STDP

You can have the perfect product but without the proper knowledge and strategy of how to exploit what makes the product perfect it can all go for naught. After marketing analysis has been performed the next stage of the marketing process consisting of three steps must be performed. These three steps are market segmentation, target market selection, and positioning.

Market segmentation involves dividing customers into selected stratas with the goal to create several heterogeneous groups with homogeneity within the groups. Segmentation is generally distinguished into two related types segmentation based on benefits sought by customers, as well as, on observable characteristics of customers. The whole goal of this step is to understand the benefit that customers seek and to help create customer profiles for each strata that has been developed.

Target market selection takes the information that has been developed in the market segmentation phase and evaluates which segments the business wishes to serve. The key to this phase is understanding differentiation. In order to reach a product's full potential data must constantly be collected and compared to see if and where an advantage can be made and a niche for the product to be carved.

After the business has decided where and to whom to market a unique selling proposition must be created. This, to me, is the most important stage in the process because you have to essentially convince the market to buy your product. Three main questions need to be answered in this stage they are:

• Who are the customers?
• What is the set of needs that the product fulfills?
• Why is the product the best option to satisfy those needs?

These questions should be answered based on the thorough understanding of the customer, the competitive environment, and the company itself that has been constantly developing throughout this three step process.

In my opinion, if a business can successfully complete these three steps they are in a pretty good position to succeed. If this process were so easy we would see so many more products succeeding and the probability of failure would be significantly reduced. Even if this process is successfully completed there is still a very high risk of failure. Branding plays a significant role in the overall success of a product and is inextricably linked to positioning. The highest goal of a brand builder is to have the noun created displace the natural language, for example Kleenex.

Marketing Myopia

As students interested in the field of Accounting it is sometimes easy to downplay the role of other fields and their importance to a businesses success. Marketing plays an integral part to any businesses success because without it the consumer would never want or get the product being produced by the business. As accountants we tend to take a more black and white or X and O approach to Marketing but Levitt stresses there is more to it than meets the eye. A key concept we discussed in class was Marketing Myopia. Marketing Myopia is considered the most influential Marketing idea of the past half-century and is based on the idea that businesses will ultimately do better in the end if they concentrate on meeting customers' needs rather than selling the product.

To illustrate the importance of his idea Levitt provides several examples of industries that experienced this tunnel vision and shortsightedness which ultimately led to lower profitability and sometimes consolidation. Some industry examples provided are dry cleaning, grocery stores, and the railroads. Levitt stresses that businesses should understand the benefit they are ultimately providing to consumers. He would suggest that these businesses lost sight of the benefit provided to consumers and became obsolete because of it.

Levitt also stresses that Marketing is different than Selling. My previous assumption was that Marketing and Selling were one in the same but it is easy to see now that they are clearly in separate circles. Marketing, according to Levitt, addresses the customers needs while Selling is simply the process of persuading the consumer to buy a product. We analyzed Marketing Myopia previously in M370 but as we have discussed before there is always more learning to be done because "you can learn Marketing in a day but it takes a lifetime to master."