioral marketing, software-based as, e-mail marketing, newsletter marketing.

h. Product Life Cycle
A new product progresses through a sequence of stages from introduction to growth, maturity, and decline. This sequence is known as the product life cycle and is associated with changes in the marketing situation, thus impacting the marketing strategy and the marketing mix.
The product life cycle goes through many phases and involves many professional disciplines and requires many skills, tools and processes. Product life cycle (PLC) has to do with the life of a product in the market with respect to business/commercial costs and sales measures.
The different stages in a product life cycle are:
· Market Introduction state
· Growth stage
· Mature stage
· Decline or Stability stage

i. Sales Forecasting
Sales forecasting is the task of projecting the future sales of a firm. The sales forecast indicates how much of a product is likely to be sold during a specified future period in a specified market, at specified prices. Sales forecasting is a difficult area of management. Most managers believe they are good at forecasting.

Reasons for undertaking sales forecasts:
Businesses are forced to look well ahead in order to plan heir investments, launch new products, and decide when to close or withdraw products and so on. The sales forecasting process is a critical one for most businesses. Key decisions that are derived from a sales forecast include:
· Employment levels required
· Promotional mix
· Investment in production capacity

j. Product organization
Companies producing a variety of products and brands establish a product management organization. It serves as another layer of management. It makes sense if the company’s products are quite different or if the sheer number of products is beyond the ability of a functional department organization to handle.