Marketing

Table of Contents

1. Topic pack - Marketing - introduction
2. 4.1 The role of marketing - notes
3. 4.1 The role of marketing - questions
4. 4.2 Marketing Planning - notes
   1. Marketing planning
   2. The marketing mix
   3. The Total Product Concept
   4. Ethics of marketing
   5. Marketing audit
   6. Porter's five forces
   7. Porter's five forces - activities
   8. Marketing objectives
   9. Market research - introduction
   10. The role of market research
   11. Primary and secondary research
   12. Primary research - information gathering techniques
   13. Observations - case studies
   14. Group-based market research
   15. Market research - summary
   16. Questionnaires
   17. Sampling
   18. Methods of sampling - introduction
   19. Main methods of sampling
   20. Sampling errors
   21. Market segmentation
   22. Consumer Profiles
   23. Types of segments
   24. Demographic segmentation
   25. Psychographic segmentation
   26. Psychographic segmentation - case study
   27. Geographic segmentation
   28. Industrial markets
   29. Targeting
   30. Positioning
   31. Corporate image
   32. Position/perception maps
   33. Unique selling point/proposition USP
   34. Marketing strategies and tactics
   35. Sales forecasting
   36. Qualitative forecasting/data
   37. Forecasting and correlation
   38. Forecasting techniques
   39. Constructing time-series analysis
   40. Moving average
   41. Four point moving average - worked example
   42. Identifying the seasonal variation
5. 4.2 Marketing planning - questions
6. 4.3 Product introduction - notes
7. 4.3 Product - questions
8. 4.3 Product - simulations and activities
9. 4.4 Price - notes
10. 4.4 Price - questions
11. 4.4 Price - simulations and activities
12. 4.4 Promotion - notes
13. 4.5 Promotion - questions
14. 4.6 Place (distribution) - notes
15. 4.7 International marketing - notes
16. 4.7 International marketing - questions
17. 4.8 E-commerce - notes
18. 4.8 E-commerce - questions
19. Printable version

Sampling

It is normally too costly and almost certainly impossible to ask everyone in the target population. So, firms have to sample a proportion of opinions.

It is important that answers given by the selected sample will reflect the whole populations' opinions as closely as possible. In research, the term 'population' is used to represent all the market, but for a major corporation it may the majority of the population of the country. Obviously, by asking fewer people the firm cut costs, save on time and resources. But the results may not be statistically significant. In other words, the firm cannot rely on the results representing the views of the entire target population. If it does not, any marketing decision based on the results may be flawed. For example, if you ask all your friends what they think about a television programme, their opinions may be similar, but are unlikely to be representative of older age groups.

Advantages of sampling

Sampling has a number of advantages over a full census of a population and these include:

• Saving time - sampling involves a lot less time than a full census and this will enable the firm to produce results faster and therefore react quicker to market trends
• Resources required are fewer - if less time is required then this will reduce the resources required to manage the sampling process
• More cost-effective - costs will be relatively lower when just a sample is taken
• A sample is more reliable as there is a concentration on fewer units