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What this unit covers

• Marketing, competition and the customer: Understand the purpose of marketing, which includes recognizing customer needs, fulfilling those needs, fostering customer loyalty, and developing strong customer relationships.
• Marketing, competition and the customer: Examine the factors that lead to changes in market dynamics, including shifts in consumer spending habits, the significance of evolving customer needs, the rise in market competition, and how businesses adapt to these changes.
• Market research: Understand the significance of market research and the various methods employed, including the advantages and disadvantages of primary and secondary research. Recognize different primary research techniques such as postal questionnaires, online surveys, interviews, and focus groups, as well as the importance of sampling. Identify secondary research methods like online searches, government resources, and purchasing commercial market research reports, along with the factors that can affect the reliability of market research data.
• Market research: Interpret and utilize market research findings presented through graphs, charts, and diagrams, and be able to derive basic conclusions from this data.
• Marketing mix: Understand the advantages and disadvantages of creating new products, the influence of brand image on sales and customer loyalty, the importance of packaging, and the stages of the product life cycle along with strategies for extending it. Be able to illustrate and analyze a product life cycle diagram and discuss how its stages affect marketing choices such as promotion and pricing.
• Marketing mix: Learn about various pricing strategies, including their benefits and drawbacks, such as cost-plus, competitive, penetration, skimming, and promotional pricing. Be prepared to recommend and justify a suitable pricing strategy based on specific scenarios, and grasp the concept of price elasticity, distinguishing between price elastic and inelastic demand, and its relevance in pricing decisions, though detailed calculations will not be required.
• Marketing strategy: Provide reasons for selecting specific marketing strategies based on a particular scenario, considering how various elements of the marketing mix affect consumer choices in that context. Suggest and support a suitable marketing strategy for the situation presented.
• Marketing strategy: Understand the nature and effects of legal regulations that influence marketing practices, including how these laws affect marketing strategies, such as issues related to misleading advertisements and unsafe products.