Marketing Plan 1

9.1 INTRODUCTION
The success or failure of a business plan depends a lot on clarity about the market and marketing plan.
A marketing plan attempts to understand and identify the market conditions for the given product and
service characteristics, detailed profiles of customers, potential for penetrating into the target market,
different pricing strategies, promotion and distribution efforts required to build awareness and brand
image, and the resources required to successfully achieve sales and profit targets.
In a highly competitive business environment, a marketing strategy needs to be so developed that it
ensures a process and a system in place with an inbuilt feedback mechanism that offers a product or
service in a unique way that is far more superior to its competitors. For example, a customer who is
dissatisfied with a doctor’s service may never come back to the same doctor or hospital and may prefer
to shift the patient to some other nursing home rather than entering into an argument with the doctor
concerned or the administration of the nursing home.

9.2 UNDERTAKING MARKETING RESEARCH

Marketing research is the first step in developing a marketing plan for launching a new business, so as
to improve the odds of success. Marketing research basically involves a collection of data about
customers, competitors and effectiveness of marketing strategies, so as to develop a framework for the
implementation of strategies that would yield expected results.
Thus, marketing research provides objective information to an entrepreneur about prospective
customers, their competitors and the overall industry.
Marketing research is not only crucial for start-up ventures but also very important for ongoing
businesses to ensure continuous growth.

9.3 BENEFITS OF UNDERTAKING MARKETING RESEARCH

. Some of the benefits that accrue from marketing research are given next (Fig. 9.1)1:
• Good marketing research and quality decision making increase the chances of success and ensure the
survival of the businesses in the market.
• With quality marketing research inputs, entrepreneurs can identify opportunities well and safeguard
themselves from adverse market responses by taking timely corrective actions.

Increase Chances of Success of a Venture

Help in Identification of Opportunities and

Prepare Against Adverse Market Responses
Benefits of
Marketing Continuously Learning About Outcome of
Research to Marketing Strategies
Entrepreneur
Decrease Risks About New Products
Introduction in the Markets

Help in Constantly Improving Overall

Marketing Strategy
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Figure 9.1 Benefits of Marketing Research
• Marketing research helps in continuously knowing and learning about the customers, competitors and
outcomes of marketing strategies.
• Entrepreneurs can decrease risks about new products or services that they plan to introduce in a specific
market.
• Marketing research gives basic marketing benchmarks that an entrepreneur should act on to compete
in the market. It helps in evaluating the outcomes of marketing efforts undertaken and in constantly
improving the overall marketing strategy of the business.

9.4 SCOPE AND STEPS INVOLVED IN MARKETING RESEARCH

Marketing research encompasses different aspects of understanding the market in detail and the
characteristics of the potential customers in it. Its focus has to always be the specific target market,
which would have different characteristics from market to market and, therefore, different information

Existing New
Products Product
Identifying Target Market
and Customers

Identifying Market
Characteristics

Measurement of Marketing
Potential

Competitors Analysis

Long-range
Pricing
Forecasting of
Strategies Estimated Market Share and Marketing
and Studies Sales Analysis Mix Variables

Sales Forecasting

Figure 9.3 Scope and Steps Involved in Marketing Research

requirements for making informed and objective decisions. Some of the vital areas of concern for an
entrepreneur that require marketing research are given next (Fig. 9.3):
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• Pricing Strategies and Studies—Pricing a product is the key decision that governs the margin
to the entrepreneur and value to the customer. Pricing decision and strategies get more determined by
the value that a customer attaches to the product than the cost of inputs. In highly competitive market
conditions, a price war in an industry can create havoc and may force many to quit the market. For
example, from 2005 onwards, the aviation industry in India saw a massive cut in fares leading to a
majority of them making losses and even some of them exiting from the industry. To gain control over
the prices, an entrepreneur needs to be innovative and maintain an exclusivity to their product and
service in the eyes of the customer; keep adding value to the business so as to stand distinct among
competitors and keep building on goodwill and branding by retaining quality.
• Some of the vital strategies that come handy in fixing prices are given next (Fig. 9.5):
• Price Skimming—If an entrepreneur has brought out a new product or new technologies in the
market for the first time, price skimming strategy can be the best choice. This method opts for fixing
a high price for the product at the time of its introduction to fetch good margins and recover the
investment made on research and development (R&D). Some of the key examples are mobile sets,
DVD players, LED television sets and flat televisions.
• Penetration Pricing—This strategy works well in a competitive market, especially for new products
in a well-established market. An entrepreneur attempts to seek an entry in the market to acquire
some market share so as to attract new customers. Penetration pricing is typically used for products
that are new to a well-established market. Such a method involves pricing the product very low in
order to gain market share and attract customers. News magazines use this pricing strategy. After
gaining the loyalty of customers, the entrepreneur may decide to raise the prices when customers
start realizing the comparative benefit they are drawing compared with competitors’ offerings.
• Premium Pricing—In case there are no competitors in the market and the product provides
significant advantages to the customer because of location, time and intense need, the product may
be priced artificially high in order to maximize profits. For example, a bottle of water at a height of
15,000 feet with no other shopkeeper selling water or a taxi at midnight at a place where no other
mode of transport is available and when the customer has to reach their destination for attending an
interview at 8 am in the morning, providing helicopter services at a deep forest range or mountains
having precious natural resources and that are not connected by any other mode of transportation.

9.5 CATEGORIES AND TYPES OF MARKET RESEARCH

Marketing research is of various types and mainly focuses on the specific aspects to be studied. Some
of the vital types of marketing research that entrepreneurs use in their decision-making are given here.
• Audience Research—For certain marketing strategic decisions, it becomes important for an
entrepreneur to know about and understand as to who listen to the radio, watch television or read
printed publications. This information is also pertinent for advertising agencies who would like to reach
a certain target audience with their message. The marketing research about audience research
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Probable
Exploratory
Causes

Research
Descriptive
Techniques
Probable
Causes

Causal

Figure 9.7 Research Techniques

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facilitates promotion decision and the budget that an organization should provide to meet its objective
of reaching prospective customers through mass media.
• Product Research—Product research helps in knowing about the reactions of customers to the product
characteristics and taste. The main objectives of undertaking product research are to introduce change
in the taste/characteristics of an existing product or to introduce an altogether new product and measure
the consumers’ reactions to see whether there is room in the market for a variation or intro- duction of
a new product with different taste and characteristics.
• Psychological Research—It is quite challenging and difficult to undertake psychological research,
because it is difficult to understand and measure human behaviour. The focus of psychological research
is to find out why people like and buy certain products and dislike others. The emphasis is on dividing
the population into certain homogeneous classifications based on the lifestyle of people, their previous
buying habits and the cultural background that influences their decision to buy or not to buy a product/
service.
• Database Research—Database research is gaining more and more ground and popularity among
marketing researchers, because the raw data are contributed by the purchaser in departmental stores,
shopping centres, railway booking counters, while applying for admissions and at an umpteen number
of other places while making a decision.
• Scanner Research—Scanner research focuses on collecting data from a particular group of respondents
by continuously monitoring the advertisement campaigns, promotion and pricing that they are exposed
to and their buying decisions.

9.6.1 Research Methods for Data Collection

Three commonly used methods for data collection are given next (Fig. 9.8):
• Closed-ended Questionnaire—This approach collects information through closed-ended questions
that require an answer such as ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ or picking up an answer from multiple choices given such
as ‘Strongly Agree’ to ‘Do not Agree’. This type of marketing research is generally undertaken to elicit
answers from customers or the general public or target population. It is generally undertaken to deter-
mine awareness about a product or service and how awareness could be increased.

• Open-ended Questionnaire—Knowing very well that people often have opinions that do not fit into a
multiple-choice questionnaire, the need arises to pose questions that provide a flexibility to the respon-
dents to express what they feel, without constraining them to choose a specific answer.

• Focus Group—In this method, discussions around a table with groups of consumers, would-be
consumers, never-buyers or any other demographic group that a company wishes to bring together are
called ‘focus groups’. The purpose is to get feedback on specific issues such as price, quality,
convenience and service.
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9.9 COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

To prepare a marketing plan, an entrepreneur should analyse the existing and prospective competitors,
their strengths and weaknesses to derive a competitive advantage.
Competitor analysis has the following key objectives:
• gathering information about competitors to analyse their strengths and weaknesses
• analysing the information to work out superior strategies to respond to the competitors’ offerings
• working out the competitors’ possible moves
• preparing a dynamic and proactive move to respond to the challenges posed by competitors
The purpose of competitor analysis is to clearly identify who are the probable competitors to compete
with, the competitors’ strategies to increase their market share vis-à-vis planned strategies by the
entrepreneur and how to remain ahead of competitors in increasing the market share by a higher growth
in sales.

9.10 DEFINE TARGET MARKET

An entrepreneur needs to develop a clear perspective about their target market, which is defined as a
‘specific group of consumers at which a company aims its products and services’. Target market analysis
enables in a scientific way to identify people and the organizations that a venture would like to serve.
opportunities for new products and services
• demographics and attitudinal characteristics of customers
• user profiles, usage patterns and attitudes
• effectiveness of a firm’s current marketing strategy

The characteristics of a target market need to be identified under various heads such as the following:
• Demographics—Age, gender, race, income, religion, occupation, family size and geographic location.
• Psychographics—Consumers’ interests and opinions, personalities, attitudes, values, interests,
hobbies, lifestyles and behaviour. An entrepreneur needs to find out a match between the product or
service offered and the target market’s people, their lifestyle, interests and attitudes.
• Product Usage—When do the customers use the product or service? Specify the occasion, situation,
climate, time, place and usage context.
• Brand Preferences—Do the customers have any strict brand loyalty or brand awareness that plays a
role in their buying the product and the typical attributes that get identified with the brand?

9.10.1 Cohort Marketing

This is another approach that identifies the target market. The emphasis in this approach is to study
groups of people who go through particular experiences, irrespective of age. Cohort marketing goes one
step further. A ‘cohort’ is defined as a group of individuals experiencing the same significant events
during the same time interval, undergoing a sequence of roles from birth to death and exhibiting common
characteristics due to accumulated knowledge and shared experiences. This results in the formation of
certain bonds that result in them behaving differently from the people in other cohorts, even though they
belong to a similar age profile.
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Thus, identifying target market demand fundamentally requires aggregating consumers with similar
needs who are divided into certain clusters. Marketing professionals classify demand patterns into three
broad categories, namely (Fig. 9.11).
• Homogeneous Demand—This demand is uniform, as everyone demands the product for the same
reason(s), thus implying a greater degree of control in the estimation of aggregate demand.
• Clustered Demand—Consumer demand is classified in two or more well-defined clusters such as for
automobiles—luxury vehicles, cheap vehicles, mid-segment vehicles, sports utility vehicles and
spacious vehicles.
• Diffused Demand—This involves a wide range of choices on the part of customers, thus resulting in
product differentiation that works out to be a costly and more difficult process for the entrepreneur. For
example, the cosmetic market that requires hundreds of shades of lipstick; children’s books with a wide
range of choices that children like and furniture designs suited to individual tastes.

Demand Patterns

Clustered Diffused
Demand Demand Demand

Figure 9.11 Different Demand Patterns

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‘Market demand for a product is the total volume that would be bought by a defined customer group
in a defined geographical area in a defined time period in a defined marketing environment under a
defined marketing programme (Kotler and Keller 2006:107).’

9.11 MARKET SEGMENTATION

Market segmentation is a process that helps in dividing a target market into subsets of homogenous
consumers who have common needs and applications for the goods and services offered in the market.
It is the process of dividing a total target market into homogeneous groups consisting of customers who
have relatively similar product needs.

9.12 MARKET POSITIONING

After an entrepreneur has identified their target market and undertaken market segmentation, the next
crucial decision that needs to be made is to position oneself within that chosen segment. Positioning is
the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the
target market . The purpose is to ingrain a distinctive image in the mind of a target market, so as to
maximize the potential benefits to the company. ‘Positioning refers to “how organizations want their
consumers to see their product”?

9.13 BUILDING A MARKETING PLAN

All entrepreneurs, irrespective of being start-ups or in different phases of growth, require systemati-
cally developing a marketing plan. A good marketing plan for any venture focuses on key issues such as
the who, what, where, when and how that are much related to the product/service under consideration
related to marketing and sales for the next one to five years. A marketing plan specifies the expenditure
to be incurred on advertising and distribution that enable the customers to achieve different levels of
sales. ‘Marketing’ is defined as a process of creating and delivering a product/service to the customer
so as to recruit, retain and retrieve customers from the target market and keep creating a group of loyal
customers to the organization.

Philip Kotler defines marketing as ‘satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process’. It is
obvious that customers will enter into an exchange transaction only if they value the product or service
that provides benefits far more than the price they are paying.
P. Tailor of www.learnmarketing.net suggests: ‘Marketing is not about providing products or
services. It is essentially about providing changing benefits to the changing needs and demands of
the customer.’

A marketing plan should be so devised that it

• provides a strategy for accomplishing the company’s goals and missions
• is based on facts, valid and verifiable assumptions
 Marketing Plan 9
• provides for continuity so that future plans can be built to achieve long-term goals
• should be simple, straightforward and short
• should be flexible to accommodate dynamic changes to build ‘what if’ scenarios
• should specify the performance measurement criteria that will be monitored and controlled

9.14 MARKETING MIX

The key to developing a marketing plan revolves around the strategic decisions regarding marketing
mix variables, namely, product, price, promotion, place, people, process and packaging .

9.14.1 Product
The product has to satisfy the customers in different markets as per their needs and tastes. In each
market, a customer evaluates a product in the context of their overall requirements. Therefore, product
management is to design, develop and have quality features that differ from market to market.
Therefore, the product aspects of a marketing mix involve a clear description of the product in terms
of its features, design, utility, quality, durability, safety, size, brand and warranties to take care of what
the customer is looking for in the product in different markets.

9.14.2 Price
Understanding pricing is the most crucial aspect of an entrepreneurial journey. The entrepreneur uses a
variety of techniques to arrive at a reasonable price that gets fixed for the product or service. Therefore,
understand- ing customer perceptions becomes an important priority for the entrepreneurs when fixing
prices.
Price Fixation Decision Fixing a price for a newly developed product requires positioning the
product on both the quality and price front. Some markets have a wide range of products, resulting in a
wide variation in prices, whereas others do not provide much variation and flexibility in fixing the price.
On the other hand, consulting services, professional services and products and services brought out for
the first time in the market, as a result of innovations, give a greater degree of flexibility to the
entrepreneur about price fixation.

The vital probable objectives of an entrepreneur for the fixation of price are given as follows:
• Survival Strategy—In a market having intense competition, an entrepreneur would be happy to cover
variable and fixed costs as well as a meagre margin to remain in the market. This strategy works well
for survival in the short run and prepares to create a value proposition for the customer, so as to make
their offering distinct from others in the market.
• Maximize Profit—An entrepreneur for a given estimated demand for the product attempts to maximize
profit, cash flows and return on investment. At times, this strategy may jeopardize the long-term
performance at the cost of exploiting the situation in the short term.
• Maximise Market Share—An entrepreneur attempts to gain from economies of scale and attempts to
fix a price that can maximize their market share. This enables them to reduce unit cost of production
and get advantage from it in terms of realizing margins when compared with competitors. This works
well in market conditions wherein customers are highly sensitive to price changes, and low prices give
rise to accelerated growth in sales.
• Pricing for Innovative Products—An entrepreneur coming up with products based on innovations as
an outcome of new technology fixes a high price to maximize profits, so as to recover initial R&D
investment. This works well, if there is an adequate number of buyers having a high intensity need for
the product and it is not easy for competitors to enter into the market that easily, and high price is
 Marketing Plan 10
considered a sign of quality. A ‘price skimming strategy’ is one by which an entrepreneur charges the
highest initial price that customers will pay. As the demand of the top segment of customers gets satis-
fied, the firm lowers the price to attract another, more price-sensitive segment.
• Predatory Pricing—This strategy is usually not used by start-ups. However, the existing strong play-
ers in the market may use this strategy to force new competitors to quit the market. It is called an ‘anti-
competitive strategy’, wherein the entrepreneur fixes a price below the cost of production to drive out
competition. This may lead to conditions where one company has a monopoly in a certain product or
industry.

9.14.3 Promotion
The promotion plan is a sort of mini-marketing plan, more so in the case of consumer products. However,
in the case of start-ups having either industrial customers or a few customers, the whole approach for
promotion would be more from personal selling and direct marketing. Promotion deals with informing
potential customers about the product offering, its availability, education to the customers and the use
of advertisements to reach the customers through an appropriate mode. The purpose is to communicate
to the customers about the benefits of the product to motivate them to purchase it. The entrepreneur’s
promotional strategy revolves around the following points:
• Advertising—This is reaching potential customers in the target market through any form of mass
media that is paid for. It is an effective as well as expensive method. The procedure to be followed for
advertising includes setting specific objectives such as sales growth, increasing market share; deciding
advertising strategy in terms of budget, media choice and geographical profile; targeting the
audience—market segment, demographic profile and income strata; deciding the advertising content
as well as the execution and style for advertisements.
• Public Relations—It involves developing positive relationships between the organization and custom-
ers, media and the public. It is an important component of the marketing mix of an organization. Public
relations assumes a great significance in bringing a well-conceived marketing effort to fruition,
especially in the service industry. The art of good public relations is not only to get favourable publicity
for the venture and its products within the media, but it also involves the ability to successfully handle
any crisis situation arising about the company in the media. Some of the basic principles that one needs
to take care of for effective press releases are that the information is as newsworthy as possible; one
needs to inform the audience that the information is intended for them and state why it is necessary to
read it; connect well with target customers; the first few words should be catchy and impressive to
generate interest in it; provide facts and not the impressions and, above all, give contact information:
person, address, phone, fax, e-mail and Web site address. For example, an entrepreneur having a local
business will have only local customers. One may be interested in reaching them through local media—
newspapers and pamphlets inserted in newspapers. The simplest approach that can be appro- priately
pitched would have a great chance of getting picked up by the local journalist. Similarly, if one is
operating in the business-to-business environment, the local newspapers carry business sections of
some description and, hence, people would be interested in local business stories.
• Sales Promotion—It is used to push the sales of the company by using techniques such as door- to-
door campaign, discounts, coupons, special offers and gifts. It is also considered a brand differ- entiator
by many big players such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald and Pizza Hut. It is considered a marketing
technique that adds value to a product in order to achieve specific marketing goals. The primary
objective of sales promotion is to induce the customer to make a quick buying decision. The three
main categories of sales promotion that target consumers, traders and industries are called ‘consumer
sales promotion’, ‘trade sales promotion’, and ‘business to business and industrial sales promotion’,
respectively.
• Personal Selling—This involves selling a product service one to one. It involves the delivery of a
specially designed message to a prospective customer by a seller, usually in the form of face-to-face
communication, personal correspondence or a personal telephone conversation. It works well for
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specific products and more so, in the beginning phase of a start-up venture.

• Direct Mail—It involves sending publicity material directly to a named person who as an individual
or an organization would be interested in the product. Direct mail may constitute around 10 to 15
per cent of the advertising budget and, thus, is becoming one of the prominent sources of sales
promotion. There has been massive growth in direct mail campaigns over the last five years. There are
organizations that can be accessed on a payment basis to collect databases, which contain the names
and addresses of potential customers. It allows an organization to use their resources more effectively
by allowing them to send publicity material to a named person within their target segment. It helps in
increasing the response rate because of its personalized approach and, thus, helps in pushing sales.

9.14.4 Place
This refers to the mechanism through which goods/services are delivered to the consumers or users of
the product/service. This basically focuses on the distribution plan by covering aspects such as channels,
coverage, locations, logistics and inventory-related decisions to reach the customer.

9.14.5 People
People have become the fifth and another most important ingredient of the marketing mix. The final
ingredient in the marketing plan jigsaw are quality people in all the aspects of production and distribu-
tion, as they contribute the utmost value to the end customer. The people input of one’s organization
should be consistently able to maintain one’s marketing differentiation. The purpose is to induct people
with required expertise and skills in the organization and place them in the right roles, so as to set one’s
company and products apart from those of one’s competitors.

Check Your Progress

10 Ways That People Could Buy from You

The easier you make it for people to find you and do business with you, the more business you
will do. Marketing is only one aspect of that challenge. Here are 10 opportunities you might create
for your potential customers.
1. Retail: Some people will prefer to buy direct. This is true even if you supply a wide range of
outlets. That is why many who make consumer goods also have a ‘factory shop’.
2. Wholesale: When you sell into the trade, the trade becomes your customer and the user of your
product, the consumer. You can sell a higher volume, albeit at a lower margin. Economies of
scale, however, may mean that your cost per unit is lower so you are better off overall.
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3. Mail order: You post information to people who might be interested and they either accept
your offer or throw your mailing in the bin. Make sure your list contains people with a high
probability of being interested in your offer.
4. From an agent: Agents sell products and services from a range of suppliers. You pay commis-
sion but, unlike a sales team, agents cost you only when successful.
5. Online: Anyone in the world can buy from you if you have a Web site. People can pay online
using their credit card and then download or be mailed your product or service.
6. By recommendation: A satisfied customer recommends you to their friends.
7. Networking: Some people sell only through networking. Good networkers pop up every-
where, attending business breakfasts and other organized networking events.
8. At an event: If there is a conference or a fair that you think will attract your target audience,
why not take a stand and let people meet you or see what you produce?
9. Multi-level: Multi-level marketing is where each customer is encouraged to become a
distributor, recruiting more customers. It is tightly regulated but very effective.
10. As a package: Sometimes, others have products or services that complement your own.
Collaborating to develop a package can generate both interest and business for you.

• Marketing Research: This involves collection of data about customers, competitors and the
effectiveness of marketing strategies, so as to develop a framework for the implementation of
strategies that would yield expected results.
• Market Characteristics: This analysis helps in identifying dynamics of the customer base that
helps to understand and get greater insights about the market—type, size, players and growth
prospects.
• Competitors’ Analysis: Identifying existing and prospective competitors and their strengths and
weaknesses is undertaken to get an understanding about the severity or otherwise of competition.
• Market Demand: This is the total volume that would be bought by a defined customer group, in
a defined geographical area, in a defined time period, in a given marketing environment.
• Price Skimming: This is a method for fixing a high price for the product at the time of
introduction to fetch good margins and recover investments made in R&D.
• Penetration Pricing: This is a pricing strategy used to seek an entry in the market to acquire
some market share so as to attract new customers. Penetration pricing is typically used for
products that are new to a well-established market.
• Premium Pricing: This is used for products that provide significant advantages to the customer
because of location, time and intense need and, therefore, products are priced artificially high in
order to maximize profits.
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• Exploratory Research: This helps in getting insights into the broader and general nature, the
possible decision alternatives and the identification of relevant variables that need to be
considered/examined.
• Descriptive Research: This provides an accurate snapshot and a detailed view of the specific
aspects of the market environment.
• Causal Research: This technique is used when it is necessary to show that one variable causes
or determines the values of other variables. Here, the researcher is looking at the cause-effect
relationships between variables.
• Product Research: Product research helps in knowing about the reactions of customers to the
product characteristics and taste.
• Psychological Research: It is used to find out why people like and buy certain products and
dislike others.
• Scanner Research: Scanner research focuses on collecting data from a particular group of
respondents by continuously monitoring the advertisement campaigns, promotion and pricing
that they are exposed to and their buying decisions.
• Closed-ended Questionnaire: This is an approach that collects information through closed-
ended questions that require an answer such as ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ or picking up an answer from the
multiple choices given.
• Open-ended Questionnaire: This allows people to express whatever they have in their minds
that is related to the question under consideration.
• Competitor Analysis: This is used to clearly identify who are the probable competitors to
compete with, competitors’ strategies to increase their market share vis-à-vis planned strategies
by the entrepreneur and how to remain ahead of competitors in increasing the market share.
• Target Market: This is defined as a specific group of consumers at whom a company aims its
products and services.
• Generational Marketing: This helps in better defining consumers on the basis of multiple
factors such as age, social, economic, demographic and psychological factors.
• Cohort Marketing: This is defined as a group of individuals experiencing the same significant
events during the same time interval, undergoing a sequence of roles from birth to death and
exhibiting common characteristics due to accumulated knowledge and shared experiences.
• Potential Market: This consists of a set of customers who envisage a sufficient level of interest
in the product being offered in the market.
• Available Market: This consists of a group of consumers who envisage interest in the product
offering in the market that is backed up by income and access.
• Penetrated Market: It consists of the actual number of customers from among the target market
who buy a company’s product.
• Market Segmentation: This process helps in dividing a target market into subsets of homog-
enous consumers who have common needs and applications for the goods and services offered
in the market.
• Market Positioning: This refers to ‘how organizations want their consumers to see their
product’.
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• Marketing Mix: This involves key decisions on marketing mix variables, namely, product, price,
promotion, place, people, process and packaging.
• Price Elasticity of Demand: This provides a measure of the responsiveness of the quantity that
will be bought by the customers to the changes in the price of a good or service, for a given demand
curve.
• Public Relations: This involves developing positive relationships between the organization and
the customers, media and the public.
• Cost Leadership Strategy: This focuses attention on making a given quality product or service
at a relatively lower cost when compared with that of one’s competitors.
• Differentiation Strategy: This helps in developing a product or service that is perceived by
customers as unique and different ‘throughout the industry’ and that will be able to serve a specific
need of the customer.
• Focused Strategy: This is the most sophisticated strategy from among the generic strategies, as it
is a far stronger form of either the cost leadership strategy or differentiation strategy.