A summary of a week long marketing course that I took at Wharton and many of the same principles are applicable today as well.

1. Essentials of Marketing
Wharton School – University of Pennsylvania

2. Marketing Plan Template
Consumers Competitors Company Collaborator
s
Positioning
Product
Price
Place
Promotion
Step 1: Marketing Analysis 4C’s
Step 2: Positioning
Step 3: The Marketing Mix – The 4P’
s

3. Positioning
●Target Segment
●Point of Difference
●Frame of Reference
● Who is buying your product and for what purpose?
● Positioning may change over time.
○ Customer perceptions
○ Customer wants
○ Competition
Who am I going after?
Why should they buy the
product?
Who am I stealing the business
from?

4. Lifetime Value of Customer (LTVC)
●Why Customers are profitable over time?
○Premium price
○Referrals
○Increased purchases
○Base profit
●Develop a buyer decision making model –
which product , which seller ?
●Identify the rate limiting steps
The greatest danger to a
company is the inability to
retain customers

5. Profit Strategy Checklist
● Increase Unit Volume
○ Increase primary demand (Develop new products, Target new segments)
○ Manage brand Switching (keep customers loyal, Steal new customers from
competition)
○ Increase purchases by current customers ( Increase usage rate, trade-ups and
complements selling.
● Increase prices
○ Increase Value for the customer ( Higher benefits , lower transaction costs)
○ Decrease price Sensitivity ( Communicate quality , target upscale segments)
● Decrease Costs
○ Decrease Fixed costs ( less advt. expenses , R&D )
○ Decrease Variable Costs ( Improve negotiations with
suppliers/resellers)

6. Branding
●Important to invest in brand
●Go where you are strongest.
●Regularly measure and manage brand
value
●Have the brand value on your balance
sheet.

7. Is Network Solutions a Sincere
Exciting brand?

8. Relationship with Customers
Where does network Solutions want to be ?
Intense
Superficial
Functional/
Objective Symbolic/Emotional
● Master/Slave
● Best Friends
● WorkMates ● Drinking
Buddies
● Committed
Partnerships

9. Effect of Transgressions on Brand
Personality
● Expectations are higher for Sincere brands.
● In the absence of transgressions Sincere brands have Higher Trust over
time.
● Post recovery of Trust and Expectations after transgression is higher for
Exciting brands.
What should companies do ?
●Repair identified deficiencies
●Balance introduction vs. growth vs.
maintenance
●Develop committed partnerships vs casual
friendships

10. Brands Communities
● Emergence of brand communities
○ Specialized non-geographic bound community based on a set
of social relationships among admirers of a brand
● Customer to customer communities
○ Customers are brand missionaries
○ Customer communities are more forgiving of transgressions
● Risks of brand Communities
○ Communities may not like company decisions
○ Marketers have no control over community
○ Competitors can snoop on communities.
○ Nurturing brand communities is time consuming

11. Customer Analysis
●Conjoint analysis
●Cluster analysis.( Attributes , Attribute levels, Part-
worth's )
●Define segments
●Approaches to segments
●Margins , size and ability to reach markets
●Comparative advantages

12. Channel Strategies
●Trends:
○Emergence of new channels
■Cars sold on the internet
○Wholesalers changing roles
■Do a variety of other functions like sales etc.
○Consolidating from regional to national.
■Globalization

13. Pricing Strategies
●Random Discounting
●Price Signaling
●Premium pricing
●Experience Curve pricing

14. 3 Important learning
●Importance of positioning
●Brand Equity
●Pricing Strategy

15. 3 changes to implement
●Positioning of product for both the
company and competitors.
●Change pricing and promotion strategy.
●Critical incident management.

16. Steps company should take
●Brand value
●Brand Communities
●New markets