Marketing in a challenging economy

In a challenging economy, consumers become value oriented, set stricter priorities, and reduce their spending. Although it is wise to contain costs, this is not the time for your organization to stop spending on marketing. Rather it’s the time to put customer needs under the microscope to understand how they have changed, and nimbly adjust your strategies, tactics, and product offerings to the new reality.
 
Organizations may forget that, in prosperous times, rising sales are not caused by clever advertising and appealing products alone. Purchases depend on consumers’ having disposable income, feeling confident about their future, and trusting in business and the economy. In a challenging economy like ours today, these things have changed for the consumer.
 
Hence, you must make changes in your approach to marketing. You must find new ways to make marketing work more effectively and get more out of marketing investments. Doing the same things in a challenging economic environment and expecting the same results is a flawed strategy.
 
In this course, participants will learn about customer’s decision making process, how to segment markets taking into consideration the consumers’ emotional reactions to the changes in economic environment, and how to define a marketing mix to target those segments. They will also learn pricing strategies and various methods of promoting products in a challenging economy. In addition, how customers are now reassessing priorities, reallocating budgets, switching among brands and product categories, and redefining value, will be explored.
 
This course familiarizes participants with what is involved in present-situation marketing using mainly qualitative methods and increases their awareness about various critical areas. It provides many opportunities for them to explore marketing methods used by their own organizations and critically evaluate them with the help of other participants and the facilitator. This can provide a great opportunity to borrow marketing ideas from other industries which historically has been a great source of marketing innovation.
 
Audience: Individuals interested in changing their marketing strategies for improved results in the current challenging economy.  

 

Prerequisites: None.

 

Number of Days: 1 day

 

Program Content:

 

Introduction to Marketing

-Overview

-What are the historical approaches to marketing?

-How does modern marketing differ from historical approaches?

-What is involved in a marketing process?

-What techniques are used for situational analysis?

-How does marketing relate to sales and what does this mean when planning your strategy?

 

Understanding Customers

-What is a SWOT analysis and how can you take advantage of it in marketing?

-How customers decide?

-Customer decision-making in a challenging economy

-How can you influence customers in each stage of their decision making process?

-How to devise a marketing strategy to appeal to customers in each stage of their decision making process?

 

Marketing Strategy

-How to segment the market?

-Psychological segmentation approach suitable in a challenging economy 

-The new segments of today's economy

-Exploring and integrating digital channels

-How to target the market based on specific segmentations?

-How to devise a marketing mix and position your products appropriately according to your target market?

-What are various positioning strategies and what are their advantages and disadvantages?

 

Marketing Mix: Product

-What is the life cycle of a product?

-What to consider when developing products in line with your marketing mix?

 

Marketing Mix: Price

-What is involved in the process of pricing your products?

-How to price your products in line with your objectives?

-What legal issues should you be aware of when pricing?

-What are supply and demand curves and how can you use them when setting up your prices?

-Should you have variations of a single product? If so, how many?

-How to price multiple variations of a product to maximize your profit?

-Pricing right during recession 

Marketing Mix: Place/Distribution

-What is the importance of distribution and what is involved?

-What are various types of sales channels?

 

Marketing Mix: Promotion

-How can you promote your product?

-What are the 4 principal elements of promotion?

-How to use viral marketing?

-What is involved in branding?

-Promoting when the economy is slow 

Marketing Analysis

-What are best practices in marketing?

-What are the critical areas in marketing that can make all the difference?