In today’s world, we don’t have to look very hard to see
marketing at work. Whether it be on the TV when we wake up in the morning or
word of mouth when we get into work or school. In that one little add or that
one 200-character tweet that your friend showed you had countless hours of
thinking by people just like us. That’s the beauty in Marketing, Marketers try
to appeal to us and it works because they are us. They focus on the marketing
mix which is the four Ps of marketing; product, promotion, price, place. These
are the controllable factors that the Marketers start off with then they branch
out to the consumers to analyze their reactions and behaviors and act on them
by selling their product a certain way, at a certain price, at a certain
location.
Marketers are extraordinary at
understanding the consumer behavior which is the actions a person takes in
purchasing and using products and services, including the mental and social
process that comes before and after these actions. Consumer behavior is like
the big umbrella that marketers try to figure out. Then they start to target
certain kinds of behavior which in marketing terms is called target marketing.
Marketers don’t just wing it and hope that people think like they do but they
strategically try to find out what consumers want. A tool such as social media
is a huge benefit to marketing because we can post surveys for different existing
products or ideas to help build a new product. Social media allows marketers to
detect trends and be able to analyze them in order to help them understand what
we as consumers are thinking.
I have learned that marketing research,
collecting primary and secondary data is one of the most important things in
marketing. Knowing who you are selling to and how they will react to what you
are selling is the biggest thing if you are trying to promote a product or
service. How much money should Coke use to put in an advertisement during the super
bowl? Marketers will try to find out using financial and strategic analysis to
determine if it’s really worth it spending the money to put in an add to show
the consumers.
Marketers every day are
brainstorming every day to try and catch your eye in the newspaper or grab your
attention during a commercial. They are trying to persuade you as the consumer
to buy into this service or buy this product. The biggest thing that has come
up again and again in my research and learning on marketing is that using
opinion leaders for promotion is one of the most influential acts in marketing.
You get Tom Brady to be the star in your mattress commercial, chances are your
sales in New England for mattresses will skyrocket. It isn’t a guarantee by any
means but opinion leaders always tend to at least grab the attention of the
consumer more than a normal person. Marketers don’t just try to advertise on
TV, they also advertise on posters and flyers. At Saint Michaels College one of
the most genius ideas the school has had was to put the stall street journal in
every stall in every bathroom on campus. This is a great way for people to get
their messages out about anything from student activities to donations to a
charity.
This semester We were tasked in
hosting an event in order to raise money for a nonprofit organization. My group
did a spooky 5k to benefit the Red Cross relief fund to help Hurricane victims.
It was honestly a lot of fun but it was also a lot of work. From organizing who
is tabling at the Café and where are we going to get some donations from was a
lot of leg work. One interesting thing I gained form this experience was how
powerful the word of mouth is in marketing, especially on a college campus. The
flyers were a nice touch and the twitter and Instagram got us a few followers
but what really worked for us was telling our friends to spread the word. I
told a few kids on my lacrosse team about the event and next day I realize that
they are all participating in the run. Word of mouth spreads like wildfire and
it was great to see all the people who came out for the run. I couldn’t have
done it without the people in my group. We worked really well together because
we were able to take different task and work as a team to accomplish them. We
were able to get so much stuff donated and all set up because of the effort we
put into working as a team and I thought the event went super well. Our spooky 5 K team worked really well
together and we are so proud of our project, we raised over $200 that will go
to Red Cross.
The Big picture is very simple, marketing
has become such an important piece in society. It’s a way for people to connect
with one another. People are able to see what kind of people buy this product
and what type of people provide this service. We live in an age where marketing
is all around us and I think we should embrace it as the BIG PICTURE.
Worked Cited
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