THE END HAS COME!
Hello everyone,
Sadly this is going to be my last post for the semester. My marketing course is coming to a quick end and this is going to be my final blog reflection. I would like to thank you all up front for reading my blogs and following me; I hope you all enjoyed reading and learning about marketing!
In this reflection I am going to inform you all of some of my favorite marketing topics and explain to you all why that is! Along with I am going to address the lessons I learned as well as how those lessons connect to the course outcomes and objectives.
Let's begin with my favorite marketing topics:
Over the semester we covered 12 intense chapters ranging from simple concepts such as target markets, and pricing to more complex things such as pricing, the product life cycle and market segmentation. All 12 of these chapters have come together and have given me a fabulous understandings of the marketing mix.
Out of all of the topics in marketing there are four that are my favorite and that I feel I could see myself involved with sometime in the future.
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- Marketing and the economic force in terms of the three kinds of consumer income
This concept was very easy for me to grasp seeming that i am an accounting major and we deal with all types of incomes all the time. There are three types of consume income; gross income, disposable income and discretionary income. Gross income pertains to all the money that a person makes in one year; it could also be by all the money that a household earns during a year. Disposable income is the income that money that is left for the consumer after they paid their taxes and paying for supplies that are necessities; such as food, clothing, gas and more. Lastly discretionary income is the money that once again is left over after the disposable income step. The money that is left after paying necessitates is used for anything of desire for the consumer; such as a shopping spree, vacation or new car. ( Kerin, 75)
I believe that this concept stuck with me for a couple reasons, the first being that i enjoy working with numbers and calculating things. This topic also showed me that income is not just involved in accounting it is involved in other subjects such as marketing. I feel that being informed about these types of income is very important in any field but especially accounting and marketing.
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- The Consumer Purchase Decision:
I found the consumer purchase decision a very interesting thing to learn about because we use it every day and we do not even realize it. Before taking this course I did not know what this process was or what it was called but I did it on a day to day basis.
This process consists of 5 steps that lead a customer through the decision making process of purchasing a product or service. The five stages are....(Kerin 110)
1) Problem recognition
2) Information search
3) Alternative Evaluation
4) Purchase decision
5) Post purchase behavior.
Now that I know what this process entails it is easier for me now to connect what my mind is going through when I decided that I needed a new bathing suit for my cruise. My problem recognition is that I need a bathing suit. I then go online to search for where I am going to buy the bathing suit. I then can move on to step three and the alternative evaluation; this entails clarifying the problem for the consumer. Then step four the purchase; I have to decide if i am going to purchase the bathing suit from Kohl's or JCP and if I should buy it today or tomorrow. After I have purchased the bathing suit I will enter step five; post purchase behavior, I will compare my purchase others and contemplate if I made the correct decision!
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- Product Life Cycle
I believe that the product life cycle is a very important topic for all to know about. This process describes the stages that a product goes through in the market. There are four stages that the product can travel through; those being, introduction, growth, maturity and decline. All four of these stages have specific sets of information that go along with them.
Introduction: very self explanatory, happens when a new product is introduced into the market. during the time of introduction it is likely for sales to be minimal. (Kerin 266)
Growth: This stages is where the product gains more of a reputation in the market. competition begins to appear as well as there is a steep increase in sales. (Kerin 266)
Maturity: This stage is similar to when you mature from a child to an adult; there is a slowing of the overall industry. This stage is more for people who are repeat customers who are looking to purchase another of the item. (Kerin 266)
Decline: Once again this stage is pretty self explanatory; it occurs when there is a drop in the sales of the product. The product also enters this stage when there is a change in the economy. (Kerin 266).
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Packaging and Labeling
Packing and labeling is a very important part of having a successful product. If the packaging is not appeal to the customer than they are going to over look your product and move on to the next. The packing of the product is anything that the product is placed in for sale. such as the packaging of an I phone is a box where as the packaging of chips is a bag. Along with packaging comes labeling; labeling is an important part of the product as it displays the product or brand, who the manufacturer of the product was as well as the contents of what is in the container. As I briefly mentioned earlier the labeling is the most important as it displays the image of the product. If it does not catch the eye of the customer right off than there is no sense is having the product on the shelf. (Kerin 284)
I was fortunate enough to be able to help my dad out with this at his job a few months ago. My dad works at Leader Evaporator Co. which is a company that designs and produces products for maple sugaring. I was able to help assist them in creating a label for their new RO machine. I put my marketing skills to good use and they are excited to be able to release the new label next year. This was a great experience for me; I was not only able to help with creating a label but I was able to see how they were incorporating their company as a whole in their label, they have parts of their mission, goals, and values along with their company colors and slogan all in their label for their product. It opened my eyes to what it is like to work with these things in real life.
There are many other topics in the world of marketing but these topics are the topics that I was able to relate to in way or topics that interested me very much.
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I am now going to look at how the course outcomes and the objectives were incorporated with my learning throughout the semester. These objects were given on the first day of class in the syllabus and now it is time to look back on them and see if I learned everything I was supposed to. There are many course outcomes and objectives but I am going to be looking at six in particular.
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Course Objectives
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Course outcomes
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To examine and convey basic and emerging concepts and terminology
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Analyze and evaluate basic financial statements and business
formulas
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To have the opportunity to put marketing into action via
team and individual projects research reports and presentations
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Participate and communicate as an effective member of a
team
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To set personal and professional goals and positively contribute in an engaged class.
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Understand that the marketing process starts and ends with
customers and consumers.
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COURSE OBJECTIVES :
Examine & convey basic & emerging concepts & terminology:
I believe that over the course of the semester I was able to incorporate much of the vocabulary into my works. I was able to put the concepts to good use when explaining myself on tests and quizzes. I was able to to incorporate my knowledge of terms and concepts during practice marketing. I had to have a great understanding of what was going on so that I was able to know what terms to apply. For example I had to know that our fixed costs were too high and in turn that was making our net income become negative. Also we had to know basic terms such as target market, price, product, place and promotion as well to be able to run the business. I believe that overall I was very well at applying and examining terms and concepts during the semester in both individual work as well as group work.
Have the opportunity to put marketing into action via team and individual projects research reports and presentations
Throughout the semester it was very easy to put marketing into action in team and individual projects and presentations. Beginning with the Ad presentation; the Ads gave us a change to pick a commercial that we found to be effective and analysis it. we were required to inform the class of the P's the commercial along with the target market and why we believed it to be effective. This gave us the opportunity to think out of the box and put all the pieces together. The next thing I feel gave me the opportunity to put marketing into action was the TED talk. The TED talk was similar to the ad but this required us to pick a video that was central to marketing and give examples from the video as to why that was so. My video was centered around machines taking jobs away from people. Now going into group work practice marketing was a great simulation to put marketing into action. It was like we were running the company (even though it was fake) we were able to put our knowledge to good use; we had to generate a price for our bag also taking into consideration the production cost, along with picking a target market and determining the correct and ethical means of communication and advertising with our market segment. Along the way we had to make changes when our product were not preforming up to standard or when our target market was not buying our bag. We had to use many pricing strategy, price skimming, along with penetration pricing in many turns. I could write pages on this game but I believe overall it was a great way to incorporate the concepts as a whole; the marketing mix is key to this; product, place, price, promotion. Lastly I believe that being able to incorporate marketing into our reports was very easy; we were able to take the skills and idea from the game and formulate them into a report in which we were able to analysis ourselves to the other teams. Overall i feel that there were countless opportunities to put marketing action to good use!
To set personal and professional goals and positively contribute in an engaged class.
I believe that throughout the class I set some very high goals for myself and my group. I went in to the class telling myself that I was going to obtain an A in the class. So far I have done just that I was able to reach my goals through hard work and dedication to my work. I believe that my goals were obtainable for a few reasons; the way the information was taught was a great way for me to learn; i was able to obtain the information easily which in turn helped me to apply myself and my learning's to the work that came along with the class. When it comes to engaging in class and contributing I believe that i contributed a lot; I was always engaged in the conversation that was going on and if I did not have an answer right away I would either wait for something to come or try to build off of what my other classmates were saying.
I also feel that I was able to set professional goals in the sense of presenting; I have gotten over my fear of presenting; I get nervous at first but overall I feel comfortable in front of others; and presenting is something that I am going to have to be comfortable with with the field that I am entering.
COURSE OUTCOMES:
Analyze & evaluate basic financial statements & business formulas:
During the semester we were able to evaluate and analyze financial statements in a couple of different ways withing the practice marketing world. We were able to analyze in two ways; we were able to analyze the financial information that was given for all of the teams on the leader board as well as we were able to analyze our own and see the differences and similarities. We were also about to analyze the statements and calculations that we generated. we were able to see how one income statement changed from one turn to the next and also be able to get an idea as to what we wanted to change once again for the next turn. I believe that my analyzing and evaluation skills were put too good use seeming that I am an accounting major and this type of analysis comes easily to me. I was one of the main leaders in the group that dealt with the financials just because it made so much sense to me. I feel that if i were not to have known what fixed and variable costs, types of income, break even, return on sales and such then I feel that our team may have struggled a little more in this area of the course.
Participate and communicate as an effective member of a team:
As a team member in practice marketing I believe that I went above and beyond with my team. During the beginning of the team project (Practice marketing) I feel that I played a large role in my team. I am a very organized and proactive person. I feel that I was the one in my group that always wanted to begin the assignment early and get things done before the due date. I think that overall I was a large part of this team; at times I got very frustrated with my team when things were not done properly or they were not able to meet; but I was able to overcome that and be able to understand that this is going to help me when I enter the job world. I am going to have to deal with many difficult and unique people when I enter the job world, so when looking at a good part about this it gave me a chance to begin working with others and working as a team. once again overall a great experience to be part of.
Understand that the marketing process starts and ends with customers and consumers.
It has become very clear to me that without customers than marketing would be a complete fail. Marketing is centered around satisfying their customers and selling product. If there were no customers involved in the market than all the businesses that are producing products would be producing their products for no apparent reason. I feel that this step ties in a lot of marketing concepts ranging from the pricing, the product life cycle, the 4 P's, consumer purchase decision, discounts, allowances, segmentation, distribution channels; all of these concepts and ideas would not be able to be implemented without the consumers. Customers are what makes the marketing world go round and simply without them then there is no market, there is no need for manufacturers and there is no need for any of the concepts around marketing; marketing would simply disappear!
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Overall I was able to learn a great deal from this course. I was able to gain very important skills such as presentation skills along with group work skills that I am going to be able to implement in my work after college. Along with these skills I learned many helpful marketing concepts but also concepts that are important and concepts that are going to be useful to me no matter the field I choose. This class was a great course and I would recommend it to anyone!
That is it folks; this is my last blog; I thank you once again for sticking with my all semester and reading up on the latest marketing concepts!!
Thank you,
Alexis Combs
Resources used:
Kerin, Roger A., and Steven William Hartley. Marketing.
11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2013. Print.
