Part 2 - Special Topics in Marketing

B2B Marketing, Marketing Information Systems and Measuring Marketing Activities

Learning Outcomes

B2B marketing. Student can differentiate the differences in marketing strategy between consumer markets and business markets.

Segmenting B2B markets. Student can identify the B2B market segments involved in a product or service offering

Marketing Information Systems. Student can identify at least three sources of input to a marketing information system for a product or service offering.

Marketing Metrics. Student understands the purpose of Return on Marketing Investment for the company, and can identify at least three metrics that should be used in a product or service offering to measure the effectiveness of marketing strategies.

Directions

This part of the writing assignment closes the loop on strategic marketing planning in that it identifies the types of marketing strategies the company might employ to market its offering through the value chain prior to its final customer. Also, strategic planning is useless unless there are reliable and useful sources of inputs and a way to organize the data to be used in the planning process decision making. Metrics need to be in place to measure how successful (or not so successful) the strategies to reach marketing objectives have been. Strategic marketing planning then becomes an ongoing process of measuring and adjusting to new information and current conditions.

Many of your responses to these questions will be your best educated and informed (as much as possible) information on your product or service offering’s company. Where concrete information is not obtainable, you should use your judgment and describe why you made your judgment call.

Respond to each of the following four questions in order and identify the number of each response. There is no need to repeat the number of the question.

B2B marketing. Consider your product or service offering. Based on the categories of B2B markets discussed in the readings, name at least two of the B2B markets that could be a target market for your company. Why?

Segmenting B2B markets. Using the Harrison, Hague, and Hague behavioral-based segment model in the readings, which of those segmentation schemes might be most appropriate category for your company? Why?

Marketing Information Systems. Identify at least three types of information your company should use in a comprehensive marketing information system for decision making purposes. Why did you chose each of them?

Marketing Metrics. Identify and discuss at least one financial metric and three performance metrics that would be important to monitor your company’s strategic marketing planning for the marketing efforts you identified for your new marketing mix strategies.