Week 8 Overview Principles of Marketing MRKT 310 Our last week is all about some special topics. We would be remiss by not addressing them in a principles course so that your learning outcome will include a broader picture of the marketing discipline. Perhaps we’ve even piqued your interest in becoming a marketing major! Special Topics in Marketing B2B, MIS and Marketing metrics 8.1 The characteristics of Business-to-Business (B2B) markets 8.2 Types of B2B buyers 8.3 Buying centers 8.4 Segmenting B2B customers 8.5 Types of B2B offerings 8.6 Stages in B2B selling process and B2B buying situations 8.7 Marketing Information Systems 8.8 Predicting, monitoring and measuring marketing strategies Our special topics include: A brief overview of Business-to-Business marketing showing you both how it is the same as Business-to-Consumer marketing, but pointing out those few concepts unique to B2B situations. We also need to introduce you to Marketing Information Systems. We have stressed throughout the course the importance of marketing research and the compilation of data on consumers, competitors and the environments. A good place to store all this data is in a well designed and functional MIS system that can generate management reports marketers can use to monitor trends, customers and performance. We won’t be covering the basics of marketing research as you should have been exposed to the research process in a prior statistics course. Lastly, the best marketing plans are useless if they don’t include ways to assess their effectiveness; so we will take a short look at financial performance metrics and plan performance metrics. 8.1 Characteristics of B2B markets More products sold in B2B than B2C markets Business products can be very complex Complex buying dynamics at organizations Requires more personal selling Based on derived demand More fluctuations in demand Special Topic 1: Most marketing careers are likely to begin in a B2B environment as those marketing activities comprise the bulk of marketing budgets worldwide. A basic notion that makes B2B different from B2Cd is the concept of derived demand. In other words, a B2B marketer would have nothing to market if it wasn’t needed for some other product. This is why when consumer spending goes down, the effect is widespread in terms of businesses hurt and people losing jobs that seem totally unrelated to the lost revenues of the product no longer being bought. Differences between Business-to-Consumer markets and Business-to-Business markets Here’s a handy chart that outlines the major differences between B2B and B2C for easy reference. 8.2 Types of B2B buyers Everyone BUT the end user Producers Resellers Governments Institutions Understanding B2B buyers is pretty simple — everyone but the end user, that would be a B2C buying situation as we have been discussing throughout the course before this week. Many students .

1. Week 8 Overview
Principles of Marketing
MRKT 310
Our last week is all about some special topics. We would be
remiss by not addressing them in a principles course so that
your learning outcome will include a broader picture of the
marketing discipline. Perhaps we’ve even piqued your interest
in becoming a marketing major!
Special Topics in Marketing
B2B, MIS and Marketing metrics
8.1 The characteristics of Business-to-Business (B2B) markets
8.2 Types of B2B buyers
8.3 Buying centers
8.4 Segmenting B2B customers
8.5 Types of B2B offerings
8.6 Stages in B2B selling process and B2B buying situations
8.7 Marketing Information Systems
8.8 Predicting, monitoring and measuring marketing strategies

2. Our special topics include:
A brief overview of Business-to-Business marketing showing
you both how it is the same as Business-to-Consumer
marketing, but pointing out those few concepts unique to B2B
situations.
We also need to introduce you to Marketing Information
Systems. We have stressed throughout the course the
importance of marketing research and the compilation of data
on consumers, competitors and the environments. A good place
to store all this data is in a well designed and functional MIS
system that can generate management reports marketers can use
to monitor trends, customers and performance. We won’t be
covering the basics of marketing research as you should have
been exposed to the research process in a prior statistics course.
Lastly, the best marketing plans are useless if they don’t
include ways to assess their effectiveness; so we will take a
short look at financial performance metrics and plan
performance metrics.
8.1 Characteristics of B2B markets
More products sold in B2B than B2C markets
Business products can be very complex
Complex buying dynamics at organizations
Requires more personal selling
Based on derived demand
More fluctuations in demand

3. Special Topic 1: Most marketing careers are likely to begin in a
B2B environment as those marketing activities comprise the
bulk of marketing budgets worldwide.
A basic notion that makes B2B different from B2Cd is the
concept of derived demand. In other words, a B2B marketer
would have nothing to market if it wasn’t needed for some other
product. This is why when consumer spending goes down, the
effect is widespread in terms of businesses hurt and people
losing jobs that seem totally unrelated to the lost revenues of
the product no longer being bought.
Differences between Business-to-Consumer markets and
Business-to-Business markets
Here’s a handy chart that outlines the major differences between
B2B and B2C for easy reference.
8.2 Types of B2B buyers
Everyone BUT the end user
Producers
Resellers
Governments
Institutions

4. Understanding B2B buyers is pretty simple — everyone but the
end user, that would be a B2C buying situation as we have been
discussing throughout the course before this week. Many
students at UMUC work at governments or nonprofit
institutions. You may in fact be engaged in B2B marketing in
some way.
8.3 Buying Centers
People who make buying decisions within an organization (such
as procurement department)
Decision process may also include one or more of the following:
department using the products
influencers
gatekeepers
deciders
Every business has their own processes and procedures for
procuring what it wants to buy to fill its needs. The main
players are listed above.
8.4 Segmenting B2B markets
Segmentation Bases
Price-focused segment
Quality and brand-focused segment
Service-focused segment
Partnership-focused segment

5. B2B market segments are prone to be more rational in their
characteristics often focusing on one of the four segmentation
bases outlined above. The psychographic characteristics we
discuss for consumer markets generally don’t apply here.
8.5 Types of B2B offerings
Primary categories are:
capital equipment offerings
raw materials offerings
original equipment manufacturing
maintenance, repair and operations offerings
facilities offerings
B2B offerings generally all into one of these categories. We
don’t call them convenience, impulse, routine or shopping
offerings like we do in B2C.
8.6 Stages in the B2B buying process
and B2B buying situations
The B2B buying process

6. You will notice that this chart uses the same sort of process as
we learned in B2C beginning with need recognition and ending
with an order placed. Depending on the offering, whether it is a
repeat order or a new order, the speed of the process and the
number of people involved is affected.
8.7 Marketing Information Systems
MIS = a way to manage the vast amount of information
companies have on hand to make good decisions
Should include the following components
system for recording internally generated data and reports
system for collecting marketing intelligence on an ongoing
basis
marketing analytics software to help managers with their
decision making
system for recording marketing research information
Special Topic 2: A Marketing Information System is generally
a technology-based database of the key information a company
needs to compete in the marketplace. The technology itself is
not an MIS, rather MIS is a systemic process of capturing and
processing information into useful information for decision
making.
8.8 Predicting, monitoring, and
measuring marketing strategies
Financial measures
Return on investment (ROI) or return on marketing investment
(ROMI)
Break-even point
Contribution to margin

7. Market demand measures
Customer lifetime value
Performance measures
Special Topic 3: Finally, we come to our last topic for this
course, predicting, monitoring and measuring marketing
strategies. Like an MIS system, not all metrics are the same for
every company so we can’t provide a handy list of things to
measure. However, metrics do fall into the four categories
listed above.
The financial measures are long used and proven to measure a
company’s financial performance, to which marketing activities
have contributed. In the readings you will see a small
modification to the traditional ROI to include Return on
Marketing Activities. While this is a good measure, it is
calculated either as a predictor of how marketing activities will
perform prior to a marketing plan implementation, or at the tail
end of a marketing plan implementation when it is too late to
make changes to the marketing strategies.
That is why performance measures, preferable in real time, are
an excellent way to monitor a marketing plan ongoing allowing
marketing managers to tweet, extend, pull or whatever tactics
may be at their immediate disposal to improve the performance.
The middle two, market demand measures and customer lifetime
value measures, are less typical. Only large companies really
have the wherewithal to run the market demand projections
allowing for every possible scenario to be considered prior to
launching a new offering. And, although customer lifetime
value is quite a simple concept, only companies deeply

8. committed to filling their customer needs take the time, energy
and expense to attract, retains and grow their most valuable
customers.
Week 8
Assessments
Week 8 Discussion Forum participation
Week 8 Writing Assignment
Week 8 Quiz
All due Sunday
by midnight!
And that’s it, folks. We have come to the end of your study of
marketing principles. We sincerely hope the course has met
your expectations and you now feel comfortable discussing
marketing in your career and at your company. As we said in
the beginning, a main goal is to give you just enough
information about marketing to be effective in any role you
assume. And if you want or have a marketing role, you should
be looking forward to the remaining MRKT courses, which will
go into much more detail on all of the topics we have discussed
herein.
Questions or concerns?
Be sure to take advantage of the General Discussion topic in the
Week 8 Discussion Forum to ask any questions, get
clarifications, or otherwise seek the advice and assistance of

9. your faculty member.
Last chance for questions or clarifications! See you in the
discussion forum.
Week 7 Overview
Principles of Marketing
MRKT 310
Finally, we’ve reaching the topic of Integrated Marketing
Communications —the fun part of marketing and the part that
many of you thought WAS marketing before you took this
course. Hopefully you now realize the role of advertising and
other promotion tools as just one element of the marketing mix,
(4) Integrated Marketing Communications and the changing
media landscape.
Integrated Marketing Communications, and the Changing Media
Landscape
How are offerings communicated to customers

10. 7.1 Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)
7.2 The promotion (communication) mix
7.3 The promotion mix, communication and buyer’s
perceptions
7.4 Message strategies
7.5 Public relations activities and tools
7.6 Sales promotion
7.7 Professional selling
7.8 The promotion budget
Section 7.1 is the most important section to understand in terms
of marketing strategy. The remaining sections describe the
details of the promotion tools, how to create marketing
communication messages, what media to use, and how to budget
for marketing communications strategies.
7.1 Integrated marketing communications (IMC)
IMC = a framework for delivering one clear, consistent and
compelling message to customers
Uses an array of IMC promotion mix tools
usually has one ‘big idea’ that runs through all the
communications
not identical messages but coordinated messages
Each promotion tool has a different job to do to lead the
customer through the Awareness-Interest-Desire-Action or the
AIDA model
IMC creates a clear, consistent and compelling message for the

11. target market — a message that is communicated through all
marketing communication media. The best part of IMC is that
specific promotion tools can be coordinated to reach the target
market with this clear, consistent and compelling message based
on the customer’s place in the AIDA model.
7.2 The promotion (communication) mix
Promotion mix = Tools marketers use to develop IMC strategies
Advertising (traditional and online)
Personal selling
Public relations
Sales promotions
Direct marketing (traditional and online)
The tools used in IMC are listed above and we will briefly
discuss each them in turn.
7.3 The promotion mix, communication, and
buyers’s perceptions
Factors that influence which promotion mix tools to use in a
given IMC campaign
IMC campaigns are generally time specific, maybe a year,

12. maybe longer, and maybe for an even shorter period of time.
The first column outlines those factors that are part of
developing IMC strategy, which results in the selection of
promotion tools found in the second column. Only then can the
marketer get specific in terms of which media, and what vehicle
within that media is most likely to contribute to the IMC
campaign.
So, while we originally may have thought that we could
immediately decide to launch a social media campaign for
example, that is actually the last consideration in an IMC
campaign as evidenced in the third column.
Push versus pull strategy
Push promotes a product to the middlemen who ‘push’ the
offering to the consumers
Pull promotes a product to the consumer who ‘pull’ wholesalers
and retailers to carry the offering.
Most IMC campaigns are a combination.
We introduced these concepts last week, but here we need to
more fully understand them. Part of the marketing
communications strategy is to determine whether the promotion
effort should be aimed at the channels to carry and distribute
the offering (push strategy), or should the promotion effort be
aimed at the end user (pull strategy) who will then create the
demand for the channels to provide the offering.
It usually isn’t quite as simple as selecting push or pull. In
most cases the IMC campaign will implement both strategies to
some degree based on the marketing communictions objectives.

13. The communication process
The communication process is a universal concept of how
communication occurs. You may have seen this model or a
similar one before. For marketing purposes, understanding this
model is necessary to ensure communications are delivered as
designed in the right media and at the right time. This means
the receiver, usually a target market member, understands and
agrees with the message and provides that feedback to the
marketer by buying the product.
7.4 Message Strategies
Message strategy considerations:
The unique selling proposition
the audience (a larger group than the target market)
the promotion objectives
the media
the budget
This section will introduce you to some of the creative and
media tactics used to deliver a marketing communication
message. It all begins with the unique selling proposition, or
the reason why a customer should buy the offering.

14. Marketing communications objectives need to be specific and
measurable
Objectives might be built around
Build primary demand
Build selective demand
AIDA model objectives
create “attention” and “awareness”
generate “interest”
affect “desire”
induce “action”
Pay special attention to the AIDA model outlined here and
discussed in more detail in the readings. It is a good framework
for developing marketing communications objectives from
which specific promotion tools can be selected.
IMPORTANT
Once the objectives have been determined, the the promotion
tool best equipped to deliver on that objective can be selected
A marketing communications objective might be: Create
awareness for the offering’s unique selling proposition so that
35% of the target market could recite the unique selling
proposition.
The best tool for to accomplish this objective would be
advertising. However, the company may decide it is too

15. expensive or its target market is more receptive to social media
messages. In this case the company could use the less
expensive social media campaign to accomplish the goal.
How would the company know if the objective was obtained?
Generally an awareness objective relies on pre and post
campaign marketing research. It is expensive, but if a company
does not know if it is reaching its objectives, there is no way to
measure its success or failure.
This is just one example of how the AIDA model flows into
marketing communications objectives which flows into the
selection of the appropriate promotion mix tool. See more in
the readings.
Advertising = paying to disseminate a message that identifies
the brand or organization.
Traditional media includes television, radio, newspapers and
magazines, billboards, transit advertising, telephone, mail, etc.
New media includes websites, banner ads, search engines,
mobile marketing, etc.
Media choice includes both the media and the vehicle, e.g. a
specific tv show, a specific site for placement of a banner ad.
This describes the various advertising tools available to
marketers if it is included in the IMC campaign. Important to
note that a media choice may be radio, but it has to include a
specific radio show such as a morning talk show in a specific
market that has provided the marketer with the research to
convince them that vehicle is likely to reach the target market
sought by the company.

16. 7.5 Public relations activities and tools
Creates rapport with customers, promotes the offering and
supplements the sales efforts
Some PR Tools include:
Press releases
Sponsorships
Product placement
Events
Sometimes public relations can be the dominant IMC promotion
tool used if the marketing communications objectives include
desire because public relations can create a close relationship
with members of the target market.
An added benefit is it is usually cheaper than traditional
advertising. Think of organized races for causes, e.g. Susan G.
Komen Race for the Cure. For many weeks before the race a
company can be a sponsor benefitting from the umbrella of the
race’s brand, it can have access to a direct marketing list of the
participants for further communication, it has a presence at the
event, etc.
7.6 Sales promotions
Supplements the advertising, public relations, and personal
selling efforts
Sales promotions can be targeted toward the consumer (pull
strategy)
Sales promotions can be targeted toward the trade (push
strategy)

17. Sales promotions are designed to drive consumers to action in
the AIDA model. They are for the fence-sitting who already
have a good understanding of the unique selling proposition, but
they need an extra incentive to take action. Sales promotions
can also reduce the risk of the purchase. If you get a free
sample, there is no risk to try the product, for example. Cents
off coupons reduce risk, etc.
Sales promotions do fall into the push and pull categories.
Sales promotion to consumers is generally ones that appeal not
only to their need for risk reduction to make the purchase but
also irrational appeals such as a contest to win the HGTV
Dream Home. Sales promotions to the trade are usually more
financial incentives to carry the product, or training of
personnel to ensure they also understand the unique selling
proposition and can convey that to customers.
7.7 Professional Selling
Personal selling needed to:
customize the product,
provide a high level of information about the unique selling
proposition
demonstrate the product
submit requests for proposal processes
close a sale
provide after sale service
Highly complex products or new products sometimes benefit
most from personal selling efforts. They are also used to bring

18. a customer to action in the AIDA model. Professional selling is
very expensive for a company, so they have to have clear
objectives when using this promotion mix tool. The advantage
is that it is highly measurable in terms of sales generated.
7.8 The promotion budget
Promotional budgeting methods
percentage of last year’s sales
affordable method
competitive parity
objective and task
Best method — start with objective and task since you have
marketing communications objectives. Review the budget in
light of the other methods and adjust objectives accordingly.
If a company has all the money in the world, then they can
outline the marketing communication objectives, decide one
which promotion tools could be used to reach those objectives,
and provide a detailed accounting of what it will cost. But most
companies don’t have all the money in the world; or if they do
they recognize there are other factors to consider.
Once an IMC campaign is outlined and the costs associated with
reaching each object is itemized, then reality sets in. Although
the objective/task method is the best starting point, the final
budget is usually tempered with the budget constraints, what
competition is doing, and whether the budged amount is too
great a percent of sales. Marketing communications objectives
then may be adjusted.
Week 7
Assessments

19. Week 7 Discussion Forum participation
Week 7 Quiz
All due Sunday
by midnight!
The creative strategy of an IMC campaign needs to focus on the
Unique Selling Proposition. The headline or caption should
immediately communicate that USP to the intended target
market.
Questions or concerns?
Be sure to take advantage of the General Discussion topic in the
Week 7 Discussion Forum to ask any questions, get
clarifications, or otherwise seek the advice and assistance of
your faculty member.
By now you know the Discussion Forum General Questions
topic is there for you to use to carry on a conversation with
faculty and classmates about questions and concerns. Use it as
often as needed.
MRKT 310 Principles of Marketing
Week 8 Writing Assignment
Part 1 - Integrated Marketing Communications, and the

20. Changing Media Landscape
Learning Outcomes
1. Integrated Marketing Communications. Student understands
how integrated marketing communications can add value for
customers.
2. Marketing communications objectives. Student can develop
marketing communications objectives using the AIDA
framework.
3. Promotion mix. Student can select the appropriate promotion
tool to be used for different marketing communications
objectives.
4. Media strategy. Student can design a simple message and
media plan for a product or service offering.
Directions
· This assignment assesses your ability to relate integrated
marketing communications concepts to your product or service
offering and the target market you selected. Here you will let
your creative side shine as you think through how you would
design the marketing communications for your product or
service to effectively and efficiently communicate a clear,
consistent and compelling message to your target market over
the next year.
· The course content does not cover IMC in great detail and you
may want to refer to some open source references for more
information on message design. A good one is:
http://www.caad.au.edu/attachments/article/43/Class%207-
Creative%20IMC%20Message%20Strategies.pdf
· Prepare your assignment beginning with a title page with your
name and the name of your product or service. Then answer
each of the following eight questions (four in part 1 and four in
part 2) in order and number the beginning of your response to
each question. You do not need to repeat the question. The
paper should contain approximately 5 pages of analysis for the
responses to the eight questions.
1. Integrated Marketing Communications. Considering your
new target market and any modifications, new product line

21. extensions or new products you may have developed to serve
the new target market needs, create your 'Big Idea" to be the
basis of the message strategy for all your marketing
communications.
2. Marketing communications objectives. Write at least three
marketing communications objectives using the AIDA
framework discussed in the course content.
3. Promotion mix.For each of the three marketing
communications objectives written in number 2, discuss which
of the promotion tools would be the best choice to reach each of
the three marketing communications objective. One tool must
be advertising (traditional or online) You may have more than
one promotion mix tool for any given marketing
communications objective.
4. Media strategy. Discuss at least two of your media choices
that you believe will best reach your target market with your
advertising. Be specific with your choices, e.g. HGTV, Rehab
Addict, because the product or service is targeting a do-it-
yourself target market, or Home Depot website banner ads for
the same target market. Or Morning TV National News, Good
Morning America and The Today Show, 1st hour because your
target market is educated urban workers. If using social media,
discuss which social media and how they will be used to
accomplish which objective.
Part 2 - Special Topics in Marketing
B2B Marketing, Marketing Information Systems and Measuring
Marketing Activities
Learning Outcomes
1. B2B marketing. Student can differentiate the differences in
marketing strategy between consumer markets and business
markets.
2. Segmenting B2B markets. Student can identify the B2B
market segments involved in a product or service offering
3. Marketing Information Systems. Student can identify at least
three sources of input to a marketing information system for a
product or service offering.

22. 4. Marketing Metrics. Student understands the purpose of
Return on Marketing Investment for the company, and can
identify at least three metrics that should be used in a product
or service offering to measure the effectiveness of marketing
strategies.
Directions
· This part of the writing assignment closes the loop on
strategic marketing planning in that it identifies the types of
marketing strategies the company might employ to market its
offering through the value chain prior to its final customer.
Also, strategic planning is useless unless there are reliable and
useful sources of inputs and a way to organize the data to be
used in the planning process decision making. Metrics need to
be in place to measure how successful (or not so successful) the
strategies to reach marketing objectives have been. Strategic
marketing planning then becomes an ongoing process of
measuring and adjusting to new information and current
conditions.
· Many of your responses to these questions will be your best
educated and informed (as much as possible) information on
your product or service offering’s company. Where concrete
information is not obtainable, you should use your judgment and
describe why you made your judgment call.
· Respond to each of the following four questions in order and
identify the number of each response. There is no need to repeat
the number of the question.
1. B2B marketing. Consider your product or service offering.
Based on the categories of B2B markets discussed in the
readings, name at least two of the B2B markets that could be a
target market for your company. Why?
2. Segmenting B2B markets. Using the Harrison, Hague, and
Hague behavioral-based segment model in the readings, which
of those segmentation schemes might be most appropriate
category for your company? Why?
3. Marketing Information Systems. Identify at least three types
of information your company should use in a comprehensive

23. marketing information system for decision making purposes.
Why did you chose each of them?
4. Marketing Metrics. Identify and discuss at least one
financial metric and three performance metrics that would be
important to monitor your company’s strategic marketing
planning for the marketing efforts you identified for your new
marketing mix strategies.
General Submission Requirements
· Prepare as a word processed document (such as Microsoft
Word). Use a simple 12-point font such as Times New Roman.
Use black ink for majority of your work and only use colors if
it enhances your ability to communicate your thoughts.
· Your assignment should be the equivalent of
approximately five pages of double-spaced text, approximately
1/2 page for each of the eight questions (four in Part 1 and four
in Part 2). You may attach exhibits that will not be counted
towards the page count of double-spaced text. The cover page
and Bibliography page are not part of the five pages of written
analysis.
· Be sure your name, writing assignment number, and the name
of your product or service are on the cover page of your writing
assignment.
· Include a bibliography, which includes at least four
references.
· You may use MLA or APA style, or any other college-level
style guide. More information about using a style guide can be
found in the UMUC's virtual library accessible from your LEO
classroom or at umuc.edu/library.
· Upload your word processed document in your LEO
assignments folder by the due date in the LEO calendar.
Refer to the grading rubric for these assignments. Be sure to
note that 20% of your grade on this assignment will be based on
your grammar, composition, adherence to the submission
requirements, and use of an appropriate college-level style
guide for writing and referencing.