Understanding market needs through research for successful product development

Marketing

Grade Course

Satisfaction of Market Needs as the First Step towards Product Development

Product, Price, Place, and Promotion are the core foundation of the marketing mix. The designing of a product initially goes through the product-development process. It starts off with the idea itself, then the concept, followed by a prototype, which is then placed under a product test, market test, and then finally launched. The success of high performers in the market is highly dependent on a thorough understanding of the market demand. A Deep insight into the need that is being met is the best guarantor of success in the short and longer term (Kotler et. al 300).

A new product launched within a market would only be successful if its features and specifications truly resonate with clients' requirements, and if there are sufficiently large segments and demand structures at which the product launch is focused on. In order to satisfy customer needs before launching a product it is essential to focus on market segmentation, which implies investing deep consumer understanding and focusing first on clients and competition. For attaining relevant information regarding the market needs, market research is essentially required which helps in knowing potential target markets by first sending out an online survey to find out more about market demographics. Analysis of market needs caters in highlighting the areas requiring enhanced customer satisfaction efforts. Market sizing analyses are instrumental in estimating market opportunity potential, reachable market share, and potential revenue. Until these types of activities resolve themselves, ambiguity will rule the early launch environment, which might lead to unsuccessful product launch results. It is therefore imperative to conduct marketing activities, which drive and shape the go-to-market strategies and execution tactics required for the product launch. The lack a detailed understanding of your target markets attributes results in a knowledge gap that will flow through all product development and go-to-market activities and significantly weaken the launch efforts and post-launch business success (Kotler et. al 100).

Question 2

Advertising -- The foundation of Promotion Mix

Advertising is considered as an essential element of the promotion mix. Advertising is instrumental in attaining promotion objectives. It caters in making a large target audience well aware of the product features and communicating the key benefits of the product to the consumers. Advertisements are thus considered as the traffic drivers of a promotion. Advertising messages provide an understanding of how the audience members can take part in a promotion and benefit from the advantages offered by it. Advertising provides a means to measure the overall response and results of the promotion campaign. In an online advertising campaign, the number of clicks on banner ads and number of website visitors can be tracked in order to measure the popularity and success rate of a product launch.

Apart from creating awareness, advertising plays a significant role in building brand personality and image. Advertising produces a psychological effect which has an impact on the mental disposition of the audience, so that they purchase the advertised product. Thus advertisements act as stimulators developing brand preferences among the consumers, which results in enhanced levels of customer satisfaction (Tellis 508). Moreover, advertising encourages innovation and new product development which ultimately reduces the risk of the product becoming obsolete. In a nutshell advertising is basically a form of communication which has the basic responsibility of delivering the information to the target audience. This stimulates demand by providing information regarding the availability of the product, discounts offered and the expectation of the fulfillment of latent and aroused needs. Advertising also lends a hand in supporting other promotion mix elements, which include preselling and helping the sales pro-motion and personal selling activities (Tellis 510).

Question 4

Integrated Marketing Communication and its Role in a Firm's Marketing Strategy

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is defined as a planning process aimed at assuring that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time. The goal of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) revolves around integrating all the elements of corporation. It actually combines advertising, sales, customer service, public relations, direct marketing, sales support, etc. into a singular, unified force instead of having them work as different departments having no coordination and cooperation with each other. IMC was actually developed for attaining consistency across marketing communications disciplines and media. Integrated Marketing Communication strategies comprise of figuring out the target audience, developing objectives and budgets, analyzing social, competitive, cultural and technological issues, and eventually evaluating them and retrieving feedback regarding the effectiveness of promotional strategies adopted.

Many organizations today use IMC as a pivotal part of their marketing strategy. Instead of dividing marketing communications into separate groups which hardly communicate with each other, organizations are now diverting their strategies towards integrating all marketing disciplines under one umbrella. This makes every communication consistent with one message, sharing the same strategy. The adoption of IMC in a firm's marketing strategy is the first step towards attaining the purpose of marketing which revolves around generating revenue, increased market share, driving preference to purchase, and building brand awareness.